A heavyweight champion of French provocation, Michel Houellebecq has written a doorstopper, Annihilation (Anéantir) , that is ultimately a treatise on mortality.
Whilst highly readable, it lacks an obvious plot structure, rarely bothering to use the terrorism as more than background material for Raison’s career. My expectations were for more politics from Houellebecq, but instead, he follows a family tragedy. Expecting an unvarnished thriller, I was left with a provincial tale of domesticated trauma. The terrorist plot remains unexplained. Any sense of mystery is lacking.
The novel is set in the year 2027, although there is no indication that it is set in the near future. Paul Raison is a high-ranking, disenchanted civil servant and advisor to the French Finance Minister, Bruno Juge.
The initial story revolves around digital terrorism – online deepfake videos —one depicting the Finance Minister being guillotined. Another plot is Paul Raison’s personal life. His marriage to Prudence has gone cold, and his father, a former secret service agent, suffers a debilitating stroke.
The story moves away from the terrorism and politics and instead focuses on his family. So the thriller elements fall away. He goes back to care for his father and a “personal” meditation on ageing, illness, and a revival of a marriage. I was quite baffled about this as it lacked reason and became a straightforward family drama. Whilst deeply touching in how the individual tragedies were handled, the initial anticipation of the terrorism plot left a bad taste in the mouth.
The investment to continue came from how the scenes involving Paul’s father and the rekindling of his relationship with Prudence show tenderness.
Houellebecq keeps dropping into politics with the election and political branding. There is a vague reference to Macron with the outgoing president as a somewhat weak figure but it is too light to have impact.
Which is annoying in how it is little more than a backdrop to the story. In this sense, it never rises to the state of being a state-of-the-nation novel. This shows a change in Houellebecq’s motivations from politics to family.
The final scenes around death are deeply touching, but do not warrant the title of Annihilation. The respect for Catholicism points to how people facing their own mortality turn to religion even when they have previously turned away from it.
Annihilation is Houellebecq’s attempt to find a “transcendent serenity” amidst a collapsing society , which is touching but flawed in how it fails to give deep context to the world around it.
