| Title: | Houellebecq meets Nietzsche |
| Posted On: | 2006-01-12 20:34:43 |
Or "Fight Club" meets "Beyond Good & Evil"
I am barely 90 pages into Michel Houellebecq's "Les particules élémentaires" and see very disctinct references to Nietzsche despite the author's rebuke of the thinker in the text.
In the third person, describing one of two brothers born of different fathers and living as 40-somethings in the 1980s and 90s, Houellebecq dances round with countless Nietzschean notions and motifs.
For example, on page 36 the author describes one of the brother's young fascination with animals and nature. Michel Djerzinski enjoyed the TV show "La vie des animaux" and Houellebecq describes the predator-prey ritual between lions and gazelles: "Les lions et les panthères vivaient dans un abrutissement apathique traversé de brèves explosions de cruauté."
Clearly, this borrows from Nietzche's genealogy of morals and the antithesis of master and slave morality. The lions (the kings) affirm their power and exploit their slaves (the yummy gazelles) with cruelty. Nietzsche clearly defines cruelty as the essence of exploitation, and exploitation a necessary motif of master morality.
What do you think of 'em apples?
Listening To: Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" opera
