Submission by Michel Houellebecq – Reviewed by Guy Portman
The 2022 French Election sees the Front National defeated by the Muslim Fraternity, who have formed a coalition with another party. Overnight, France alters dramatically. The education budget shrinks, polygamy is encouraged, and secularism is vanquished. Does this mark the end of Western society as we know it?
Experiencing these cataclysmic changes first-hand is our heavy drinking and disillusioned Parisian protagonist. The academic lecturer and specialist on writer Huysmans finds himself in a professional quandary, for his knowledge and skillset are obsolete in this new era.
Submission is an eminently readable, if somewhat pretentious novel. It boasts seductive prose, a satirical undertone, a fading plotline, and a touch of melancholy. The book’s prescient theme is a controversial societal issue in ultra-secularist France. However, the content is more concerned with the life cycle of ideas than Islamic extremism.
The frequent references to Huysmans were lost on this reader. While his overall impression of Submission was positive, he considered the idea of a Muslim political party taking power in France to be far-fetched. One imagines the authorities would ban the group long before it became a force, citing their authoritarian interpretation of liberté, égalité, fraternité.
