Michel Houellebecq: the desire for the renarrativization of the postmodern novel through transgression

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the key narrative characteristics of selected novels by Michel Houellebecq (1956), who is the most discussed contemporary French novelist. Houellebecq critically depicts the postmodern condition, establishing causality between the estrangement of the characters and their transgressive behavior. It is argued that through the sociologically relevant portrayal thereof and by creatively combining realist and postmodern narrative devices, Houellebecq attempts to renarrativize the postmodern novel wherein transgressive fictional storytelling represents a salient epistemological tool for the reader to acquire both an individual introspection and knowledge of the human condition in contemporary postmodern society.