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Available
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Publication
Bompiani
Description
Michel is a civil-servant at the Ministry of Culture. When his father is murdered and he comes into some money, Michel takes leave of absence to go on a package tour to Thailand. Infuriated by the shallow hypocrisy and mediocrity of his fellow travellers, only the awkward Valerie attracts his attention. Too bashful to pursue her, Michel prefers the uncomplicated pleasures of Thai massage parlours and sex with local women. But, back in Paris, he calls Valerie and they plunge into a passionate affair which strays far beyond the bounds of his previous 'vanilla' existence, into S&M, partner-swapping and sex in public. Michel quits his job, and tries to help Valerie and her boss, Jean-Yves, in their ailing travel business, by offering travel packages based on sex tourism in the third world. When their project comes to fruition and the three return to Thailand, Michel discovers that sex is neither the most consuming nor the most dangerous of human passions...… (more)
Media reviews
User reviews
LibraryThing member TomSlee
Second and final chance for Houellebecq. Is he an attention-grabbing poseur or a boundary-challenging iconoclast? He is a poseur, and a narrow-minded one at that. Any book that contains not one but too anonymous "big black men" is sloppy, and the sex just comes across as wishful thinking.
LibraryThing member aralena
My final reaction to Plateforme is: how and why do literary circles and academics continue to take Houellebecq seriously? He so clearly writes from a tired, abused boilerplate: an autobiographical, socially inept protagonist with no redeeming qualities; a shallow social/economic premise left
All of this wouldn't be so condemning, however, if the prose wasn't so terrifically flat and uninteresting. And the lazy, derivative winks to Camus only illuminate Houellebecq's insincere ennui in comparison.
Yawn.
(I read the French version)
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undeveloped, weakly supported by unconvincing dialog and characters; tepidly shocking sexist and racist comments inserted at the conclusion of every chapter -- presumably to leave the reader with a moment of mild titillation in which to ponder his attempt at writing something worthy of intellectual consideration. We know that Houellebecq doesn't really inhabit these cheap, facile, adolescent stabs at what are meant to be shocking generalizations, so what is the point? All of this wouldn't be so condemning, however, if the prose wasn't so terrifically flat and uninteresting. And the lazy, derivative winks to Camus only illuminate Houellebecq's insincere ennui in comparison.
Yawn.
(I read the French version)
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LibraryThing member hennis
some nice and critical reflections on society, sometimes depressing, sometimes badly written scenes, very explicit about sex. the good thing about the book is that the main character is somewhat of a anti-hero, and you don't really like him, which is difficult, because it is written from the
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I-perspective. The story is alright with a cruel ending. It contains a lot of explicit sexual scenes, even when absolutely does not add value to the story. A lot of scenes are written badly, most contemplations on society are written very well. Show Less
LibraryThing member jburlinson
I would call this The Stranger with porn. Both start with the death of the narrator's parent. Both end with a senseless murder and the protagonist more thoroughly alienated than ever. It's what happens in between, I guess, that sets the two books apart. In the case of Platform, what happens is
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mostly in between the heroine's thighs. There is some comedy, too. Mustn't forget that. Show Less
LibraryThing member John
Houellebecq is the current enfant terrible of French writing, castigated for his uncompromising views and criticisms of all sorts of ethnic and social groups and his focus on sex as the primordial interest of people, while at the same time praised for his imaginative writing, his focus on sex as
This story concerns Michel Renault, a minor government functionary in the Ministry of Culture and Valerie, who becomes his partner, and his true love, ("...you're an exception. It's very rare now to find a woman who feels pleasure and who wants to give it.") in a sexual tourism plan that is enormously successful, but then literally blows up in their faces with an attack in a resort by outraged extremists, in which Valerie is killed, as is the tourism plan in light of the negative publicity generated. Michel is hardly an attractive character, as he continually denigrates his work and his own attractiveness as a person ("some washed-up guy, not very sociable, more or less resigned to his boring life.") But he and Valerie "hit it off" while on a group tour in Thailand (actually after they have returned to Paris), and they do fall in love. So, in the end, despite all the sex (even in groups and double-penetration in threesomes with Valerie), it is, to Michel's surprise, love that is the strength of his relationship with her, so all the more devastating is her loss.
Houellebecq is an equal-opportunity critic. He got into trouble in France for writing that, "...it's true. Muslims on the whole aren't worth much", while at the same time, talking to the young woman who had been his father's lover, he says that, "On the intellectual level, I was suddenly capable of acknowledging the attractions of the Muslim vagina". Other targets for his barbs include: cultural support programs ( "The contradictory trends of contemporary video art, balancing the conservation of national heritage with support for living creativity....all that quickly evaporated before the facile magic of moving p*ss*. I gently emptied my testicles." or "That's culture for you...a bit of a pain in the butt, which is fine, and ultimately everyone is returned to his original nothingness"), poor education ("She used socially acceptable terms taken from a limited vocabulary"), the banality of modern life ("My dreams are run-of-the-mill. Like all of the inhabitants of Western Europe, I want to travel....to put it more bluntly, what I really want, basically, is to be a tourist."...or "For the west I do not feel hatred. At most I feel a great contempt. I know only that every single one of us reeks of selfishness, masochism, and death. We have created a system in which it has simply become impossible to live, and what's more, we continue to export it."), airplane travel ("Taking a plane today, regardless of the airline, regardless of the destination, amounts to being treated like sh*t for the duration of the flight."), certain contemporary writers, ("...a shitty Anglo-Saxon bestseller by one Frederick Forsyth. I had read something by this half-wit...I ejaculated between two pages [of a Grisham novel] with a groan of satisfaction. They were going to stick together; didn't matter, it wasn't the kind of book your read twice."), sacrifices in WWII with a comment on Omaha beach ("hadn't really moved me...had actually reminded me...of a modern art installation. In this place a bunch of morons diedd for democracy"); American tastes ("The coffee was weak, almost undrinkable...at least we were living up to American standards"); the HK Chinese ("...recognizable by their filthy manners...eat rapaciously, laughing loudly, their mouths open, spraying bits of food everywhere, spitting on the ground, and blowing their noses between their fingers--behaving quite literally like pigs. To make matters worse, that's an awful lot of pigs."); Quebecoises (...thickset and tough, all teeth and blubber, talking incredibly loudly...I had a feeling that it wouldn't be wise to cut in front of them in line at the buffet...")
It is difficult to categorize Houellebecq, but I like his writing. He seems intent on exploring all manifestations of what one reviewer called "post-modern alienation", and I suppose that is as good a description as any. He does make you think about all sorts of aspects of modern life and society and what is, in the end, really important in life.
(Mar/03)
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the primordial interest of people, and his outlining and questioning of the human, and social, conditions of his life, of life in general, and of the world in which he lives.This story concerns Michel Renault, a minor government functionary in the Ministry of Culture and Valerie, who becomes his partner, and his true love, ("...you're an exception. It's very rare now to find a woman who feels pleasure and who wants to give it.") in a sexual tourism plan that is enormously successful, but then literally blows up in their faces with an attack in a resort by outraged extremists, in which Valerie is killed, as is the tourism plan in light of the negative publicity generated. Michel is hardly an attractive character, as he continually denigrates his work and his own attractiveness as a person ("some washed-up guy, not very sociable, more or less resigned to his boring life.") But he and Valerie "hit it off" while on a group tour in Thailand (actually after they have returned to Paris), and they do fall in love. So, in the end, despite all the sex (even in groups and double-penetration in threesomes with Valerie), it is, to Michel's surprise, love that is the strength of his relationship with her, so all the more devastating is her loss.
Houellebecq is an equal-opportunity critic. He got into trouble in France for writing that, "...it's true. Muslims on the whole aren't worth much", while at the same time, talking to the young woman who had been his father's lover, he says that, "On the intellectual level, I was suddenly capable of acknowledging the attractions of the Muslim vagina". Other targets for his barbs include: cultural support programs ( "The contradictory trends of contemporary video art, balancing the conservation of national heritage with support for living creativity....all that quickly evaporated before the facile magic of moving p*ss*. I gently emptied my testicles." or "That's culture for you...a bit of a pain in the butt, which is fine, and ultimately everyone is returned to his original nothingness"), poor education ("She used socially acceptable terms taken from a limited vocabulary"), the banality of modern life ("My dreams are run-of-the-mill. Like all of the inhabitants of Western Europe, I want to travel....to put it more bluntly, what I really want, basically, is to be a tourist."...or "For the west I do not feel hatred. At most I feel a great contempt. I know only that every single one of us reeks of selfishness, masochism, and death. We have created a system in which it has simply become impossible to live, and what's more, we continue to export it."), airplane travel ("Taking a plane today, regardless of the airline, regardless of the destination, amounts to being treated like sh*t for the duration of the flight."), certain contemporary writers, ("...a shitty Anglo-Saxon bestseller by one Frederick Forsyth. I had read something by this half-wit...I ejaculated between two pages [of a Grisham novel] with a groan of satisfaction. They were going to stick together; didn't matter, it wasn't the kind of book your read twice."), sacrifices in WWII with a comment on Omaha beach ("hadn't really moved me...had actually reminded me...of a modern art installation. In this place a bunch of morons diedd for democracy"); American tastes ("The coffee was weak, almost undrinkable...at least we were living up to American standards"); the HK Chinese ("...recognizable by their filthy manners...eat rapaciously, laughing loudly, their mouths open, spraying bits of food everywhere, spitting on the ground, and blowing their noses between their fingers--behaving quite literally like pigs. To make matters worse, that's an awful lot of pigs."); Quebecoises (...thickset and tough, all teeth and blubber, talking incredibly loudly...I had a feeling that it wouldn't be wise to cut in front of them in line at the buffet...")
It is difficult to categorize Houellebecq, but I like his writing. He seems intent on exploring all manifestations of what one reviewer called "post-modern alienation", and I suppose that is as good a description as any. He does make you think about all sorts of aspects of modern life and society and what is, in the end, really important in life.
(Mar/03)
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LibraryThing member Mijk
This book is simply dreadful. Yes it introduces the reader to a certain kind of (sexist, racist, homophobic, smug, conceited, narcissistic) male subject, supposedly common today, and i guess it can be read as a kind of metaphor for Europe today, but frankly I don't care. I only completed it so that
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I could say I've read and it is [deleted}.. Show Less
LibraryThing member rayski
A man who spent his first 40+ years all alone visiting sex clubs takes a trip to Thailand for better sex. He falls in love with a women, gets involved in the tourist trade building sex resorts and then loses everything again, once again becoming all alone.
LibraryThing member captom
American on a tropical island, brings Aerican ways, laced with Shakespeare and 9-11
LibraryThing member SigmundFraud
an exceptionally well written book. i think Houellebecq is one of the finest contemporary French novelists. If you like a story this is the book for you. The subject matter is a bit more daring for the American than for the French reader.
LibraryThing member Leonard_Seet
Michel Renault attends his civil service job effectively but mechanically. He has no friends and doesn’t care about current events. His only recreation is sex. He is the Meursault of the twenty-first century, but with more flesh and blood. It would've been hard to imagine a Meursault living among
Platform describes the typical man in twenty-first century westernized societies. Living a comfortable but lackluster life. Perhaps successful, like Michel’s friend Jean-Yves, but still with a sense of life drifting away. And the interesting market analysis of a hideous business—sex tourism—only highlights the dreary existence.
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us, but not so a Michel Renault. Platform describes the typical man in twenty-first century westernized societies. Living a comfortable but lackluster life. Perhaps successful, like Michel’s friend Jean-Yves, but still with a sense of life drifting away. And the interesting market analysis of a hideous business—sex tourism—only highlights the dreary existence.
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LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
Rather feeble. Not much more than cheap porn unsuccessfully dressed up as literature.
Fifty shades of tat.
Fifty shades of tat.
LibraryThing member MSarki
Wednesday: I am hoping the novel picks up in intensity soon. We are getting ready for our trip to Thailand and I am just not so into this book yet. Perhaps I have read too much Bernhard, Erpenbeck, and Walser of late. I feel like I am reading some kind of Jonathan Lethem novel or even any other
Thursday: OK, I came to a sex scene, and not a very good one at that. Recently I read a sex scene in Jenny Erpenbeck's "Visitation" that was extremely gifted, powerful, and erotic as hell even though I admit it being a sort of rape scene, though I am not exactly sure of that. But this Michel H. is sort of hokey and juvenile if you ask me. I will give the book a few more scenes before I abandon it. I am working my ass off here just reading what I have. I am not at all interested in his lifting from the tourist brochures. What I don't get so far is how anybody can call this guy a great writer? Has the bar been lowered so far that even another fellow like Robert Bolano and his pitiful "Savage Detectives" should be recognized as a work of the highest rank?
Thursday PM: I quit. I cannot take another word of it. I am so disappointed in both the book and myself. I feel I let this guy write his crap all over me, and I do not take that offense lightly. It was the worst sex I ever had, real or imagined. Oh my god, this is when I almost wished I still believed so He or She could lift me and wash away my sins.
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minor I did this and then I did that sort of writer. The writing is not too sophisticated, and I am surprised and disappointed so far. I hope I am proven to be wrong in my initial assessment.Thursday: OK, I came to a sex scene, and not a very good one at that. Recently I read a sex scene in Jenny Erpenbeck's "Visitation" that was extremely gifted, powerful, and erotic as hell even though I admit it being a sort of rape scene, though I am not exactly sure of that. But this Michel H. is sort of hokey and juvenile if you ask me. I will give the book a few more scenes before I abandon it. I am working my ass off here just reading what I have. I am not at all interested in his lifting from the tourist brochures. What I don't get so far is how anybody can call this guy a great writer? Has the bar been lowered so far that even another fellow like Robert Bolano and his pitiful "Savage Detectives" should be recognized as a work of the highest rank?
Thursday PM: I quit. I cannot take another word of it. I am so disappointed in both the book and myself. I feel I let this guy write his crap all over me, and I do not take that offense lightly. It was the worst sex I ever had, real or imagined. Oh my god, this is when I almost wished I still believed so He or She could lift me and wash away my sins.
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LibraryThing member secretagentx9
.A slightly easier and quicker read than I expected, I found "Platform" most notable or intriguing for it's look at the consequences of globalization on people's psyche. The narrator proposes that globalization be taken to its logical conclusion, unbridled sex-tourism. The characters seemed
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intuitive, particularly the narrator, but the tour group early in the novel seemed a bit of a cross section of French Society. Compared to some novels I've read, "Platform" seemed to focus more on what the narrator thought than on what he said or did. Show Less
LibraryThing member PilgrimJess
“Not having anything around to read is dangerous: you have to content yourself with life itself, and that can lead you to take risks"
In truth I find this book rather difficult to review and that is as much down to the author's writing style as by the story. This is undoubtedly a book that is
The book spans roughly a year in the life of central character, Michel, an accountant at the Ministry of Culture in Paris. Initially he spends his evenings watching television and visiting peep-shows but when his father is murdered he decides to join a package tour to Thailand. There he meets Valerie, a single woman who works for the Paris based tour company. Despite the fact that Valerie is obviously interested in him sexually Michel prefers to visit massage parlours where he can enjoy sex without the attachments.
On their return to Paris Michel plucks up the courage to telephone Valerie and embark on a pretty torrid love affair with a variety and frantic sexual experiences. Also on return to France Valerie and her boss are head-hunted by a struggling hotel chain to try and boost their room occupancy. To this end Michel persuades Valérie and her boss to convert the company's hotels in Thailand and the Caribbean to sex tourism. The new package holidays are a great success with bookings at record levels. However, whilst attending an opening in Thailand, the hotel that they are staying in is attacked by Muslim terrorists who kill Valérie along with 116 other people, mainly prostitutes and their customers.
The book's story, such as it is, is fairly preposterous and Valerie as a character is not terribly believable. Initially she seems to prefer women to men yet suddenly when she meets Michel, apart for a few episodes when she is happy to share him, does an abrupt about face. Even her untimely demise does not really rescue her. In contrast Michel reads on one hand like an posturing, horny hormonal teenager rather than a 40 year old man . Yet at other times he appears shy, timid and lost.Somehow the reader is expected to view Michel's and Valerie's love as the one genuine thing against a background of the absurd and the downright dull.
Unfortunately, I feel that the main focus of this story gets lost in the welter of sexual description with the countless numbers of sex scenes making this book appear more like some sort of soft porn story than a serious novel. Michel argues that "you have several million westerners who have everything they could want but no longer manage to get sexual satisfaction... On the other hand, you have several billion people who have nothing, who starve, who die young, who live in conditions unfit for human habitation and who have nothing left to sell except their bodies and their unspoiled sexuality".
However, more than the sex what I really found uncomfortable about this book is the Islamaphobia. Muslims are the villains of the story, murderers of both Michel's father and his mistress. Politically, Islam is depicted as a threat to the diversity of French society. On the flip side Michel's opinion of Western society which appears over-feminised and faithless reads like some sort of Muslim propaganda.
Whilst I realise that France at large and Paris in particular have been subject to some pretty abhorrent terrorist attacks such Right Wing opinions have no real place in the 1001 list. That said and done I cannot honestly say that I hated it either.
In truth I find this book rather difficult to review and that is as much down to the author's writing style as by the story. This is undoubtedly a book that is
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meant to shock and titillate the reader with equal measure.The book spans roughly a year in the life of central character, Michel, an accountant at the Ministry of Culture in Paris. Initially he spends his evenings watching television and visiting peep-shows but when his father is murdered he decides to join a package tour to Thailand. There he meets Valerie, a single woman who works for the Paris based tour company. Despite the fact that Valerie is obviously interested in him sexually Michel prefers to visit massage parlours where he can enjoy sex without the attachments.
On their return to Paris Michel plucks up the courage to telephone Valerie and embark on a pretty torrid love affair with a variety and frantic sexual experiences. Also on return to France Valerie and her boss are head-hunted by a struggling hotel chain to try and boost their room occupancy. To this end Michel persuades Valérie and her boss to convert the company's hotels in Thailand and the Caribbean to sex tourism. The new package holidays are a great success with bookings at record levels. However, whilst attending an opening in Thailand, the hotel that they are staying in is attacked by Muslim terrorists who kill Valérie along with 116 other people, mainly prostitutes and their customers.
The book's story, such as it is, is fairly preposterous and Valerie as a character is not terribly believable. Initially she seems to prefer women to men yet suddenly when she meets Michel, apart for a few episodes when she is happy to share him, does an abrupt about face. Even her untimely demise does not really rescue her. In contrast Michel reads on one hand like an posturing, horny hormonal teenager rather than a 40 year old man . Yet at other times he appears shy, timid and lost.Somehow the reader is expected to view Michel's and Valerie's love as the one genuine thing against a background of the absurd and the downright dull.
Unfortunately, I feel that the main focus of this story gets lost in the welter of sexual description with the countless numbers of sex scenes making this book appear more like some sort of soft porn story than a serious novel. Michel argues that "you have several million westerners who have everything they could want but no longer manage to get sexual satisfaction... On the other hand, you have several billion people who have nothing, who starve, who die young, who live in conditions unfit for human habitation and who have nothing left to sell except their bodies and their unspoiled sexuality".
However, more than the sex what I really found uncomfortable about this book is the Islamaphobia. Muslims are the villains of the story, murderers of both Michel's father and his mistress. Politically, Islam is depicted as a threat to the diversity of French society. On the flip side Michel's opinion of Western society which appears over-feminised and faithless reads like some sort of Muslim propaganda.
Whilst I realise that France at large and Paris in particular have been subject to some pretty abhorrent terrorist attacks such Right Wing opinions have no real place in the 1001 list. That said and done I cannot honestly say that I hated it either.
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LibraryThing member jonfaith
Another samizdat selection; I bought six copies of this on my honeymoon in London. It wasn't publishe din the States until 2003. Collectively we blazed through the novel in days, a feat unmatched before or after.
Subjects
Original language
Italian
Original publication date
2001
Physical description
4.96 inches
ISBN
8845254070 / 9788845254079