Ah, good write-up on Houellebecq. I think Steinberg pulled a perfect citation here. Houellebecq is best read as illustrating something important about family and tradition, and maybe even more so religion. You say those words family and tradition and it is brushed aside as quaint, but everyone knows Houellebecq is not quaint. The way wri…
Ah, good write-up on Houellebecq. I think Steinberg pulled a perfect citation here. Houellebecq is best read as illustrating something important about family and tradition, and maybe even more so religion. You say those words family and tradition and it is brushed aside as quaint, but everyone knows Houellebecq is not quaint. The way writers are supposed to go on about nationality and ethnicity has now become quaint, if anything ever was. Houellebecq has not forgotten that all politics (for good or ill) begins in the home. It's nice to see Steinberg emphasize that.
I wonder if you could draw a line to Houellebecq from Chesterton who might be said to be making a similar point when he coined the term "Americanization" to describe the "idea of making a new nation literally out of any old nation that comes along..." and argued that "the process, is not internationalization. It would be truer to say it is the nationalization of the internationalized. It is making a home out of vagabonds and a nation out of exiles." A nation of exiles sounds romantic, except when it's not. Houellebecq takes stock of the fact that perhaps the entire world doesn't want to be Americanized (or nationalized). He is more crass than Chesterton too of course. I suppose if Houellebecq wasn't reviled it would mean that he had become toothless. People often have to feign offense so that they don't have to consider prophetic voices. Regardless, it turns out that nationalizing the internationalized is rife with challenges in any country that attempts it.
Ah, good write-up on Houellebecq. I think Steinberg pulled a perfect citation here. Houellebecq is best read as illustrating something important about family and tradition, and maybe even more so religion. You say those words family and tradition and it is brushed aside as quaint, but everyone knows Houellebecq is not quaint. The way writers are supposed to go on about nationality and ethnicity has now become quaint, if anything ever was. Houellebecq has not forgotten that all politics (for good or ill) begins in the home. It's nice to see Steinberg emphasize that.
I wonder if you could draw a line to Houellebecq from Chesterton who might be said to be making a similar point when he coined the term "Americanization" to describe the "idea of making a new nation literally out of any old nation that comes along..." and argued that "the process, is not internationalization. It would be truer to say it is the nationalization of the internationalized. It is making a home out of vagabonds and a nation out of exiles." A nation of exiles sounds romantic, except when it's not. Houellebecq takes stock of the fact that perhaps the entire world doesn't want to be Americanized (or nationalized). He is more crass than Chesterton too of course. I suppose if Houellebecq wasn't reviled it would mean that he had become toothless. People often have to feign offense so that they don't have to consider prophetic voices. Regardless, it turns out that nationalizing the internationalized is rife with challenges in any country that attempts it.
Vive la France.