About Houellebecq

The academic study of literature leads basically nowhere, as we all know, unless you happen to be an especially gifted student, in which case it prepares you for a career teaching the academic study of literature – it is, in other words, a rather farcical system that exists solely to replicate itself and yet manages to fail more than 95 per cent of the time. Still, it’s harmless, and can even have a certain marginal value. A young woman applying for a sales job at Céline or Hermès should naturally attend to her appearance above all; but a degree in literature can constitute a secondary asset, since it guarantees the employer, in the absence of any useful skills, a certain intellectual agility that could lead to professional development – besides which, literature has always carried positive connotations in the world of luxury goods.

I suspect that if I were starting a blog today rather than 17 years ago, I’d take inspiration not from Murakami’s deadpan insouciance, but from Michel Houellebecq’s dead-eyed resignation. And you’d be reading (or, more probably, not reading), something called Basically Nowhere.