Christopher Hart
Voulez-Vous Coucher Avec Cet Homme?
Houellebecq remains a very difficult writer to assess: a giant amongst pygmies, or a sensationalist fraud? He combines the misanthropy of Céline with the dystopian futurism of J G Ballard and the bad-tempered sex of Philip Roth. He is often lacking in subtlety, but can sometimes, as in the breathtaking epilogue to his last translated novel, Atomised, be one of the most extraordinary writers of our time.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'The identification of a mighty force sparkling intermittently seems to me to constitute the finest and most consistent poetic achievement of Goudie’s book.'
Candia McWilliam on @lachlangoudie's 'The Story of Scottish Art'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/all-that-glisters
Though 'the hotel had a reputation as the area’s best, its staff were not used to looking after world leaders, so the arrival of Cuba’s new strongman, Fidel Castro, came as something of a shock.'
@dcsandbrook on @simonhallwriter's 'Ten Days in Harlem'.
http://ow.ly/I63850Bvs10
'After all, who knows what anybody is really like, or what they really think? The biographer – same as a painter of portraits – cannot help but reproduce himself to some degree.'
From the archive: Beryl Bainbridge talks to Sebastian Shakespeare.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/sebastian-shakespeare-talks-to-beryl-bainbridge