The Map and the Territory

January 9, 2012
In his partly satirical new novel (after The Possibility of an Island), Houellebecq takes on the contemporary art world and the role of the artist. The book follows the sensational career of Jed Martin, an emotionally stunted Parisian art photographer turned painter, as he navigates the slick machinery of the art market and fraught relationships with his workaholic father and a bombshell Russian. Art historians' assessments of Martin's work, dealing with industry and professions, are humorously invoked throughout; his work is characterized as "the product of a cold, detached reflection on the state of the world"âa description that might be applied to Houellebecq's own oeuvre. Indeed, Houellebecq appears as a central character after he is hired to write a catalog essay for Martin's exhibition and the two become unlikely friends. The author's self-parody is deadpan funny, playing on his real literary world persona of a misanthropic recluse. But Houellebecq's presence grows tiresome, and with a surprising (if clumsy) plot twist, the book morphs into a grotesque police procedural. Houellebecq is most satisfying when he shines a hostile light on a late-capitalist Western culture sated by consumerism and shorn of meaning. For this reason, his take on the art world rings true, though the meditations on mortality and death are among the more compelling sections, in particular those dealing with Martin's father. Houellebecq mostly avoids the hedonistic shock that has earned him the enfant terrible reputation parodied herein, and despite the novel's self-conscious plot contrivances, it is a brilliantly astute work of social critique.

Starred review from December 1, 2011
A revelation for all who follow the controversial French novelist, whether they love or loathe him. Houellebecq is "a loner with strong misanthropic tendencies," "a tired old decadent" and a "tortured wreck, "who "stank a little, but less than a corpse." At least these are descriptions of a character called "Michel Houellebecq" in the latest novel by the author who shares that name (Platform, 2003, etc.), though the narrative might well inspire readers to temper that caricature of the "real" Houellebecq. Where the novelist has been accused of trafficking in themes such as sex tourism and moral nihilism for shock value, here he achieves a richness and resonance beyond previous work, while continuing to explore free-market economics and how they pertain to artistic value and moral value. The character who shares his name even "seemed happy," shockingly enough, though he keeps his emotional distance from the author, much as he has from readers. Instead, the novel gets deeper beneath the skin of its protagonist, the visual artist Jed Martin, whose career it chronicles from his years as a photographer, whose enlargement of Michelin maps, combined with images from the places mapped, inspire an exhibition titled "THE MAP IS MORE INTERESTING THAN THE TERRITORY." Martin then switches to painting, woodshedding for a decade, emerging with the "Series of Simple Professions," hailed for masterworks such as "Bill Gates and Steve Jobs Discussing the Future of Information Technology" (having destroyed another titled "Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons Dividing Up the Art Market." Somehow, the novel's fictional biography encompasses a tender romance, a meditation on the function and value of art and a police procedural. Both loners, the painter and the novelist, whom Martin commissions to write catalogue copy and whose portrait he paints, feel some affinity for each other, as they suspect that they might be kindred spirits, or even become friends. What they most share, it seems, is "something that did not exist in H Houellebecq, nor in him: a sort of familiarity with life." Very smart, very moving and occasionally very funny.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2011

A brilliant risk taker unafraid of being distasteful (hey, the French invented the term epater le bourgeoisie), Houellebecq has attracted critical acclaim, controversy, and an intent if not immense audience when published here. This Prix Goncourt-winning novel, which follows the life of artist Jed Martin, should prove more accessible. Martin launches his career with photographs detailing Michelin road maps, then does portraits depicting various professions (one sitter is a writer named Houellebecq), and helps solve a terrible crime while facing up to mortality--his father's and then his own. For your smart crowd.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2012
Houellebecq (The Possibility of an Island, 2006) has been outraging and galvanizing readers with his meticulously composed, cold-souled novels for the last 12 years. In his latest, winner of France's Prix Goncourt, he addresses the vatic nature of creativity and our ever-expanding definition of art while telling the story of an emotionally shut-down artist, Jed Martin, and a reclusive writer named (what else?) Michel Houellebecq. Jed's inexplicably powerful photographs of old Michelin maps bring him fame, wealth, and love. Brooding and insular, he next embarks on a series of paintings that pay homage to people and their work as the Industrial Revolution gives way to the digital revolution. Jed tracks down despondent and disheveled Michel to ask him to write catalog copy for an upcoming exhibition, thereby initiating a melancholy bond. Up to this point, Houellebecq's novel is supremely ensnaring in its acute and arch dissection of human endeavors elevated and crass, the latter including the tyranny of trends and the so-called free market. Suddenly, things take a macabre turn as we're plunged into an appalling crime scene, which gradually morphs into a disquieting paean to nature's indomitability. Houellebecq's bewitching journey on the river of art to the cave of death and decay is a tale of eviscerating insight, caustic humor, troubling beauty, and haunting provocation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)