Submission: A Novel

At 245 pages, the novel Submission by Nichel Houlellbecq offers acute social critique, especially of the Western world’s (Europe and the United States) liberal individualism, which offers no certainty, no family strength, no soothing traditions and rituals, and no birthrate. In contrast, Islam offers strong family values and the assurance of a vision, which affords its believers certainty. More importantly, Islam is a political movement and it wants world domination, both through polite politic and any other means necessary. In this “futuristic” novel, a liberal France bows down to Islam’s demands and submits to sharia law. The novel is not a flagrant critique of Islam. In fact, if you’re looking for a terrorist plot or ugly Muslim caricatures, look elsewhere. This novel is far more subtle.

Like in other Houlellbecq novels I’ve read, the narrator is a salacious misanthrope and the author uses the novel as a vehicle for writing an essay, what amounts to angry social critique.

Houllellbeq is talented enough to create narrators who can weave their essays into the novel’s narrative. However, at 245 pages, the novel, bloated with carnal scenes that become repetitive, should be 150 pages. Nevertheless, there are enough ideas to make the novel worth the read.

Houellebecq’s protagonist in this dystopian novel of the decline and fall of France is no right wing prude or bigot. He’s a burned out, demoralized university professor for whom childless sex with a string of equally demoralized, elite women has led him to an existential precipice as France drowns from the negative consequences of voluntary sterility and multiculturalism. In the face of this decay the fecund energy of the Muslim Brotherhood rises to national electoral victory in an entirely probable political scenario which Houellebecq astutely sketches.

Houellebecq excoriates the liberal pieties: contraception and childlessness, open borders, atheism and agnosticism, anti-patriarchy. Violation of sacred liberal dogma to this extent is bound to elicit a censorious reaction from liberal thought cops. My local liberal bookstore, which prides itself on promoting daring tomes won’t feature it on its display tables, and reviews of the English translation in the mainstream American media have been largely dismissive.

I do object to the books’s smuttiness. It’s not as intense as in Houellebecq’s other novels; nor is it arousing, since it is written in almost clinical-medical terms more akin to an anatomy class than a scene of seduction. I suppose in France these annoying attempts at erotic description are de rigueur.

Houellebecq has been compared to L.F. Céline. His anti-hero possesses the pessimism and self-deprecating humility of Céline’s Ferdinand character, but not the irreverent humor. I didn’t laugh aloud even once reading Houellebecq, as I do with Céline, who, by the way, would have mocked to the skies Houellebecq’s collaboration with the pompous Zionist fanatic Bernard Henri-Levy.

Michel Houellebecq:
…whichever segment of the population has the highest birthrate, and does the best job of transmitting its values, wins.

Houellebecq’s conclusion is too feral for our enervated selves; too uncomfortably rooted in the iron logic of blood and soil to have much appeal to our ruling class and its media and academia, steeped as they are in a Money Power predicated upon globalization and the cheap labor dividend which mass immigration yields.

Will the thanatos West heed the warning of this prescient novel, or is our love affair with hospices over midwifery terminal?

This book will really make you think. How strongly do you believe in an ethical standard? Would you stand up to this slow, but increasing pressure and gradually change your core beliefs. I only said it was "dark" because it can be very challenging and the protagonist is most unlikeable-not at first, but certainly later. Still, in our book group discussion we all agreed we knew people like this, and that there were probably more that we didn't know well enough to say, but seemed quite possible. (Of course, that was none of us :)

French decadence is alive and well and has found a splendid iteration in the bitter, witty, and cleverly ironic work of Houllenebecq. It's nice to know that France is rotting away even faster than our own (fill iin the blank) nation.

The subject is very interesting and of course relevant given the unfurling of events in Europe recently. It is easy to read and I liked the dead-pan humor sprinkled throughout the book. I highly recommend this book.

Submission is a counter-factual novel, or perhaps future history, along the lines of those "What if Hitler had won the Second World War?" books which describe Piccadilly Circus in London festooned with Swastikas after the Duke of Windsor and Wallace Simpson became King and Queen of England. Houellebecq has in effect taken France's history of collaboration with the Germans under Vichy and transposed its attitudes of acceptance to a contemporary threat.

Likewise, Submission recalls Voltaire's Candide: Or Optimism, with Rediger in place of Dr. Pangloss and Francois in Candide's role. As such, it is very, very, very French.

And again, Submission is also the title of the 2004 Dutch film by Theo Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali that led to his murder and her exile. The gist of their film was that Islam literally meant Submission.
Wait, there's more... Submission might have one more jeu de mots at work. To judge this book by its cover--a sheaf of manuscripts bound with red tape--it looks like a manuscript submission for publication, a doctoral dissertation, or a submission to the Academie Francaise.

Perhaps in publishing this satire, Houellebecq has made his submission to the Invisible College of the Republic of Letters, an application from an engage French philosophe, in the tradition of Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau to join the immortals of Western Civilization opposed to Superstition, Feudalism, and Religious Intolerance.

Whether Houellebecq manages to enter the Pantheon because of this book, only time will tell...but he certainly has made a courageous literary effort, taking a literary stand on behalf of France's civilizing mission in the Clash of Civilizations.

My interest was piqued by the subject matter- France elects a Muslim government in the near future.

Those who expect something very political probably will be disappointed, however. The political story is mainly just a platform for the real content of the book, which is to describe the world of a French intellectual who is desperately seeking meaning in his life, but generally not coming up with much more than lots of sex and alcohol. I suspect it may be just a tad bit autobiographical.

What did I like about it? It was a couple weeks ago I read it and it has somewhat faded in my mind, but one thing for sure, the author has a wicked sense of humor. The philosophical issues the main character grapples with are interesting. Houellebecq seems to view modern western cultural values as just one school of thought and not necessarily a step toward greater enlightenment. He toys with a lot of earlier philosophies that people nowadays would tend to consider archaic and irrelevant, but he finds worth contemplating.

What struck me as the most interesting point of the book was- here is an intellectual who writes and ponders ideas for a living. People would generally consider that an enviable situation and a career that would allow for a great deal of personal satisfaction. But instead, this person is plagued by a sense of emptiness and pointlessness about his life. It naturally leads a person to think about how this might apply to one's own life.

Michel Houellebecq is mostly a delight to read. His descriptive prose on taboo topics sparkle with humour and considered thought. I enjoyed this book, although francois is not a joyful character - he is interesting and honest. Reading the book was a bit like enjoying a delicious meal and a really frank and open chat with a person that i don't like very much. I still wanted to know him.

Houellebecq is, as he always has been, the best available argument against modernity. But now he's also the most interesting argument "for" tradition. I needed this. His "depressive realism" finally shows a touch of optimism, or at least suggests the possibility of a light.

One should read this novel to gain an understanding of a modern France devoid of purpose and faith. Submission is a best seller in France and the NYT book review of November 3, 2015 was favorable. The theme of a Western democracy yielding to the domination of Islam is hugely important. But, if this is what the French consider to be a good novel, then the French don't have anything worthy of preserving from Islam. The potentially riveting storyline is subsumed by Michel Houellebecq's obsession for vivid descriptions of pornographic sex. It is ridiculous. I read this book simultaneously with Don Quixote and couldn't help but wonder at the feckless modern state of France, devoid of Christian faith, unable to find collective reason to resist the domination of Islam. Houellebecq's protagonist, François, knows nothing of the love described by Cervantes' characters Chrysostom and Marcela in Don Quixote. Literally, the only thing François loves is his dick. Submission is a pathetic presentation of an important topic. It does help you appreciate the virtue of Cervantes' Don Quixote.

This is Michel Houellebecq's cautionary tale of what can happen when we are not vigilant about keeping church and state separate. The First Amendment to the US Constitution surely can never be taken for granted.

This novel was misviewed in the NYT. Completely. It's a philosophic novel showing the seemingly inevitable consequence of the reaction against the Catholic Church and what it teaches. A contemporary follow up to The Camp of the Saints.

Submission should be read by all francophiles, because it highlights the deep interest of the French in philosophy. Even for non-francophiles, it is a great read because it nicely depicts the slow slide of a apolitical loner into the grasp of a political system which promises money and women.

As a writer, M. Houellebecq isn't anything overly special - a Victor Hugo or Alexander Solzhenitsyn he is not - but he does have his finger on the pulse of society, or at least on the pulse of the apathetic, lethargic and self-absorbed academe who are one of his favorite subjects. Submission is a very European novel, modern American readers may not be used to the easy sarcasm, dark fatalism, stark realism and total lack of easy solutions or happy endings, but in a time like ours it may be necessary to broaden ones' horizons a little, learn about the rest of the world and how it really is.
Without revealing too much, it's basically the story of a member of the aforementioned academe who basically sells his soul, country and culture in exchange for tenure, a pay raise and easy access to women.
For an even darker - and possibly more realistic - picture of Europe's future, I recommend The Mosque of Notre Dame by Elena Chudinova.

Houellebecq, shrewd and wise as ever, offers up a brilliant analysis of our modern western culture and our place in history. He whisks us along down a wry, mournful waterfall of reflection on human foibles, fears, dreams and motivations.

brilliant writing painting a close future premonition of a rapidly changing social and religious upheaval.
This takes place in France and shows where our history is heading to Islamic government and control.
Very exciting and intereting viewpoints.