Serotonin (novel)

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Serotonin ( French original title: Sérotonine ) is a novel by Michel Houellebecq , which was published in Germany in 2019 and almost simultaneously in the original in France as well as in Italy and Spain. The novel describes the genesis of a depression in the 46-year-old first-person narrator, which deepened for private and professional reasons . Serotonin , which gives the novel its name, is a real hormone with u. a. mood-enhancing effect, which is contained in an antidepressant with the invented name Captorix .

content

In the form of a far reaching, non-chronological biography, the agricultural engineer Labrouste, who comes from the upper middle class, tells of his childhood and youth, which prepared him well for life, his long scientific studies, his dreams of belonging to the world, of living, loving and being loved to become - and the private and professional failure of all expectations. The first-person narrator sees the cause in a "chain of circumstances", the "actual subject of this book", which he willingly offered himself as a plaything. In one last major initiative, he finally terminates his contract as a consultant at the Ministry of Agriculture, spontaneously leaves his last partner and apartment and, after several intermediate stops, retires to an anonymous Parisian skyscraper. Here he is writing the story of his depression and planning his suicide.

By violating several taboos, Houellebecq forced media attention with this novel too. Almost all female characters are called “ sluts ” at some point (although the main character also describes himself with clear devaluations as a “insubstantial wimp” and as a “drifting piece of shit”), he plays with the similarity of sound to “ feminicide ”, “ insecticide ” and " Fungicide ", he would like to grant the term "woman" only those beings who can satisfy men with their "three holes" (mouth, vagina, anus), he praises the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco as the inventor of wellness and mass tourism, he describes the English, Japanese and Dutch in nationalist-racist terms and he plans and practices the murder of the four-year-old child of a former lover he stalked . With this accumulation of violations of political correctness , he confirms his media image as an ethical off-roader; At second glance, however, other sides also emerge than the repeatedly renewed self-scandalization.

Longing without hope

Despite his contempt for women, the novel is largely the story of the narrator's love for Camille, which he mentions for the first time on page 15 and for the last time on page 326. He disappoints Camille with an affair, but mourns her for the rest of his life. Both with Camille and with his first great love for Kate, he could have imagined a fulfilled love and married life: "We could have saved the world (...) I cheated on love" and: "I experienced happiness , I know what it means. ”His hunger for sexual adventure, the repeated equation or confusion of love and sex destroy his visions of happiness. On the last page of the novel, he summarizes his life for himself and for all men who think alike: “Are we illusions of individual freedom, of an open life, of unlimited possibilities? That may be, these thoughts corresponded to the zeitgeist; (...) we were satisfied with adapting to them, letting ourselves be destroyed by them and then suffering from it for a long time. ”In addition to his contempt for women, there is a deeply felt longing and sadness about the self-inflicted failure of love. But more than this reference to a vague sexist “zeitgeist” and the description of enormous sex consumption in the social environment of his last partner, one does not learn more about the cultural conditions that deform men's relationship skills.

He sums up “that society is a machine for the destruction of love”, but contrary to this statement and contrary to his own experience, he still claims retreat into a partnership as the only possibility of a fulfilled existence. This contradiction is not resolved by the first-person narrator, the main theme of the novel thus remains unexplored and the changes of viewpoint that are essential for an investigation of relationships do not take place - the first-person narrator's report has only one reduced topic that suppresses all other people: himself. However, this shift in subject displaces his most important concern, the investigation of the possibilities of happiness in our society.

Work without sense

A second, repeated thread of his story is the story of his professional activity: "Women are sluts, if you will, you can look at it that way, but work life is an even more proper slut that doesn't even give you pleasure." After studying at the Agricultural University ("the only happy time, the only time in which the future appears open, in which everything seems possible"), his working life begins, "a slow, progressive silting up" in which the hopes disappointed and the individuals "defeated" or even annihilated. The narrator initially works for Monsanto , whose business ethics he compares with those of the CIA , later in the marketing of certain French cheeses and finally as a freelancer for the Ministry of Agriculture. He advocates an ecologically oriented agricultural policy with a view to the effects of market changes on small farmers. He is therefore against transnational agricultural corporations, but despises a politically naive “green” position based on merely left-wing conformism. He regards himself as temporarily successful in his job, but also as increasingly ineffective against the ideologues of free trade: "I understood that the world was not one of the things I could change", "the assholes were the stronger". Who the "assholes" are "who were ready to die for freedom of trade" and whose interests are being fought here remains a mystery until the end.

Hell of society

His own defeat is only an example of general processes for him: “People make the mechanism of their own misfortune themselves, they pull it open with a key until it stops, and then it keeps running, inevitably (...) until the last second . ”“ You persevere, and that is a moving spectacle. ”On my return to Paris“ I had the strong feeling every time that I was going back to hell, namely a hell built by the people according to their wishes. “Even the armed resistance he has observed by small farmers who try to block a motorway and are shot down by the police cannot change that. The first-person narrator watches his society lose meaning; he only describes effects, not causes. Ultimately, he behaves in a conformist way towards the conditions whose destructive mechanisms seem to destroy him. Towards the end of his life story, the narrator even admits to religious mysticism: God or Christ would take care of us until the last moment, but the French peasants are "simply doomed" to ruin, a spiritualist worldview that the first-person narrator shares discovered his reading of stories Sir Arthur Canon Doyles.

Management of incompetence and loneliness

In terms of content, the first-person narrator describes his excerpt from society in retrospect and claims that his antidepressant has lost all initiative, but right down to the last page he proves his compositional sovereignty. He finds the "red thread" of the narrative, which is not chronological and intertwined in 43 sections, over and over again in the sixteen square meter wall of pictures in his hermit's room with a thousand photos from his life, which he has selected from the three thousand available. With this he shows an unbroken narrative competence right up to the end and, in contrast to the matchball metaphor introduced at an early stage, remains the master of his composition.

The novel does not depict a diary, but is presented in the form of a monologue in front of a large and socially multilayered audience and is written in an “actual” language with few metaphors and a simple sentence structure. In the Tagesspiegel, Gregor Dotzauer has the impression of a “ misanthropic giant column” in the style of a “general parlando ”. For his readers, Houellebecq offers transparency in a conversational tone: he suggests a simplification, points out previous explanations or topics to be dealt with in the future, announces excursions, adds a “statement for my lower class readers” on one occasion and one for an 'unusually attentive reader' on another ". He shows himself to be a masterly arranger of the episodes, which cannot be thought of as the legacy of a hermit, but as statements for a large readership - the withdrawal from society becomes an appearance on a stage. The allegedly increasingly weakening constitution of the narrator planning his self-extinction and the way of narrating are inconsistent , his management of incompetence and loneliness is a performative contradiction . How reliable is this first-person narrator? At one point he reports that he has fudged his story for the sake of a certain effect, at two others he boasts of being a practicing liar. Sascha Seiler says in his review in literaturkritik.de that many readers find it difficult to distinguish the mask and its background, Jürgen Ritte calls the provocations on Deutschlandfunk “just a pose”, Gregor Dotzauer expresses the suspicion in the Tagesspiegel that the passages of ( Self-) mockery is "not really meant seriously".

reception

Doris Akrap from the taz sees the novel as “great narrative art”, whose laconic tone “brings tears to the eyes with laughter and sadness”. The first-person narrator is a figure "who blames the puritanization of society and the EU for its own misery". The unvarnished description of genitals could even be a "feminist approach" and not just provocations. At the same time, however, Houellebecq also plays with paraphrases of the 11th Feuerbach thesis by Karl Marx ("The philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways . It depends on changing it .") And with Paul 's letter to the Corinthians ("But now faith, hope, Love, these three ... ").

Dirk Fuhrig sees the novel in Deutschlandfunk Kultur as a "bittersweet, deeply sad and humorous road movie", written in an "extraordinary style that alternates between screaming comedy and abysmal melancholy."

According to the times , the novel is a “typical Houellebecq work” in which the writer deals with his recurring theme, the consequences of a world determined by the global economy. What is new, however, is the hymn to romantic love.

In his review in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Alex Rühle sees a "Houellebecq generator" at work in the novel, which unfortunately only produced an "aged text bag" on the first 160 pages. But even on the following pages only one thing still seems real: the pain of life, everything else is not really told seriously.

For Sascha Seiler ( Literaturkritik.de ) , Houellebecq is "slowly becoming the in-house writer of the New Right " with her "deep-seated doubts about modernity", the causes or perspectives of which the author does not understand because he only sees himself as a mirror of the current moral decline .

Thomas Hanke registers a very skilful marketing of the novel in the Handelsblatt , which he sees as a test of how far the author can go banalizing without losing his readers. Houellebecq, himself an agricultural scientist, could have processed the contexts he mentioned in the novel in a literary way, but he chose only a minimal program close to the theses of the Front National . His only concern is to "let the pig out" and at the same time to appear critical of the system.

Jürgen Ritte does not understand his fellow feature pages on Deutschlandfunk , who praised the provocateur in the highest tones, while for him the provocation is nothing more than a pose and bad cabaret and after the first sixty pages boredom begins.

Gregor Dotzauer noted in the Tagesspiegel that the novel was a “gigantic reprocessing plant of ideas” that the author had published in six novels so far. Serotonin works with “cultural prefabricated parts”, a “H⟨ouellebecq⟩ formula”. "Houellebecq never invented anything sicker."

There are more reviews in the pearl diver .

Awards

The English-language translation by Shaun Whiteside was long-listed for the International Booker Prize in 2020 .

expenditure

  • Michel Houellebecq: Sérotonine . Flammarion, Paris 2019, ISBN 978-2-0814-7175-7 .
  • Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . From the French by Stephan Kleiner, DuMont, Cologne 2019, ISBN 978-3-8321-8388-2 .
  • Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . English translation by Shaun Whiteside, William Heinemann, London 2019, ISBN 978-1785152238 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin. Novel . Translated from the French by Stephan Kleiner. 1st edition. DuMont, Cologne 2019, ISBN 978-3-8321-8388-2 , pp. 335 .
  2. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 6, 40, 42 f., 290 .
  3. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 143, 330 .
  4. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 334 .
  5. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 6th f .
  6. ↑ Jürgen Ritte on Deutschlandfunk : a tremendous rustling of leaves [1] Dirk Fuhrig suspects in Deutschlandfunk Kultur that Houellebecq was also concerned with his "provocateur's reputation for driving up the circulation". [2]
  7. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 11, 29, 97, 136, 196, 239, 248 .
  8. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 218 .
  9. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 52 .
  10. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 69 .
  11. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 35 f .
  12. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 28 ff., 50, 92 .
  13. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 288 ff .
  14. ↑ Jürgen Ritte on Deutschlandfunk : typical provocations [3]
  15. ↑ The "penetrating contempt for women" is hardly mentioned in the French media, in: Thomas Hanke, review in the Handelsblatt [4]
  16. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 176; 163, 177, 215, 277, 301 .
  17. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 95, 153; 160 .
  18. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 335 .
  19. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 47 ff .
  20. ↑ Sacha Seiler says in Literaturkritik.de , "the emotional deficits of an average Western man" are "almost bold." ( ) Gregor Dotzauer asks himself in the Tagesspiegel whether it is "supposed to be fateful violence that tears couples apart."
  21. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 167 .
  22. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 153, 160, 173, 248 .
  23. ↑ Stefan Brändle criticizes the Frankfurter Rundschau for the fact that the reviews hardly go into the contradictions in the novel. [5]
  24. ↑ Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin: "Let's get back to my topic, which is myself, not that it would be particularly interesting, but it is my topic." (Page 174)
  25. ↑ Sascha Seiler sees in Literaturkritik.de the main character determined by the "longing for a better, more fulfilling life that has been possible at any time and is now irrevocably lost." [6]
  26. ↑ Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin, p. 136. This negative association of work and displeasure there also p. 248 and p. 298.
  27. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 143 .
  28. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 27, 143; 132 .
  29. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 103 .
  30. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 107 ff .; 19, 25 f., 56 f., 239 .
  31. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 25, 29 f., 57, 104, 162, 238 .
  32. ↑ Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin, p. 105: "I had an ideal and I was about to betray it." Criticism of the "Greens" here, pp. 44, 104, 137.
  33. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 26, 134, 142, 174, 240 .
  34. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 175, 316 .
  35. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 239, 241 .
  36. ↑ According to Thomas Hanke in the Handelsblatt , Houellebecq only supplies "conspiracy theories" and "dark forces". [7] For Stefan Brändle in the Frankfurter Rundschau , Houellebecq only deals "in general" with market liberalization. [8th]
  37. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 214, 227 .
  38. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 214, 227; 42 .
  39. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 242 ff .
  40. ↑ In reviews, a connection is made several times between this part of the narrative and the yellow vests in France, although the script was made ready for printing before the movement began. Stefan Brändle quotes French newspapers in the Frankfurter Rundschau that consider Houellebecq to be a "visionary". [9]
  41. ↑ Sasche Seiler states in literaturkritik.de an “affirmative attitude” and an unclear direction of criticism [10] .
  42. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 175 .
  43. ↑ Serotonin , p. 324 f., 335. In the Tagesspiegel , Gregor Dotzauer connects this turn with the Catholic renewal in France and quotes Houellebecq with the words: "I am Catholic in the sense in which I show the horror of a world without God. " [11]
  44. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 326 .
  45. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 7 .
  46. ↑ [12]
  47. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 11 .
  48. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 73, 279; 18th f .
  49. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 16, 66, 148, 180 .
  50. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 43, 180 .
  51. ↑ Can loss of meaning and loneliness be told consistently in terms of content and form? One example is Virginia Woolf's novel Die Wellen , at the end of which one of the voices asks the existential question: "There is always something that you have to do next. Tuesday follows Monday; Wednesday follows Tuesday. (...) It goes on; but why?" (Virginia Woolf, Die Wellen, Fischer Verlag, F. a. M. 1991, p. 200, 204, 211) That is despair and not curiosity, as in Houellebecq, Serotonin, p. 227.
  52. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin . S. 121; 116, 215 .
  53. ↑ [13]
  54. ↑ [14]
  55. ↑ [15]
  56. ↑ Doris Akrap: "Serotonin" by Michel Houellebecq: hurt masculinity . In: The daily newspaper: taz . January 6, 2019, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed October 8, 2019]).
  57. ↑ Dirk Fuhrig: Michel Houellebecq: "Serotonin" - The depression of the old, white man. In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur. January 5, 2019, accessed October 8, 2019 (German).
  58. ^ Dpa: "Serotonin": Michel Houellebecq: Happiness hormones instead of provocation . In: The time . January 6, 2019, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed October 8, 2019]).
  59. ↑ Alex Rühle: "Serotonin" by Michel Houellebecq: prophet of decline. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. Retrieved October 8, 2019 .
  60. ↑ By Sascha Seiler: Between hatred and nostalgia - Michel Houellebecq holds up a mirror to a sick society in "Serotonin" and accepts to become the model author of the New Right. Wrongly? : literaturkritik.de. Retrieved October 8, 2019 (German).
  61. ↑ Thomas Hanke: Book review: Houellebecq's new novel "Serotonin" - license to let out acid. In: Handelsblatt. January 18, 2019, accessed October 8, 2019 .
  62. ↑ https://www.handelsblatt.com/arts_und_style/literatur/buchrezension-houellebecqs-neuer-roman-serotonin-freibrief-zum-saurauslaß/23873926.html
  63. ^ Gregor Dotzauer: Play the last card. January 4, 2019, accessed October 8, 2019 .
  64. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin. Novel. In: Pearl Divers. Retrieved October 8, 2019 .
  65. ↑ 2020 International Booker Prize Longlist Announced at thebookerprizes.com, February 27, 2020 (accessed March 4, 2020).