| Original Message |
Patricia Matthews (no login)
Posted Mar 10, 2008 2:34 PM
Like Jim, I found Houellebecq's positing of Bruno and Michel in stark contrast as a major point of interest in the work. The parallelisms of the two character's lives (raised by their grandmothers, their distinct and extreme sexualities (Bruno's hedonism, and Michel's asexuality/sterility of sexual feelings, devoid of feeling), the two female characters and their deaths...), and their distinct and irreconcilable realities (their professions, their childhoods, Bruno's parenthood, Michel's fame in the scientific community) make me wonder if Houellebecq is suggesting a sort of doubling, that the two characters are incomplete in their own right and it is only in their affect on each other that they are mutually constructed.
In a passage in which Bruno is referring to his son (Victor), he says "They would come to be rivals - which was the natural relationship between men" (139). This concept of father-son rivalry directly invokes Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex, which is hinted at throughout the text (Bruno spies on his naked mother, when he sees his father at the massage parlour), however, Houellebecq chooses to include "all men", that is, not exclusively within the father-son relationship do men experience rivalry, but within any male relationship. In what ways is the relationship of Bruno-Michel one of pure rivalry and how can their relationship be seen as free of rivalry (how is their relationship lacking even the most basic forms of sibling rivalry)? Can it be agreed that all rivalry ultimately springs from our obsession with individuality? If so, what can we make of Michel's efforts to erradicate society of individuality through science? Between Michel and Bruno, which character can be conceived of as the most individualistic? At one point Michel questions as to whether it is even "possible to think of Bruno as an individual?...His hedonistic world view and the forces that shaped his consciousness and desires were common to an entire generation" (148). Michel, apropos Huxley's Brave New World states, "Individualism gives rise to freedom, the sense of self, the need to distinguish oneself and to be a superior to others" (133), ultimately individualism and the obsession with individualism cultivates rivalry, as does "narcissistic differentiation".
Throughout the novel I found myself thinking of Bruno and Michel as twins rather than step-brothers, which was a concept that I found reinforced by a passage of the epilogue:
"To the notion that human personality was in danger of disappearing, he proposed the concrete example of identitical human twins who, through their individual experiences and despire their shared genetic code, developed different personalities while maintaining a mysterious fraternity - which, as Hubczejak pointed out, was exactly the element necessary if humanity were to be reconciled" (261).
So, how can we conceive of human personality vs. individuality? Is Michel's scientifically engineered world the ultimate existential existence in which there is only existence with which to differentiate ourselves? Can we definitively agree upon this future as dystopic? |
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