Research Catalog
Michel Houellebecq and the literature of despair
- Title
- Michel Houellebecq and the literature of despair / by Carole Sweeney.
- Author
- Sweeney, Carole.
- Publication
- London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 14-2289 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- xx, 215 p.; 24 cm.
- Summary
- "Widely acknowledged as an important, if highly controversial, figure in contemporary literature, French novelist and poet Michel Houellebecq has elicited diverse critical responses. In this book, Carole Sweeney examines his novels as a response to the advance of neoliberalism into all areas of affective human life. This historicizing study argues that le monde houellebecquien is an 'atomised society' of banal quotidian alienation populated by quietly resentful men who are the botched subjects of late-capitalism. Addressing Houellebecq's handling of the 'failure' of the radical thought of '68, Sweeney looks at the ways in which his fiction treats feminism, the decline of religion and the family, as well as the obsolescence of French 'theory' and the Satrean notion of 'engaged' literature. Offering a series of close readings of the novels, this book considers the quasi-sociological aesthetics of Houellebecq's writing with its anti-psychologism and rejection of poststructuralist textuality. Reading the world with the disappointed idealism of a contemporary moralist, his novels, Sweeney argues, fluctuate between despair for the world as it is and a limp utopian hope for a post- humanity"--
- "A critical study of the work of the French novelist Michel Houellebecq"--
- Series Statement
- Continuum Literary Studies
- Uniform Title
- Continuum literary studies.
- Subjects
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- Machine generated contents note: -- Acknowledgments \ Introduction \ 1. Reception/Notes on Two Scandals \ 2. The 'Sixties gone toxic' \ 3. The Third Spirit of Capitalism? \ 4. Botched Subjects \ 5. The End of Sex \ Conclusion \ Bibliography \ Index.
- Call Number
- JFE 14-2289
- ISBN
- 9780826422620 (hardback)
- 0826422624 (hardback)
- 9781623569181 (epub) (canceled/invalid)
- 9781623562984 (epdf) (canceled/invalid)
- LCCN
- 2013029970
- OCLC
- 657603609
- Author
- Sweeney, Carole.
- Title
- Michel Houellebecq and the literature of despair / by Carole Sweeney.
- Imprint
- London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Series
- Continuum Literary StudiesContinuum literary studies.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Research Call Number
- JFE 14-2289