/lit/ - Literature

>subtly account of male / female relationships
The big theme of the novel is sexuality and the contemporary state of female / male relationships. While H is accused of being misogynistic, the reality is far more nuanced. The book is only 30k words in length and so he is forced to compound his assertions, theories etc IMO into brief, highly symbolic observations. One is in Ch.7 where he briefly explains why it is that relationships in the West are dying. Women (Catherine) are focusing on careers, using their organisational skills and sexuality to advance (Parrot girl from Ch.1), and become bitter or sex-orientated. Men (Hawaiian shirt guy) are simply sleeping around, suffering as incels, or focusing on themselves in a consumer-obsessed way (Bernard). In Ch.7 Catherine is summarized so as to represent barren career women, while her co-worker first boasts about fucking some girls the night before, then talks on the phone and criticizes some guy named "Old Fred" for crashing his car and killing a female friend of his. Again, the metaphor of the car and of male hypersexuality also contributing to the "crash" of feminism and women in general.

I'm only on page 27 (I've read it before though) but man Houellebecq's style really is admirable. He is so subtle and clever that he is able to do in 5 pages what some authors fail to do in 200.

Should I avoid this book if I'm a virgin and don't want to be bitter? I want a gf and to have a positive view of women and myself

>>10717274
It's not anti-women, just anti- a kind of woman.

What's the significance of Houellebecq killing off the Jewish character?

>>10717282
>women are able to think for themselves and thus differ
''no.''

>>10717274
if you want to find out why you're a bitter virgin this book is a great read. it explains in great detail why giving women the right to vote was the worst mistake the west has made.

>>10717298
he lurks /pol/

>>10717411
>it explains in great detail why giving women the right to vote was the worst mistake the west has made.
please summarise said detail.

>>10717488
Read the novel. You can read it within a day.

>it explains in great detail why giving women the right to vote was the worst mistake the west has made
It's more about the sexual revolution and the 68.

>>10717499
but I want to know now
also I read it already and I forgot everything except that it was miserable

>>10717547
Houellebecq doesn't like democracy or voting in general. He's stated many times that he doesn't vote in elections, only in referendums.

>>10717093
I like your analysis If I may go pleb I think the premise of the book was simple. Maybe because I resonate it with too much but it is the average tale of the many plain white collars of 90s and 2000s who didn't made enough money to get women with wealth, do were not chads to get women by looks but just average at best and ugly at worst. Anyone who is a manlet, balding, fat, plain old ugly but grew up middle class, and makes decent if not plenty of money in a corporate enviroment would be perfectly comfortable with that book.

Also check out its movie, which is surprisingly quite good and just looking at this image tells you what kind of people the author talks about me thinks.

>when the therapist tells him that he's insane because he hasn't had sex in two (2) years

How comes that Houellebecq's books are still being widely praised and tolerated, in a time where being white is considered racist?

>>10719297
Because most people are not far left SJW's or far rightwing nationalists who see race/color/nation/gender in everywhere and based their identity on it

>>10719297
europe isnt as fucked as usa in that respect

>>10719297
the French are simultaneously repulsive cucked faggots and also based-woke as can be. its remarkable. you can say nigger and fuck 15 year old girls and you can also go to jail for denying the holocaust and talking bad about the State. Fascinating culture, a mixture of Celtic-Gauls (non-Germanic, non-nordic IE people) and native forest goblin europeans. They’re a special people. Shame they’ll get browned before most other countries like Germany or Sweden (evil awful nations) do.

>>10719335
>get browned

France is brown as fuck. Everyone is half arab or whatever there. Especially in the south.

>>10719335
Have you ever stepped foot inside France?
Fucking hell sick and tired of "let me tell you about your country" fags,
t. not a frog

>>10719340
We are talking "La Lux Extinguido" kind of brown.

>>10717093
someone on a druggy discord recommended this book to me and I enjoyed it greatly. I wish OP was that someone, because thank you.

This book has like the worst covers imaginable. Pic related is the german one.

>>10719297
what this guy said
>>10719335

> the French are simultaneously repulsive cucked faggots and also based-woke as can be

be ignore the rest of his post...there's also been a strong albeit minority current of reactionary intellectuals in france

>>10720840
always*

>>10717093

I read this novel over a few days in the windowless, music-less break room of the grocery store where I work. I am past thirty and I have never been inside a woman.

Let's just say that it had an effect on me. Also I believe that the narrator kills himself at the end.

>>10721022
i think that's why i like 4chan, no matter how badly i've fucked my life, there's always a guy whose worse off who i can then tell "my god man get it together!"

>>10721032
I love you <3

>>10717093

I feel wrestling with sex impulses is unworthy of high art, so I ignore him. Sex has never interested me.

>>10721022
Remain pure. Women are actually cruel. Be thankful you were born a man. I cannot imagine how disgusting a life it must be to live as a woman.

>>10721125

Being back in retail after years of warehouse work has me thanking myself on that score. They're divorced, prissy, etc.

>>10721022
tfw you fuck girls that look like >>10721091 because you have a decent job and can afford prostitutes

>>10721091
that pic is so triggering, just imaging prancing around outside in the countryside wearing that dress makes me wanna fap, ok i should quit porn maybe, like 10 years ago i woulda been all sad that i don't have a gf like that, maybe trannyism is a defense mechanism to not feel bad

>>10721125
Imagine being this incel

>>10719335
>you can also go to jail for denying the holocaust
Why send someone to jail for something they're obviously wrong about? Really activates the almonds.

>>10721350

Not that guy but women are literally not worth the effort both due to how annoying they are and more importantly due to the absence of any motivating meaning to life. It's not going anyplace, or if it did, then per the myths it's only doing so for a certain unjustified elect who are not justified in their positive feeling about themselves.

>>10719274