Free Whatever: a novel by Michel Houellebecq

he's devouring them, as if the meaning of his life might suddenly depend on this reading.

    So as not to see him I'm obliged to turn towards the landscape. It's odd, now it seems to me the sun has turned to red, as it was during my trip out. But I don't give much of a damn; there could be five or six red suns out there and it wouldn't make a jot of difference to the course of my meditations.

    I don't like this world. I definitely do not like it. The society in which I live disgusts me; advertising sickens me; computers make me puke. My entire work as a computer expert consists of adding to the data, the cross-referencing, the criteria of rational decision-making. It has no meaning. To tell the truth, it is even negative up to a point; a useless encumbering of the neurons. This world has need of many things, bar more information.

    The arrival in Paris, as grim as ever. The leprous façades of the Pont Cardinet flats, behind which one invariably imagines retired folk agonizing alongside their cat Poucette which is eating up half their pension with its Friskies. Those weird metal structures that indecently mount each other to form a grid of overhead wires. And the inevitable advertising hoardings flashing by, gaudy and repellent. À gay and changing spectacle on the walls.' Bullshit. Pure fucking bullshit.

    7

    I got back to my apartment without real enthusiasm; the post consisted of a payment reminder for an erotic phone line ( Natacha, with the hots for you ) and a long letter from the Trois Suisses informing me of the setting up of a telecomputer service for simplified ordering, the Chouchoutel. In my capacity as a special client I could profit from this right away; the entire computer team (inset photos) had worked flat out so that the service would be operative by Christmas; the commercial directrice of the Trois Suisses was pleased to be in the position to personally assign me a Chouchou code.

    The call-counter of my answer machine registered the figure 1, which surprised me a bit; must be a wrong number. In response to my message a weary and contemptuous female voice had come out with 'You pathetic creep' before hanging up. In short, there was nothing keeping me in Paris.

    In any case I really fancied going to the Vendée. The Vendée brought back lots of holiday memories for me (rather bad ones in fact, but such is life). I’d retraced some of these in the form of an animal story called Dialogues Between a Dachshund and a Poodle , which could be deemed an adolescent self-portrait. In the final chapter of this work one of the dogs is reading aloud, to his companion, a manuscript found in the roll-top desk of his young master:

    'Last year, around 23 August, I was walking along the beach at Les Sables d'Olonne, accompanied by my poodle. Whereas my four-legged friend seemed to unconstrainedly enjoy the motions of the sea air and the brightness of the sun (particularly keen and delightful on this late morning), I was unable to prevent the vice of reflection from squeezing my translucid brow, and, crushed by the weight of a too-heavy burden, my head was sinking sadly on my breast.

    'On this occasion I stopped before a young girl who may have been fourteen or so. She was playing badminton with her father, or some other game that is played with rackets and a shuttlecock. Her clothing bore evidence of the most candid simplicity, given that she was in a bathing costume, and with naked breasts to boot. Nevertheless, and at this stage one can only bow before such perseverance, her whole attitude manifested the deployment of an ongoing attempt at seduction. The ascending movement of her arms at the moment she missed the projectile, although it had the added advantage of pushing forward the two ochraceous globes constituting an already more than nascent bosom, was principally accompanied by a smile at once amused and disconsolate, ultimately replete with an intense joie de vivre, which she was manifestly directing at all the