“The shocking and simple idea, which had never been so forcefully expressed, that the summit of human happiness resides in the most absolute submission.”This book is a political satire in which the author imagines France under a Muslim president. The narrator Francois is a middle aged lecturer and expert in the study of novelist Joris Karl Huysmans. He has few friends and has sort of boring sexual life and his parents are dead. He is pessimistic most of the time.
“Only literature can grant you access to a spirit from beyond the grave a more direct, more complete, deeper access than you’d have in conversation with a friend.”The newly found Islamic political party "Muslim Brotherhood" has narrowly wins the election after forming coalition with Socialist and Center-right. After forming the government , they slowly impose the quasi-sharia law - women were ordered to wear veils, co-education is abolished,polygamy is legalized, welfare budget is reduced by 85% and public education is almost defunct.
“The past is always beautiful. So, for that matter, is the future. Only the present hurts, and we carry it around like an abscess of suffering, our compassion between two infinities of happiness and peace.”
The author targets not the Muslim rulers but the education institution and politicians who just surrender themselves.These intellectuals are ready to do anything asked by the Islamic government and defend their action by using literature. But the author is happy about some of the things happening like returning of old family values in which women retreated from workplace to home and creating millions of jobs for men which in turn reduces the crime rate.
“In all of human history there may never have been a mind as brilliant as Isaac Newton’s—just think what an amazing, unheard-of intellectual effort it took to discover a single law that accounted for the fall of earthly bodies and the movement of the planets! Well, Newton believed in God.”
At one point Francois visits Black Madonna of Rocamadour and enjoys moments of bliss but he could not sustain it and he thinks about faith. I think this part is very important to understand the author's view. He really feels something sacred about this experience. The author worries about the madness of the mankind. He struggles between faith and reality- sort of existential condition. This novel asks the question what does it mean to be human being without faith?. The author compares the protagonist's subject (Joris karl Huysmans) who after many struggles end up converting to Catholicism. Why did Huysmans needed a faith for his deliverance?
“Jesus had loved men too much, that was the problem; to let himself be crucified for their sake showed, at the very least, a lack of taste, as the old faggot would have put it.”
“People don’t really care all that much about their own death. What they really worry about, their one real fixation, is how to avoid physical suffering as much as possible.”
The story ends with Francois looking forward to his own submission to Islam.A controversial but intelligent satire. I don't know much about French politics but wile reading this book I started to read about the history, very interesting but at the same time , its high time France needs to look at itself about the mess it created. This book was released exactly on the same day of Charlie Hebdo shooting .
“A woman is human, obviously, but she represents a slightly different kind of humanity.”
Definitely worth reading.
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