Le réalisme horrifique chez Michel Houellebecq
Horrific realism in Michel Houellebecq’s work

Summary/Abstract: The realistic aspect of Houellebecq’s work often takes on outrageous overtones,often tipping it over into a horrific dimension. A horrific dimension reminiscent ofLovecraft’s work, to which the author of Les Particules élémentaires devoted his first essay.The idea is to show that the concept of cosmic horror, so dear to the master of Providence,finds a form of updating in the novels of the French author, notably through the perceptionof a devouring space that crushes the psyche of the protagonist - generally an anti-hero whofeels badly about himself - or the character’s madness in the face of unfathomable scientifictruths. In this way, rationalism, at its most advanced stage, becomes the bearer of a desperatevision of the cosmos. As a corollary to horror, we also note that monstrosity is consistentlypresent in his novelistic universe. It manifests itself essentially through the materiality of thebody and its intrinsic fallibility, hence the mutilated or dismembered bodies on display in hisnovels. Physical ugliness is also presented as a form of monstrosity that compromises theindividual’s integration into contemporary society, governed by the law of sexualcompetition. Houellebecquian protagonists, with their unfinished bodies, are often reducedto their animal state, as if constantly reminding us of the unfinished dimension of humannature and the need to replace humanity with a neo-human paradigm.

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