Name: The Map and the Territory
ISBN: 9781473522480

Michel Houellebecq

Artist Jed Martin emerges from a ten-year hiatus with good news. It has nothing to do with his broken boiler, the approach of another lamentably awkward Christmas dinner with his father or the memory of his doomed love affair with the beautiful Olga. It is that, for his new exhibition, he has secured the involvement of none other than celebrated novelist Michel Houellebecq. The exhibition brings Jed new levels of global fame. But, his boiler is still broken, his ailing father flirts with oblivion and, worst of all, he is contacted by an inspector requiring his help in solving an unspeakable, atrocious and gruesome crime, involving none other than celebrated novelist Michel Houellebecq... Shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2013.

The Map and the Territory

If Jed Martin, the main character of this novel, was to tell you its story, he would perhaps begin by talking about a boiler breaking down, one 15th December. Or about his father, a well-known and committed architect, with whom he passed alone many a Christmas Eve. He would certainly recall Olga, a very pretty Russian he met at the start of his career, during the first exhibition of his photographs of Michelin road maps. This was before global success arrived with the series of 'professions', those portraits of personalities from all walks of life (including the writer Michel Houellebecq), captured at their work. He should also say how he helped inspector Jasselin to solve an atrocious crime, whose terrifying scene left a lasting mark on the police teams. At the end of his life he will find a certain serenity, and utter only murmurs. Art, money, love, the father-son relationship, death, work, and France turned into a tourist paradise are some of the themes of this novel, which is resolutely classical and openly modern.

Katie Chua

this book is by far the most enjoyable houellebecq i've read and it has stayed with me longer than the others. i'm having a ahrd time parsing out what exactly i learned/got from it. aging? art world? inevitable decay? (in aging and also modernism/industrialism?) the random genre switch at the last third of the book was fun to read but imo, not well-executed and the epilogue felt ... not right to me. idk, i'm just a reader though with no french background

The Map and the Territory

Reviews

Highlights