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Paradoxes of the postmodern reactionary Michel Rio and Michel Houellebecq

Texas A&M University, USA, rschoolcraft{at}tamu.edu

Richard J. Golsan

Texas A&M University, USA, rjgolsan{at}tamu.edu

This study examines two writers, Michel Rio and Michel Houellebecq, who have encountered opposite fortunes among the public and critics. However, they share numerous writing practices associated with postmodernism that include mixing literary forms, integrating epistemological discourses, doubling characters, avoidance of meta-narratives, and destabilizing interpretation through irony, fractured perspectives and the parodic recycling of popular genres such as detective fiction and eroticism. Moreover, both display putatively reactionary elements in their fiction: Houellebecq quite explicitly, Rio through his sexual and political imaginary (especially in the Francis Malone `enquêtes'). We conclude that both writers are indeed rooted in reactionary habits of thought, but Rio's practices place him in the camp of modernism (hierarchy of epistemologies, elitist stereotyping, scientism), while Houellebecq falls among the postmodernists (neutralizing voices of authority, erasing high/low cultural distinction, refusal of progress, denial of the subject). The di ference in their literary strategies no doubt accounts at least in part for their diverse receptions, with Rio remaining inside a familiar (albeit intellectually demanding) model while Houellebecq enacts a highly debatable but radical critique of the modern notions of humanism, the desiring subject, and the benefits of liberal democracy.

Key Words: authoritarian politics • desire • detective stories • discursive strategies • epistemology in literature • Extension du domaine de la lutte • Michel Houellebecq • Francis Malone • Nazi fictions • postmodernism • reactionary • Michel Rio • Schmittian exceptionalism

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Journal of European Studies, Vol. 37, No. 4, 349-371 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0047244107083224


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Schoolcraft, R. Articles by Golsan, R. J. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?