Just thirty, with a well-paid job, no love life and a terrible attitude, the anti-hero of this grim, funny novel smokes four packs of cigarettes a day and writes weird animal stories in his spare time. A computer programmer by day, he is tolerably content, until he's packed off with a colleague - the sexually-frustrated Raphael Tisserand - to train provincial civil servants in the use of a new computer systemHouellebecq's first novel was a smash hit in France, expressing the misanthropic voice of a generation. Like A Confederacy of Dunces, Houellebecq's bitter, sarcastic and exasperated narrator vociferously expresses his frustration and disgust with the world.
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Michel Houellebecq's book Whatever was a smash hit in his native France and has already gained him a cult following here. A funny, sometimes bitter, modern existentialist fable Whatever truly seems to capture the zeitgeist. Whilst his next novel Atomised showcases greater sophistication and is certainly more complex and reaching, Whatever remains a brisker, more distilled affair.
Houellebecq's clarity of style is often remarked upon and the translation does a mostly decent job of conveying, in short chapters, in a fairly staccato book, his distaste for modern life. The narrator of the novel is young (just 30), well paid (computers!) and without a love life--not a geek, nor particularly a social inadequate, rather someone who just doesn't connect. He writes strange, allegorical animal stories; is a clumsy philosophical dilettante; and finds himself bored, overly self-aware and analytical, unable to settle and settle for his life. Then he is told to go on a extended work trip training provincial civil servants in the use of a new computer system accompanied by the extremely ugly Raphael Tisserand. Throughout the novel, the cheapening of sex and intimate relationships through commodification and modern communication technology is contemplated, but the interrogation remains relatively uncommitted; the attacks on psychoanalysis come thick and fast, seem more personal and often find their target.
Houellebecq does do a good job here of exemplifying the cul-de-sac that bored intelligence often finds itself languishing in. The trouble with this as a stratagem for a novel is that the reader is in danger of caring as little for the book as the characters do for their lives; this tightrope is better walked by writers such as Beckett or even Brett Easton Ellis and navigated more successfully by Houellebecq himself in his next novel. Indeed in many ways Whatever seems like a dress rehearsal for Atomised with similar characters imbued with the same concerns, the same post nouvelle-philosophes ennui running throughout. But it is a dress rehearsal worth attending: there is more than enough clever writing here, with its mordant articulation of a very particular kind of modern unhappiness, to consider it a success. --Mark Thwaite --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"'Funny, terrifying and nauseating' - Independent 'The balance between philosophy and narrative detail is perfectly judged; the book slips down easily like a bad oyster. As is the nature of such things, it is grimly comic' - Nicholas Lezard, Guardian 'Le grand fromage du jour' - The Face 'The mischief-making enfant terrible of new-wave French fiction' Independent"
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
The reader is given the dubious treat of being invited into the thoughts and life of a young computor programmer as he approaches a mental breakdown.- Can we, the reader, withstand the pain for long enough to gain some insights?
At the end of this read you may be asking yourself: Is the modern world, and it's social interactions essentially fake, and therefore, totally lacking in love, real warmth and affection?- Are we constrained beyond tolerance to a life of sham?-Do we fail, totally, to communicate?-Do women, in particular, deserve retribution for their continued failure to love, succour and nourish?- and, do we need a modern prophet to take us by the scruff of the neck and tell it to us like it really is, thereby, hopefully, saving us,(or,particularly,to die trying), thereby,probably, saving us.
This is a good, aggressive, distressing and thought-provoking read. - The humour in it, is like sharing a laugh in the looney bin.
At the end of this read you may be asking yourself: Is the modern world, and it's social interactions essentially fake, and therefore, totally lacking in love, real warmth and affection?- Are we constrained beyond tolerance to a life of sham?-Do we fail, totally, to communicate?-Do women, in particular, deserve retribution for their continued failure to love, succour and nourish?- and, do we need a modern prophet to take us by the scruff of the neck and tell it to us like it really is, thereby, hopefully, saving us,(or,particularly,to die trying), thereby,probably, saving us.
This is a good, aggressive, distressing and thought-provoking read. - The humour in it, is like sharing a laugh in the looney bin.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Simultaneously successful and controversial in its native France, Michel Houellebecq's "Whatever" is a disquieting and, at times, painfully funny exploration of white, male social and sexual inadequacy. The nameless narrator is a thirty-year old IT professional, well paid and ostensibly thriving. However, underneath the surface, he is bored, depressed and frustrated by the corporate jargon and insincerity that characterise his job. This nascent sense of alienation boils over during a series of sojourns in provincial towns while training Ministry of Agriculture employees in the use of a new computer system.
Although a times sounding worryingly reactionary and misogynistic, the narrator's personal philosophy is powerfully fashioned by Houellebecq. He dares to reject all the most sacred emblems of late 20th Century life - capitalism, sexual freedom, psychoanalysis, spirituality, and, most crucially of all, the notion that the information age liberates rather than imprisons its citizens. Such nihilism reinforces one of the novel's central themes - that business-speak has rendered language worthless, as real meaning is replaced by endless newly invented "buzz" words.
What could have been a po-faced denunciation of social and economic progress becomes a sad, but hilarious portrayal of urban alienation and failure. Houellebecq has created a wonderfully compelling anti-hero to whom anyone who has ever despaired of modern life can relate.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Shame the translators couldn't come up with something closer to the French title "Extension de la domaine de la lutte"--"Violence spreads to the mainland" perhaps--to underline the books political dimension. the narrator comes to believe that his isolation and despair is not personal, but a political consequence of the forces of oppression working in a new sphere: his and everybody else') personal life (or lack of one) He's "given up" on sex but realises to his horror that even though he can't win he can't get out of the game. His attempt to start a revolutionary backlash using a colleague he identified as a member of the sexual lumpenproletariat ends in disaster, and in the end he succumbs to his latent depression. An interesting book to compare this with is Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square, particularly in the hero's final and deluded hope for a geographical solution to his troubles.
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I found "Whatever" interesting mainly because of its relationship to Houellebecq's far superior "Atomised". It is in itself a fairly good book, entertaining and occasionally insightful, though perhaps a little disjointed in some ways.
My major problem with this book was the translation. The title, as a reviewer below mentions, is not a fair reflection of the original French - but the language is all over the place too. We have a fairly unattractive combination of American, British and "MTV Europe" English, and the overall effect is to break-up the reader's involvement in the narrative. Generally, the translation SOUNDS like a translation, and that is a great pity.
The marketing of the book is also a little unrealistic. It is not really an "Etranger" for the information age, or any kind of generation x, slacker novel. One would be forgiven for thinking that this is a would-be cult novel for computer-using males in their late teens, but Houellebecq's writing suggests that he offers something quite new and different: he is very much a European writer (in the sense that Joyce was a European writer), whose philosophical reach and empathy for others is vast.
So - worth a read, but it would be nice to see "Whatever" republished with an appropriate translation and marketing likely to attract the audience it deserves.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Noel
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
A jaded computer programmer is given the task of taking the computer program on the road and introducing it to various offices around France, training the workers in each office how to use the program. He writes short stories featuring talking animals. His travelling companion is a desperate and physically repulsive man. Along the way the narrator tells us how repulsive we all are, how pathetic love is, how sad and disgusting everything is, and blah blah blah.
I really like Houellebecq's work usually, "Platform" is one of the best novels I've read in the last 10 years and his brilliant essay on HP Lovecraft made me go back to the pulpy hack writer and read his stories again. But he fails to entice in this, his first novel.
It's not that it's unfailingly negative about the future and of society as it is today because that's what I enjoyed most from his writings and is a key theme in all his work. It's that this bile is the sole reason for this book. At least in previous books there's an attempt at a story, characterisation, etc. Here we just get a man complaining about the modern world. His colleague dies, he falls into a depression, he doesn't care. I get it, Houellebecq's tired of the niceties of existence and is looking for something more vibrant, something to wake him up out of his stupor. It's just a shame he couldn't articulate it into a more interesting book.
If this is your first encounter with the angry Frenchie I heartily suggest "Platform" instead of this and you'll see why he's so popular. "Whatever" is a bit dull and a bit dated. Whatever.
I really like Houellebecq's work usually, "Platform" is one of the best novels I've read in the last 10 years and his brilliant essay on HP Lovecraft made me go back to the pulpy hack writer and read his stories again. But he fails to entice in this, his first novel.
It's not that it's unfailingly negative about the future and of society as it is today because that's what I enjoyed most from his writings and is a key theme in all his work. It's that this bile is the sole reason for this book. At least in previous books there's an attempt at a story, characterisation, etc. Here we just get a man complaining about the modern world. His colleague dies, he falls into a depression, he doesn't care. I get it, Houellebecq's tired of the niceties of existence and is looking for something more vibrant, something to wake him up out of his stupor. It's just a shame he couldn't articulate it into a more interesting book.
If this is your first encounter with the angry Frenchie I heartily suggest "Platform" instead of this and you'll see why he's so popular. "Whatever" is a bit dull and a bit dated. Whatever.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Economic and sexual liberalism
'Whatever', is the story of an alienated 30 year-old who is on the verge of a break down. It is dark and at times disturbing, however it is penetrating and uncovers some of the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Timos
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deserves A Read, BUT Very Depressing
If you intend reading this novel - be prepared - it is seriously depressing, a very bleak portrait of a very bleak individual. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Arnaud033
3.0 out of 5 stars
Veers between great and gross
The original French title of this short novel translates as 'An Extension of the Domain of the Struggle', and although this might seem rather obscure (no doubt the reason it gets... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Phil O'Sofa
5.0 out of 5 stars
The ugly and damned
Whatever is a very very downbeat novel. If the writing wasn't so good it may have been unbearable. The plot follows an unnamed narrator who at first seems bitter and by the end... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Jack Heslop
5.0 out of 5 stars
HEART OF THE ABYSS
My favourite rock star has to be Michel Houellebecq.The culture show piece on him is one of my favourite interviews ever a sweaty,most probably drunk Houellebeq twitching,chain... Read more
Published 19 months ago by mister joe
1.0 out of 5 stars
Absolute drivel
After reading 'Atomic' I was looking forward to another delve into Michael Houellebecq's world, but I have report that this book is completely self indulgent, rambling,... Read more
Published on 18 May 2011 by Don
1.0 out of 5 stars
Awful...
I purchased 'Whatever' on the back of positive reviews for 'Atomised', which is by the same author. What an enormous dissapointment... Read more
Published on 17 Jun 2009 by George Stark
5.0 out of 5 stars
WHATEVER
Whatever,' the throwaway line, the conversation stopper, the verbal tic, the ubiquitous response to complexity pregnant with meaning, ultimately meaningless. Read more
Published on 12 Jun 2009 by S. Moorcroft
1.0 out of 5 stars
Embarrasing teenage angst!
This book is an embarrasment to read!I kept waiting for the witty insights and philosophical revelations on modern existence...and then the book ended! Read more
Published on 6 Feb 2001
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