Submission (novel)

Submission

First edition cover
Author Michel Houellebecq
Original title Soumission
Country France
Language French
Publisher Flammarion (France)
Publication date
 7 January 2015
Published in English
 10 September 2015
Pages 320
ISBN 978-2-08-135480-7

Submission (French: Soumission) is a novel by French writer Michel Houellebecq.[1] The French edition of the book was published on 7 January 2015 by Flammarion, with German (Unterwerfung) and Italian (Sottomissione) translations also published in January.[2][3] The book instantly became a bestseller in France, Germany and Italy.[4][5] The English edition of the book, translated by Lorin Stein, was published on 10 September 2015.[6]

The novel, a political satire, imagines a situation in which a Muslim party upholding traditionalist and patriarchal values is able to win the 2022 presidential election in France with the support of the Socialist Party. The book drew an unusual amount of attention because, by a macabre coincidence, it was released on the day of the Charlie Hebdo shooting.[7]

Plot

In 2022, François, a middle-aged literature professor at Paris III and specialist in Huysmans, feels he is at the end of his sentimental and sexual lives – composed largely of year-long liaisons with his students. It has been years since the last time he created any valuable university work. France is in the grip of political crisis – in order to stave off a National Front victory, the Socialists ally with the newly formed Muslim Brotherhood Party, with additional support of the Union for a Popular Movement, formerly the main right-wing party. They propose the charming and physically imposing Islamic candidate Mohammed Ben-Abbes for the presidency against the National Front leader Marine Le Pen. In despair at the emerging political situation, and the inevitability of antisemitism becoming a major force in French politics, François' young and attractive Jewish girlfriend, Myriam, emigrates to Israel. His mother and father die. He fears that he is heading towards suicide, and takes refuge at a monastery situated in the town of Martel, Lot. The monastery is an important symbol of Charles Martel's victory over Islamic forces in 732; it is also where his literary hero, Huysmans, became a lay member.

Ben-Abbes wins the election, and becomes President of France. He pacifies the country and enacts sweeping changes to French laws, privatizing the Sorbonne, thereby making François redundant with full pension as only Muslims are now allowed to teach there. He also ends gender equality, allowing polygamy. Several of François' intellectually-inferior colleagues, having converted to Islam, get good jobs and make arranged marriages with attractive young wives. The new president campaigns to enlarge the European Union to include North Africa, with the aim of making it a new Roman Empire, with France at its lead. In this new, different society, with the support of the powerful politician Robert Rediger, the novel ends with François poised to convert to Islam and the prospect of a second, better life, with a prestigious job, and wives chosen for him.

The novel mixes fiction with real people: beside Le Pen, François Hollande, François Bayrou and Jean-François Copé, among others, fleetingly appear as characters in the book.[8]

Themes

Houellebecq commented about the novel in an interview with The Paris Review:

… I can't say that the book is a provocation — if that means saying things I consider fundamentally untrue just to get on people's nerves. I condense an evolution that is, in my opinion, realistic.[1]

Steven Poole, writing for The Guardian, noted that the book was "arguably, not primarily about politics at all. The real target of Houellebecq's satire — as in his previous novels — is the predictably manipulable venality and lustfulness of the modern metropolitan man, intellectual or otherwise".[9] Adam Shatz, writing for the London Review of Books, states that it "is the work of a nihilist not a hater – the jeu d’esprit of a man without convictions".[10]

Publication

On 5 January 2015, French president François Hollande announced in an interview for France Inter radio that he "would read the book, because it’s sparking a debate".[11]

The author appeared in a caricature on the front page of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on 7 January 2015, the day when the offices of the newspaper were attacked by masked gunmen who killed eight Charlie Hebdo employees. The title on the cover was: "Les prédictions du mage Houellebecq : en 2015, je perds mes dents, en 2022, je fais ramadan." (English: "The predictions of the sorcerer Houellebecq: In 2015, I lose my teeth. In 2022, I observe Ramadan.")[12]

On the day of the publishing of the book and hours before the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Houellebecq said in an interview for France Inter radio:

There's a real disdain in this country for all the authorities... You can feel that this can't continue. Something has to change. I don't know what, but something.[13]

The German translation (Unterwerfung) by Norma Cassau and Bernd Wilczek was published on 16 January 2015 by DuMont Buchverlag.[14] Lorin Stein translated the book into English.

Reception

The book was an "instant" bestseller.[4][15]

Several critics, including Bruno de Cessole of Valeurs Actuelles and Jérôme Dupuis of L'Express, compared the novel to Jean Raspail's 1973 novel The Camp of the Saints, a satire about the political impotence of Europe during a massive wave of immigration from India.[16][17] Grégoire Leménager of Le Nouvel Observateur downplayed the similarities to The Camp of the Saints, as Submission does not deal with ethnicity, and instead placed Houellebecq's novel within a trend of recent French novels about immigration and Islam, together with La Mémoire de Clara by Patrick Besson, Dawa by Julien Suaudeau and Les Événements by Jean Rolin, speculating that the concept of the "Great Replacement" ("Grand Remplacement"), as formulated by Renaud Camus, was becoming fashionable as a literary device.[18]

Le Pen stated in an interview with France Info radio that the novel is "a fiction that could one day become reality."[13]

Mark Lilla, in The New York Review of Books, stated similarly that "Europe in 2022 has to find another way to escape the present, and "Islam" just happens to be the name of the next clone."[19]

According to The Economist magazine:

… a leading French novelist, Emmanuel Carrère, compared Soumission to George Orwell's 1984.[20]

Stage adaptation

A monologue stage performance with Edgar Selge as François toured Germany in early 2016 with dates in Hamburg, Dresden and Berlin. According to Die Zeit, interest in the story was piqued by recent sexual assaults by migrants in Germany.[21]

Editions and translations

References

  1. 1 2 Bourmeau, Sylvain (2 January 2015). "Scare Tactics: Michel Houellebecq Defends His Controversial New Book". The Paris Review. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  2. ↑ Willsher, Kim (16 December 2014). "Michel Houellebecq provokes France with story of Muslim president". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  3. ↑ "Après le buzz, "Soumission" de Michel Houellebecq arrive en librairie" (in French). Libération. 7 January 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  4. 1 2 Flood, Alison (16 January 2015). "Houellebecq’s Soumission becomes instant bestseller in wake of Paris attacks". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  5. ↑ Grey, Tobias (22 September 2015). "Houellebecq’s ‘Submission’ Comes to America". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  6. ↑ "Submission by Michel Houellebecq: This provocative novel charts France's plunge into Islamism". International Business Times. 28 August 2015. Retrieved 9 September 2015.
  7. ↑ Rosenthal, John (May 2015). "Houellebecq’s ‘Submission’: Islam and France’s Malaise". World Affairs. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  8. ↑ "Bayrou stupide et Copé moche : quand Houellebecq dézingue les politiques" (in French). Metro News. 6 January 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  9. ↑ Poole, Steven (9 January 2015). "Soumission by Michel Houellebecq review – much more than a satire on Islamism". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  10. ↑ 'Colombey-les-deux-Mosquées,'
  11. ↑ Fouquet, Helene (7 January 2015). "Was Attack Linked to Novel About France Under Islamist President?". Bloomberg. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  12. ↑ Kachka, Boris (8 January 2015). "What Michel Houellebecq Represented to the Charlie Hebdo Shooters". Vulture. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  13. 1 2 "Paris terror attack: Controversial book launched on same day as attack". The New Zealand Herald. 8 January 2015. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  14. ↑ "Michel Houellebecq über "Unterwerfung": "Meine Thriller-Seite"" (in German). Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. 4 January 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  15. ↑ Samuel, Henry; Marszal, Andrew (7 January 2015). "'Islamophobic' Michel Houellebecq book featured by Charlie Hebdo published today". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  16. ↑ Cessole, Bruno de (8 January 2015). "Celui par qui le scandale arrive". Valeurs Actuelles (in French). pp. 20–21. Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  17. ↑ Dupuis, Jérôme (7 January 2015). "Soumission de Houellebecq: Big Brother revu par Guignol". L'Express (in French). Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  18. ↑ Leménager, Grégoire (18 December 2014). "Houellebecq, Besson, Rolin... 'le Grand Remplacement', sujet de roman?". Le Nouvel Observateur (in French). Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  19. ↑ Slouching Towards Mecca
  20. ↑ "Irrepressible". The Economist. 10 January 2015. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  21. ↑ "A French Muslim president? New play hits raw nerves". Al-Arabiya. Agence France-Presse. 9 March 2016. Retrieved 9 March 2016.
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