{"product_id":"the-possibility-of-an-island-isbn-9780307275219","title":"The Possibility of an Island","description":"A worldwide phenomenon and the most important French novelist since Camus, Michel Houellebecq now delivers his magnum opus–a tale of our present circumstances told from the future, when humanity as we know it has vanished.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSurprisingly poignant, philosophically compelling, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, \u003ci\u003eThe Possibility of an Island \u003c\/i\u003eis at once an indictment, an elegy, and a celebration of everything we have and are at risk of losing. It is a masterpiece from one of the world’s most innovative writers.“Bewitching . . . Ingenious . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Possibility of an Island\u003c\/i\u003e is often brilliant and searing.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\"A skillful amalgam of prophesy, satire and science fiction, covering some of the same ground as Margaret Atwood's \u003ci\u003eOryx and Crake\u003c\/i\u003e but with much more finesse and conviction.\" —\u003ci\u003eWashington Post Book World\u003c\/i\u003e\"A sharp check on our hubris, our complacent assumption that things are getting better and better. It is always worth asking whether they are.\"—\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\"Brutally honest, hilarious and often crudely explicit . . . The social criticism offered in this novel is often surprisingly relevant and revealing, [with] an underlying empathy for the plight of humanity.\"—\u003ci\u003eRichmond Times-Dispatch\u003c\/i\u003e\"At times funny, brutal, and revolting, [\u003ci\u003eThe Possibility of an Island\u003c\/i\u003e] pushes notions of hope and hopelessness to a dismal and logical conclusion.\"—\u003ci\u003eThe Economist \u003c\/i\u003eMichel Houellebecq has won the prestigious Prix Novembre in France as well as the lucrative International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He lives in Ireland.Daniel 1, 1  \u003ci\u003eNow, what does a rat do when it's awake?  It sniffs about.\u003c\/i\u003e—Jean-Didier, biologistHow vividly I remember the first moments of my vocation as a clown! I   was seventeen at the time, and spending a rather dreary month in an   \u003ci\u003eall-inclusive\u003c\/i\u003e resort in Turkey—it was, incidentally, the last time I   was to go on holiday with my parents. My silly bitch of a sister—she   was thirteen at the time—was just beginning to turn the guys on. It   was at breakfast; as usual in the morning, a line had formed in front   of the scrambled eggs, something the vacationers seemed incredibly   fond of. Next to me, an old Englishwoman (desiccated, nasty, the kind   who would cut up foxes to decorate her living room), who had already   helped herself copiously to eggs, didn't hesitate to snaffle up the   last three sausages on the hot plate. It was five to eleven, the   breakfast service had come to an end, it was inconceivable that the   waiter would bring out any more sausages. The German who was in the   line behind her became rigid; his fork, already reaching for a   sausage, stopped in midair, and his face turned red with indignation.   He was an enormous German, a colossus, more than two meters tall and   weighing at least one hundred and fifty kilos. I thought for a moment   that he was going to plant his fork in the octogenarian's eyes, or   grab her by the neck and smash her head onto the hot plates. She,   with that senile, unconscious selfishness of old people, came   trotting back to her table as if nothing had happened. The German was   angry, I could sense that he was incredibly angry, but little by   little his face grew calm, and he went off sadly, sausageless, in the   direction of his compatriots.Out of this incident I composed a little sketch about a bloody revolt   in a holiday resort, sparked by the tiny details that contradicted   the \u003ci\u003eall-inclusive\u003c\/i\u003e formula: a shortage of sausages at breakfast,   followed by a supplemental charge for the mini-golf. That evening, I   performed this sketch at the \"You Have Talent!\" soirée (one evening   every week the show was made up of turns done by the vacationers,   instead of by professionals); I played all the characters, thus   taking my first steps down the road of the one-man show, a road I   scarcely left throughout my career. Nearly everyone came to the   after-dinner show, as there was fuck-all to do until the discotheque   opened; that meant an audience of eight hundred people. My sketch was   a resounding success, people cried with laughter, and there was noisy   applause. That very evening, at the discotheque, a pretty brunette   called Sylvie told me I had made her laugh a lot, and that she liked   boys with a sense of humor. Dear Sylvie. And so, in this way, my   virginity was lost and my vocation decided.After my baccalaureate, I signed up for acting lessons; there   followed some inglorious years, during which I grew nastier and   nastier and, as a consequence, more and more caustic; thanks to this,   success finally arrived—on a scale that surprised me. I had begun   with small sketches on reunited immigrant families, journalists for   \u003ci\u003eLe Monde,\u003c\/i\u003e and the mediocrity of the middle classes in general—I   successfully captured the incestuous temptations of midcareer   intellectuals aroused by their daughters or daughters-in-law, with   their bare belly buttons and thongs showing above their pants. In   short, I was a \u003ci\u003ecutting observer of contemporary reality;\u003c\/i\u003e I was often   compared to Pierre Desproges. While continuing to devote myself to   the one-man show, I occasionally accepted invitations to appear on   television programs, which I chose for their big audiences and   general mediocrity. I never forgot to emphasize this mediocrity,   albeit subtly: the presenter had to feel a little endangered, but not   too much. All in all, I was a good professional; I was just a bit   overrated. I was not the only one.I don't mean that my sketches were unfunny; they \u003ci\u003ewere\u003c\/i\u003e funny. I was,   indeed, a \u003ci\u003ecutting observer of contemporary reality;\u003c\/i\u003e it was just that   everything now seemed so elementary to me, it seemed that so few   things remained that could be observed in contemporary reality: we   had simplified and pruned so much, broken so many barriers, taboos,   misplaced hopes, and false aspirations; truly, there was so little   left. On the social level, there were the rich and the poor, with a   few fragile links between them—the \u003ci\u003esocial ladder,\u003c\/i\u003e a subject on which   it was the done thing to joke; and the more serious possibility of   being ruined. On the sexual level there were those who aroused   desire, and those who did not: a tiny mechanism, with a few   complications of modality (homosexuality, etc.) that could   nevertheless be easily summarized as vanity and narcissistic   competition, which had already been well described by the French   moralists three centuries before. There were also, of course, the   \u003ci\u003ehonest folk,\u003c\/i\u003e those who work, who ensure the effective production of   wealth, also those who make sacrifices for their children—in a   manner that is rather comic or, if you like, pathetic (but I was,   above all, a comedian); those who have neither beauty in their youth,   nor ambition later, nor riches ever; but who hold on wholeheartedly,   and more sincerely than anyone, to the values of beauty, youth,   wealth, ambition, and sex; those who, in some kind of way, \u003ci\u003emake the   sauce bind.\u003c\/i\u003e Those people, I am afraid to say, could not constitute a   \u003ci\u003esubject.\u003c\/i\u003e I did, however, include a few of them in my sketches to give   diversity, and the \u003ci\u003ereality effect;\u003c\/i\u003e but I began all the same to get   seriously tired. What's worse is that I was considered to be a  \u003ci\u003e humanist;\u003c\/i\u003e a pretty abrasive humanist, but a humanist all the same. To   give some context, here is one of the jokes that peppered my shows:    \"Do you know what they call the fat stuff around the vagina?\"    \"No.\"    \"The woman.\"Strangely, I managed to throw in that kind of thing, while still   getting good reviews in \u003ci\u003eElle\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eT\u003c\/i\u003eé\u003ci\u003el\u003c\/i\u003eé\u003ci\u003erama;\u003c\/i\u003e it's true that the arrival   of the Arab immigrant comedians had validated macho excesses once   more, and that I was genuinely excessive, albeit with grace: going   close to the bone, repeatedly, but always staying in control.   Finally, the benefit of the humorist's trade, or more generally of a   \u003ci\u003ehumorous attitude\u003c\/i\u003e in life, is to be able to behave like a complete   bastard with impunity, and even to profit hugely from your depravity,   in terms of sexual conquests and money, all with general approval.My supposed humanism was, in reality, built on very thin foundations:   a vague outburst against tobacconists, an allusion to the corpses of   negro clandestines cast up on the Spanish coasts, had been enough to   give me a reputation as a \u003ci\u003elefty\u003c\/i\u003e and a \u003ci\u003edefender of human rights.\u003c\/i\u003e Me, a   lefty? I had occasionally been able to introduce a few, vaguely   young, antiglobalization campaigners into my sketches, without giving   them an immediately antipathetic role; I had occasionally indulged in   a certain demagogy: I was, I repeat, a good professional. Besides, I   looked like an Arab, which helps; the only residual ideological   content of the left, in those days, was antiracism, or more precisely   antiwhite racism. I did not in fact know the origins of these Arab   features, which became more pronounced as the years went by: my   mother was of Spanish origin and my father, as far as I know, was   Breton. For example, my sister, that little bitch, was certainly the   Mediterranean type, but she wasn't half as dark as me, and her hair   was straight. One had to wonder: had my mother always been   scrupulously faithful? Or had I been engendered by some Mustapha? Or   even—another hypothesis—by a Jew? Fuck that: Arabs came to my shows   in droves—Jews also, by the way, although in smaller numbers; and   all these people paid for their tickets, at the full price. We all   worry about the circumstances of our death; the circumstances of our   birth, however, are less worrisome to us.As for \u003ci\u003ehuman rights,\u003c\/i\u003e quite obviously I couldn't give a toss; I could   hardly manage to be interested in the rights of my cock.In that particular respect, the rest of my career had more or less   confirmed my first success at the holiday club. Women in general lack   a sense of humor, which is why they consider humor to be one of the   virile qualities; throughout my career, opportunities for placing my   organ in one of the appropriate orifices were never lacking. To tell   the truth, such intercourse was never up to much: women who are   interested in comedians are getting old, nearly forty, and are   beginning to suspect that things are going to turn bad. Some of them   had fat asses, others breasts like flannels, sometimes both. In other   words, there was nothing arousing about them; and, anyway, when it's   more and more difficult to get a hard-on, the interest goes. They   weren't all that old, either; I knew that as they approached fifty   they would once again long for something reassuring, easy, and   false—and of course they wouldn't find it. In the meantime, I could   only confirm to them—completely unintentionally, believe me, it's   never a pleasure—the decline of their erotic value; I could only   confirm their first suspicions, and instill in them, despite myself,   a despairing view of life: no, it was not maturity that awaited them,   but simply old age; there was not a new blossoming at the end of the   road, but a bundle of frustrations and sufferings, at first   insignificant, then very quickly unbearable; it wasn't very healthy,   all that, not very healthy at all. Life begins at fifty, that's true;   inasmuch as it ends at forty.    Daniel 24, 1Look at the little creatures moving in the distance; look. They are humans.In the fading light, I witness without regret the disappearance of   the species. A last ray of sunlight skims over the plain, passes over   the mountain range barring the horizon to the east, and colors the   desert landscape with a red halo. The metal trellises of the   protective fence around the residence sparkle. Fox growls softly; no   doubt he can sense the presence of the savages. For them I feel no   pity, nor any sense of common belonging; I simply consider them to be   slightly more intelligent monkeys, and, for this reason, more   dangerous. There are times when I unlock the fence to rescue a   rabbit, or a stray dog; but never to bring help to a human.I would never contemplate coupling with a female of their species.   While the interspecies barrier is often territorial among   invertebrates and plants, among the higher vertebrates it is more a   question of behavior.A being is fashioned, somewhere in the Central City, that is similar   to me; at least he has my features, and my internal organs. When my   life ceases, the absence of a signal will be registered in a few   nanoseconds; the manufacture of my successor will begin immediately.   The next day, or the day after at the latest, the protective fence   will be reopened; my successor will settle within these walls. This   book will be addressed to him.Pierce's first law identifies personality with memory. Nothing   exists, in the personality, outside what is memorizable (be this   memory cognitive, procedural, or emotional); it is thanks to memory,   for example, that the sense of identity does not dissolve during sleep.According to Pierce's second law, language is a suitable carrier for   cognitive memory.Pierce's third law defines the conditions for an unbiased language.Pierce's three laws were going to put an end to the hazardous   attempts at memory downloading through the intermediary of a data   carrier, in favor of, on the one hand, direct molecular transfer,   and, on the other, what today we call \u003ci\u003elife story,\u003c\/i\u003e initially conceived   as a simple complement, a provisional solution, but which was,   following the work by Pierce, to become considerably more important.   Thus, curiously, this major logical advance resulted in the   rehabilitation of an ancient form that was basically quite close to   what was once called \u003ci\u003eautobiography.\u003c\/i\u003eConcerning the life story, there are no precise instructions. The   beginning can start at any point in time, just as a first glance can   alight on any point within a painting; what matters is that,   gradually, the whole picture reemerges.    Daniel1, 2\u003ci\u003eWhen you see the success of the car-free Sundays in Paris, and the   walkway along the banks of the Seine, then you can easily imagine   what comes next.\u003c\/i\u003e—Gerard, taxi driverToday it's almost impossible for me to remember \u003ci\u003ewhy\u003c\/i\u003e I married my   first wife; if I was to come across her in the street, I don't even   think I'd be able to recognize her. You forget certain things, you   forget them totally; it is wrong to suppose that all things are   stored in the sanctuary of memory; certain events, the majority of   them even, are well and truly \u003ci\u003eerased,\u003c\/i\u003e there remains no trace of them,   and it is absolutely as if they had never happened. To return to my   wife, or rather my first wife, we undoubtedly lived together for two   or three years; when she became pregnant, I ditched her almost   immediately. I was having no success at the time, and she received   only a miserable alimony.On the day of my son's suicide, I made a tomato omelet. \"A living dog   is worth more than a dead lion,\" as Ecclesiastes rightly says. I had   never loved that child: he was as stupid as his mother, and as nasty   as his father. His death was far from a catastrophe; you can live   without such human beings.After my first show, ten years passed, punctuated by short and   unsatisfying affairs, before I met Isabelle. I was then thirty-nine   and she thirty-seven; I was already something of a celebrity. When I   earned my first million euros (I mean, when I had really earned them,   after tax, and placed them in a safe haven), I realized that I was   not a Balzacian character. A Balzacian character who has just earned   his first million euros would, in most cases, figure out a way to   reach the second—with the exception of those few people who will   immediately begin to dream of the moment when they can count them in   tens. For my part, I wondered above all whether I could bring my   career to a halt—before concluding no.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300485484773,"sku":"NP9780307275219","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307275219.jpg?v=1767741018","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-possibility-of-an-island-isbn-9780307275219","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}