Aventurina King

As much as I miss Columbia University with its tanning lawns, drunken fraternity party lineup and early-bird competitions at the library; I can say with relief that I have regained the one precious thing undergraduate education had stolen from me: my love of reading.

When reading is cauterized by pedantic academic articles, even leisurely reading, by association, becomes boring. The cure (that worked miracles in my case): a 10 to 6 white collar job and a couch of my own. The white collar job creates a starvation for entertainment, and the 8 hours of computer screen eye strain cross out TV from the list of possible options. The couch offers a comfortable bouncing point from which the mind can drift off into other spheres.

I have been seeking refuge from my first steady job opportunity in works of French writers Houellebecq, Philippe Delerm and English language magicians Tony Morrison and Ian McEwan (a parentheses devoted to Wilkie Collins: a pioneer well confined within the boundaries of time-snobbing; yet, I must confess, boring classics of literature).

I read the last three books of Michel Houellebecq in disorder: Platforme, La possibilite d’une ile and Les Particules Elementaires. Prior to this endeavor, the general opinion floating among my french connaissances etait “Houellebecq, mais c’est toujours la meme chose”, a quoi je réponds, oui et non.

Oui, Houellebecq, c’est toujours des paragraphes un peu trop analytiques au sein desquelles se dispersent des debris d’action et des descriptions minutieuses de scenes pornographiques, en faite, c’est un peu comme ces magazines allemands qui offrent l’actualite du football flanque par des photos de femmes nues. (English translation of my impulsive gallop into French: French connaissances is “Houillebecq’s novels are all the same thing”, to which I answer yes and no. Yes, Houellebecq’s work is always composed of over analytical paragraphs within which plot debris and minute descriptions of pornographic scenes are dispersed. In fact, Houellebecq’s novels are comparable to those German magazines which offer football news flanked by pictures of naked women.)

The theme of those over-intelligent paragraphs is invariably old-age from every point of view as long as it’s negative: _how the concept of old-age has evolved from kotow-imposing wisdom to walled-in deformity. _how old-age’s rot spreads into every crevass of your life and makes it gradually more and more unbearable.

Old-age lurks under the surface of his pornographic paragraphs as well: _how old-age makes a woman’s breasts and genetalia sag. _how-old age makes erection less and less instantaneous for men, especially when they are faced with aging wives.

I can enjoy reading Houellebecq, as long as I keep the reality of my biological clock at bay of my thoughts. He covers his expert mastery and juggling of science, sociology, history and biology with a sadistic, humoristic gauze. This perversly enjoyable and informative writing style is another constant within his novels.

Non. What has changed within the span of my reading is the novels’ surface… (to be continued)