{"product_id":"michel-houellebecq-and-the-literature-of-despair-continuum-literary-studies","title":"Michel Houellebecq and the Literature of Despair (Continuum Literary Studies)","description":"\u003cp\u003eWidely acknowledged as an important, if highly controversial, figure in contemporary literature, French novelist and poet Michel Houellebecq has elicited diverse critical responses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this book Carole Sweeney examines his novels as a response to the advance of neoliberalism into all areas of affective human life. This historicizing study argues that \u003ci\u003ele monde houellebecquien \u003c\/i\u003eis an ‘atomised society' of banal quotidian alienation populated by quietly resentful men who are the botched subjects of late-capitalism. Addressing Houellebecq's handling of the ‘failure' of the radical thought of ‘68, Sweeney looks at the ways in which his fiction treats feminism, the decline of religion and the family, as well as\u003cbr\u003ethe obsolescence of French ‘theory' and the Sartrean notion of ‘engaged' literature. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReading the world with the disappointed idealism of a contemporary moralist, Houellebecq's novels, Sweeney argues, fluctuate between despair for the world as it is and a limp utopian hope for a post-humanity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"sb-details\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGenre:\u003c\/strong\u003e Literary Criticism, European\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 224\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Bloomsbury Academic\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780826422620\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Academic","offers":[{"title":"Standard Secondhand — £23.11","offer_id":47914438918321,"sku":"SB-0826422624-C3","price":23.11,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/2669\/5345\/files\/0826422624_89d27020-1ac0-4ed6-ac22-74f0705c97f3.jpg?v=1790301835","url":"https:\/\/sellbooks.co.uk\/products\/michel-houellebecq-and-the-literature-of-despair-continuum-literary-studies","provider":"Sell Books .co.uk","version":"1.0","type":"link"}