Free The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq

more softly, and Jed hardly heard her add: “There’s just Pépita Bourguignon who’s done nothing.
    “Oh, well,” she concluded sadly, “it was nice working with you.”
    “We’ll never meet again?”
    “If you need me, yes, of course. You have my cell-phone number.”
    Then she took her leave, going off to an uncertain fate—you had the impression, in fact, that she would go back to bed immediately and make herself a tisane. While passing through the doorway, she turned around one last time and added, in a lifeless voice, “I think it was the biggest success of my life.”
    The critics were, Jed realized on browsing through the dossier, exceptionally unanimous in their praise. It happens in contemporarysocieties, despite the determination with which journalists hunt and identify fashions in formation, and if possible create them, that some develop in a wild, anarchic fashion and prosper before being named—in fact, this happens more and more often, since the massive spread of the Internet and the accompanying collapse of printed media. The growing popularity, across all of France, of cookery classes, the recent appearance of local competitions rewarding new creations in charcuterie or cheese making, the massive and inexorable spread of hiking, and even the outing of Jean-Pierre Pernaut combined to bring about this new sociological fact: for the first time in France since Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the countryside had become
trendy
again. French society seemed to suddenly become aware of this, through its major dailies and magazines, in the few weeks which followed Jed’s
vernissage
. And the Michelin map, an utterly unnoticed utilitarian object, became in the space of those very weeks the privileged vehicle for initiation into what
Libération
was to shamelessly call the “magic of the
terroir
.”
    Patrick Forestier’s office, whose windows offered a view of the Arc de Triomphe, was ingeniously modular: by moving certain elements you could organize a conference, project images, or have a brunch, all confined in a space of seventy square meters; a microwave enabled you to heat up food; you could also sleep there. To receive Jed, Forestier had chosen the “working breakfast” option: fruit juice, pastries, and coffee waited on the table.
    He opened his arms wide to greet him; it was an understatement to say he was beaming. “I was confident … I’ve always been confident!” he exclaimed, something which, according to Olga, who had briefed Jed before the meeting, was at the very least exaggerated. “Now we must convert the try!” (His arms made rapid horizontal movements that were, Jed understood immediately, an imitation of rugby passes.) “Please sit down.” They took their places on the sofas surrounding the table; Jed poured himself coffee.
“We are a team,”
added Forestier in English, rather unnecessarily.
    “Our map sales have grown by seventeen percent in the past month,” he continued. “We could, and others would do it, raise the prices; we won’t.”
    He left Jed the time to appreciate the lofty considerations behind this commercial decision before adding: “What is most unexpected isthat there are even buyers for the old Michelin maps, which we have seen auctioned on the Internet. And until a few weeks ago, we were happy to pulp these old maps,” he said funereally. “We squandered a heritage whose value no one in-house suspected … until your magnificent photos.” He seemed to sink into a depressed meditation on this money lost so stupidly, or perhaps more generally on the destruction of value, but then pulled himself together. “Concerning your—” he sought the appropriate word—“concerning your
works
, we must strike very hard!” Suddenly he sat up on his sofa. Fleetingly, Jed had the impression that he was going to jump straight onto the table and beat his chest in a Tarzan impersonation; he creased his eyes to get rid of the vision.
    “I had a long conversation with