967. Platform

Platform
Michel Houellebecq
2001

Around 260 pages

Here we have another ugly novel to add the pile, although I suppose this one is deserving of its place on the List due to the controversy surround its publicity tour. In case you didn't know, Houellebecq made an offhand remark about Islam during the tour, and was taken to court for "inciting racial hatred." And eerily, the events in this novel seem to predict the 2002 Bali bombings.

After receiving a hefty inheritance due to the death of his father, Michel Renault engages in sex tourism in Thailand, and begins an affair with a travel agent named Valerie. We get a lot of sex scenes that I'm sure teenagers would have enjoyed passing around and giggling over, pre internet.

So yes, another racist and misogynistic work, we can never get enough of those apparently. I guess any criticism levied at this novel will be dismissed as puritanical moral outrage. This just wasn't that shocking or interesting to me; I find the subject of sexual tourism too depressing to contemplate. 

RATING: *----

Interesting Facts:

Adapted into a play in 2006.

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