Platform by Michel Houellebecq

Author: Michael Court

Platform is Michel Houellebecq’s third novel, and arguably his most controversial. It describes a 40 year old civil servant named Michel Renault whose father is murdered. Michel goes on a package holiday to Thailand where he meets and later falls in love with Valerie (whom works for the company). After they return, Michel, Valerie and her boss Jean-Yves create the eponymous platform: sex tourism in the Third World. This ‘novel of ideas’ (Pedro Blas Gonzalez 2003) culminates dramatically, and in doing so, brings into question ideas as diverse as religion (particularly Islam), transnationalism and the ethics of global economics and politics.

The novel is explicitly transnational in its content. The three main characters are all French, yet through the course of the novel travel to South East Asia and Cuba with the intention of either being a tourist, assessing existing tourist resorts or planning and executing new ones. The denouement is transnational too: ‘a terrorist attack by puritanical Islamic fanatics on a resort in Thailand’ (Publishers Weekly 2003). The attack is upon a French owned resort, catering mostly to Western tourists by a group of three men that are later identified as Muslim. This is despite the fact that ‘this [Thailand] isn’t a Muslim country’ (Houellebecq 2001). This illustrates that the terrorist organisation in question is a transnational one. The events described are more broadly transnational too because the formerly apathetic Michel, after recovering in hospital, ‘start[s] to follow international news again’ (Houellebecq 2001). The conclusion of the novel points towards a concern with global religious and political issues, such as the influence of Islam, the nature of the West (in his previous novel, Houellebecq describes it as ‘the libidinal, hedonistic American option (Houellebecq cited in Barnes 2003)) and the human condition in general, all of which are inextricably connected. 

The transnational aspect of the novel is not entirely reserved for the world of fiction though. After the novel’s publication, Houellebecq was tried on the grounds of ‘inciting racial hatred (BBC 2002), with the case being brought by ‘largest mosques in Paris and Lyon, the National Federation of French Muslims (FNMN) and the World Islamic League’ (BBC 2002). Comparisons have been drawn to Salman Rushdie, whose ordeal was a transnational one too, having been condemned in Iran despite being a British citizen and not subject to Iranian blasphemy law. Houellebecq won the case on the grounds of free speech (France is a secular state and does not have blasphemy laws). However, the fact that he was brought to trial in the first place shows the impact literature can have upon divergent cultures and their attitudes towards free speech. It is literature like Platform that inspires debate, which brings into question the nature of transnationalism and the effect it has had and is having upon the world. 

Michel Houellebecq’s Platform is a daring, confrontational and ambitious novel, worthy of the praise that has been bestowed upon its author. In terms of transnationalism, it is provocative yet enlightening. In terms of art, it is just as divisive: Julian Barnes, in his review for The New Yorker points out various mistakes, such as the first person narration of Michel Renault passing judgement on a character he has yet to meet, and convenient characters who appear, criticise Islam, and then disappear from the novel once ‘their work is done’ (2003). Houellebecq has been compared to Ayn Rand as they are both novelists ‘for whom concept always precedes character’ (Publishers Weekly 2003). This reviewer does not admire the philosophy of Objectivism, or clumsy writing but is fascinated by Houellebecq’s nihilistic and disaffected fiction, and agrees with Julian Barnes when he writes: ‘the trajectory of Houellebecq’s world view will be worth following’ (2003).

Houellebecq’s first two novels Whatever and Atomised were both uncompromisingly bleak, yet Platform has a semblance of hope, that when dashed, has a cathartic quality. The novel is funny and thought provoking. I recommend this novel and Houellebecq’s fiction in general. 

Rating: 5/5

Sources:

Michel Houellebecq 2001. ‘Platform’. London: Vintage Books.

Pedro Blas Gonzalez 2003. ‘Vision of the Sensual World’. January Magazine. (click here)

Publishers Weekly 2003. ‘Platform’. Publishers Weekly. (click here)

Julian Barnes 2003. ‘Hate and Hedonism’. The New Yorker. (click here)

BBC 2002. ‘French author denies racial hatred’. BBC. (click here)