Extension of the field of the fight

The Romance Extension of the field of the fight of Michel Houellebecq left in 1994 tells the history of a Cadre average single person who oscillates between one depresses on bottom of inhumanity of the French company and a preoccupation of detachment desired and a passivity - perhaps by reaction, and accompanied by a certain disillusioned humor.

Contents

The hero is thirty years old. Tally average, systems analyst in a data-processing company, its net salary reaches 2,5 times the SMIC. In spite of this purchasing power, it does not attract the women. Deprived of beauty as of charm, prone to frequent depressive accesses, it hardly corresponds so that the women seek in priority on the market of the sex or narcissistic satisfaction. One this does not know his name but, since nobody seems to be concerned with it, the reader retains simply that this poor data processing specialist shakes much and contributes little to the embellishment of the world and the human relations.

Disqualified player but perspicacious spectator of this part of pretenses which is the modern life, the narrator describes the daily fight of his congeneric, always in search of a little love, pleasure, money. This fight, extended to all the aspects of the human life under the influence of the liberal model, transforms least our gestures into a combat epic, at the end which our position in the human society is corrected, with the rise or the fall. Even our beds are not any more one refuge. It is necessary to be distinguished there. Sexuality is a system of social hierarchy. Resigned, the narrator places himself definitively apart from this fight, locked up in the nostalgia of adolescence, wishes sometimes death without being able there to be solved.

Often, its entourage shows a dynamism of frontage which slices with its own depression. However, the disenchantment always occurs, as if it were impossible - or laughable - to imply itself in the world. The narrator described ainisi the shift enters the existential projection of one of his friends and the reality of his daily life, putting in prospect his élitiste ideology and the mediocrity for a celibacy without exit.

Subject

It is difficult to know if Houellebecq expresses through its character of the ideas which are them his or if it seeks on the contrary to make of it a kind of Anti-héros by lending strange intellectual positions to him; there of both is perhaps.

The novel exposes an interesting proposal on the analysis of the social relations man-women under the aspect of the Libéralisme.

The fight of which it is question is the Class struggle, which would be extended to the sexual field.

Extract

“In an economic system where the dismissal is prohibited, each one more or less succeeds in finding its place. In a sexual system or adultery is prohibited, each one more or less succeeds in finding his/her companion of bed. In perfectly liberal economic system, some accumulate considerable fortunes; others stagnate in unemployment and misery. In perfectly liberal sexual system, some have an erotic life varied and exciting; others are reduced to the masturbation and loneliness. The economic liberalism, it is the extension of the field of the fight, its extension to all the ages of the life and all the classes of the company. In the same way, sexual liberalism, it is the extension of the field of the fight, its extension to all the ages of the life and all the classes of the company. On the economic plan, Raphaël Tisserand belongs to the camp of the winners; on the sexual level, with that of overcome. Some gain on the two tables; others lose on both. ”

Role of the psychoanalysis (according to the hero)

The hero or anti-hero also delivers his considerations on the role supposed harmful of the Psychanalyse on the women: the psychoanalysts would proceed simply to the destruction of the innocence of generosity, and thus of “any aptitude for the love”. But perhaps the author wants it by simply showing the despair of his anti-hero there.

This rejection of the psychoanalysis is also specific to Houellebecq, which considers the psychoanalysts as charlatans who base reasoning on speculations.

Film adaptation

The novel was the object, in 1999, of a tographic adaptation Cinéma carrying the same title, carried out by Philippe Harel, with, in the principal roles, Jose Garcia, Philippe Harel and Catherine Mouchet.

Random links:Polydivisible number | Jamie Elman | Abondancism | Luc Ferland | National confederation of the workers of Senegal - Forces of the change | Vsevolod_IV_de_Kiev