Consulting the Crass

 

When it comes to that ineffable thing known as literary voice, Constance Hale gives us this way of thinking about it: “The writer leaves us with a sense that we are listening to a skilled raconteur rather than passing our eyes over ink on paper.” (That’s in Sin & Syntax, p. 271). She gives us a bracing range of such skilled raconteurs—from Shakespeare to Muhammad Ali, from Junot Díaz to Joan Didion.

 

I like Hale’s catholic taste, but I suspect I have a higher tolerance for the experimental than she. In a world awash in watery media produced for hasty consumption (and disposal), I’m constantly on the prowl for challenging, well-wrought writing. I favor writing that shows a firm, companionate hand, one that leads readers through a labyrinth littered with the detritus of the mind. Perhaps it inspires existential discomfort, like the philosophically bent works of Michel Houellebecq and Mary Gaitskill. Perhaps it conjures lucid visions, somewhat repulsive yet bizarrely beautiful, like the slime and smut gleefully rendered by William S. Burroughs, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, and the ever-acidic Kathy Acker. The price that great writers pay for cursing convention and soiling the milquetoast ranks, it seems, is braving an inflamed collective that refuses to acknowledge the filth at its feet. At best, such artistic confrontation is met with a wince. At worst, literary banishment. And so writers who present an unvarnished societal mirror, history reveals, risk hostile dismissal by our loudest puritans and patriarchs.

 

Too often we're seduced by the sleazy maw of the snake-oil salesman, in the form of artificially inflated headlines and embellished cliché. We ingest aimlessly, sampling uninspired writing as we would a soured breakfast buffet, searching for nourishment among the likes of rotting oranges and stale, brittle biscuits. We are left hungry, unmoved. Of course, the writerly renegades were not invited to this sorry affair, despite their richer offerings. So … where are they? Certainly not in that stuffy dining room. Reader, perhaps it’s time to creep towards the back door, to puncture the pristine, vacuum-sealed rhetoric of Popular Opinion. Perhaps it’s time to consult the crass….

 

WHO: Michel Houellebecq

 

WHY HE’S CRASS: 

Michel Houellebecq, often referred to as the “enfant terrible” of the French literary world, has been thrust into the center of multiple fiery controversies, thanks to his bold critiques of political precarity and organized religion. Houellebecq’s 2001 novel Platform features raunch to the point of excess, but what landed the novelist in court was its criticism of Islam and its description of an Islamic extremist attack. (This according toToby Luckhurst of BBC News). Houellebecq found himself embroiled in further scandal when he published Submission, a novel that projected an image of France under Sharia law in 2022. This novel, released in 2015, has since been associated with the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in Paris, which occurred when the satirical French publication released an issue bearing Houellebecq’s tired yet prophetic mug on the cover. Such violence was arguably inspired by a topical misreading of Houellebecq’s work, as journalist Steven Poole claimed in a 2015 piece for The Guardian. “Submission is not primarily about politics at all. The real target of Houellebecq’s satire—as in his previous novels—is the predictably manipulable venality and lustfulness of the modern metropolitan man, intellectual or otherwise.”

 

WHY HE’S GOOD:

Houellebecq’s writing is a delicious synthesis of cultural commentary, existential philosophy, and rampant promiscuity. His work is most likely to be found scattered among cigarette stubs and reeking refuse, text scarified by a shaky hand in cherry-red ink.

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READ:

“Questions of aesthetics and politics are not my thing. It’s not up to me to invent or adopt new attitudes or new affinities with the world—I gave up all that at the same time I developed a stoop and my face started to tend toward melancholy. I’ve attended many exhibitions, openings, many performances that remain unforgettable. My conclusion, henceforth, is that art cannot change lives. At least not mine.” (Platform, p. 12.)