Michel Houellebecq returns to poetry – 62 pages that feel like a summary, or a farewell. “Combat toujours perdant” continues a poetic vein initiated since “Rester vivant” (1991): grayish alexandrines, Baudelairean spleen reactivated, and that sneering pessimism that is the author’s trademark. But something has changed: this time, the battle is announced as “always” losing. The West is agonizing, the “I” chants its own disappearance, and the only resistance that remains is that of a sad, monotonous laughter, sticking the nose to the pavement of the era.
The critics’ opinion:
Thomas Stélandre: “More recently, Houellebecq has been talked about for his Islamophobic remarks, for filming an erotic-pornographic project, for his questionable, unsavory entourage, etc. Here, we see him returning to literature, and maybe, to his first love, poetry, as he might be primarily a poet. However, I find it rather disappointing in the sense that it seems like a small gesture. We find his fundamentals, there are still a few flashes, because he is nonetheless an important figure, who obviously manages to synthesize something, to make poetry as synthesis. So, the whole thing gives me the impression of a sampled Houellebecq, but a bit soft, a bit disappointing.”
Johan Faerber: “We find all Baudelairean themes, that is to say this kind of flatness of poetry or poetry of flatness, with themes like spleen, renouncement, the taste for death, provocation, pornography… All these Baudelairean themes are deeply rooted in Houellebecq since we have the impression that he plays with this school culture and that his literary culture stopped there. What made me uncomfortable in this collection is the instrumentalization of poetry for media purposes. It seems like he’s returning to poetry as he would enter a media detox cell. For him, poetry is hyper-literature, the literature of literature, the ultimate grail, a grail that he identifies with a kind of purity. After being lost, he returns to a kind of medial repair operation. However, this operation raises a problem for me on the treatment of poetry. Namely, is this poetry as poetry, or is it as it can be instrumentalized?”
Context note: The article discusses the return of author Michel Houellebecq to poetry, specifically focusing on his latest work “Combat toujours perdant” and the critical reception by Thomas Stélandre and Johan Faerber.
Fact Check note: The translated content accurately represents the original French text.
