Michel Houellebecq’s shifting representation of Islam

Abstract

Michel Houellebecq has, I argue, changed significantly his portrayal of Islam: in earlier novels, he advances a hostile view of it premised on the secularist belief in the death of God and the inexorable decline of monotheism ( Platform, 1998; The Elementary Particles, 1998; The Possibility of an Island, 2003). Houellebecq sets capitalism against Islam, and advances a vision of a godless ‘religion positive’ (Auguste Comte) better suited for capitalist modernity. In contrast, in his last novel ( Submission, 2015) and interventions, Houellebecq makes a post-secular turn largely driven by the radicalization of positivist ideas relying on evolutionary biology. This turn is opposed to modernity and favourable to a reconsideration of Islam as the religion of submission and a remedy to personal crisis and Europe’s decline. I show that, evaluative differences notwithstanding, Houellebecq’s stereotyping of Islam has remained constant in his literary work.