Michel Houellebecq's New Novel

The literary event of the year must surely be the publishing of the latest book by Michel Houellebecq, "The Possiblity of an Island", in November. This article provides a sneak preview:

Houellebecq cultivates the depressive, which is what makes him so offensive and, for many, intolerable. He feeds on Schopenhauer's cosmic pessimism, to which he is more than happy to relate. His style is not to have a style. Casually and indifferently, he describes life as an endless scream of suffering, combining the obscene, the banal and the visionary, often without any transitions. His irony is so dark that it seems almost imperceptible. Houellebecq doesn't think of himself primarily as a storyteller, but as a social barometer that portrays radical changes in morals and the downfall of mankind in its current form -- a Balzac-light of contemporary human comedy.

The article also informs me that there is a stage version of Houellebecq's earlier novel Atomised. I wonder what is it about!

Read the whole stuff here.