The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq goes to Ryan Barrett. This is surely the most controversial book of the five, the one that a lot of people will hate. It’s fashionable to dislike Houellebecq nowadays, since Updike gave him a drubbing in some New York book publication or another. It’s easy to hate Houellebecq. He’s the miscegenation of Haruki Murakami and Bret Easton Ellis, with the misogyny level turned all the way up and the knob broken off.
But I stand by the fact that while Houellebecq writes about horrible things and horrible people (and I don’t usually play this game, but I’m willing to bet he is himself a horrible person), he is a gorgeous writer who is taking risks nobody else is taking. Books aren’t always pleasant things you can contain in book clubs and in shop windows next to stuffed animals. Sometimes books scratch at your eyes and spit in your face. And that experience is worth it, sometimes. Never just for the shock value, but when you believe the author has something worthwhile to say. I believe that Michel Houellebecq has something very worthwhile to say.
It doesn’t help, either, that this is his weirdest book, leaping ahead in the future and messing around with science fiction the way you made out with someone that time you got really soused on Southern Comfort. It’s not for everyone. But if it’s for you, you’ll find something inside of it that you can carry with you forever.