The Map and the Territory

The Map Is More Interesting Than the Territory.

"French novelist Michel Houellebecq (pronounced WELL-beck) has gone missing, according to Bloomberg news agency. Houellebecq, the author of Atomised, Platform, The Possibility of an Island and a biography of HP Lovecraft, was on the eve of a book tour of the Netherlands and Belgium, promoting the release of the Dutch translation of his latest novel, The Map and the Territory.

The disappearance is the cause of some concern in publishing circles connected to the author because of the controversial and, at times, polarising nature of the author’s work. Houellebecq the man, who according to the Bloomberg report has struggled at times with mental illness, lives a quiet life in southern Spain. But Houellebecq the writer is variously described as an incisive visionary and a misogynistic nihilist.

Houellebecq’s novels have also at times seemed to have a prophetic quality, such as in the novel Platform, which ends (spoiler alert) with an attack on a tourist resort in Thailand by Muslim fundamentalists. The novel was published shortly before 9/11 and the Bali bombings a year later. Halfway into The Map and the Territory, the lead character, whose name is Houellebecq, is brutally murdered."
14 September 2011

And Love, where everything is easy
Where everything is done in an instant
It exists in the middle of the time
The possibility of an island
M.H.