Dear Editor,
Published in early January and reportedly scheduled to appear in an English translation before the end of this year, Sérotonine (Michel Houellebecq et Flammarion, 2019) is steeped in regret and remorse. It is drenched in melancholy and nostalgia; in a longing for a past that existed when French sovereignty prevailed: before NATO; before liberalism, the ’60s and the sexual revolution; before the EU and its euro, and the fracturing of Western society – that of France in particular.
Serotonin is the neurotransmitter, the chemical found in our body that contributes to our feeling well, to our being happy; antidepressants are the medications most commonly used to help relieve the distress of depression or anxiety.
In the prologue to his majestic book The Gene: An Intimate History (Scribner, 2016), Siddhartha Mukhergee quotes Philip Larkin’s “This Be The Verse”:
“They [mess] you up, your mum and dad.
“They may not mean to, but they do.
“They fill you with the faults they had
“And add some extra, just for you.”
My apologies to P. Larkin (1922-1985), one of Britain’s “best-loved poets”, and to Professor Mukhergee who quotes the poet textually, for, above, I have substituted the second four-letter word in Larkin’s famous poem with a four-letter word of my own choosing.
François-Michel Thomas was born in La Réunion, one of the two French “Départments” in the Indian Ocean. In the carefree ’60s, when he was five or six years old, his parents placed him in the care of his paternal grandmother (in France) and they went off to live their lives. Michel chose his grandmother’s maiden last name (Houellebecq) as a pen name when he started writing.
The author had a rather difficult relationship with his mother (Lucie Ceccaldi), a Communist and social activist; a strong-willed woman who, in spite of her self-professed maternal shortcomings, lived an exemplary professional life as a caregiver. She was an esteemed medical doctor who attended to the less fortunate folks of her community in La Réunion. Mother and son had a violent dispute when she visited him in Paris in 1991. That was the last time they spoke.
In 2008, aged 83, Lucie Ceccaldi returned to France for the release of her autobiography, L’Innocente (The Innocent), in which she reproaches her son for having misrepresented her in one of his books. She reportedly tried in vain to contact him then. She died two years later in 2010 in La Réunion. Time did not bring them back together again; there was no reunion on La Réunion. There was, reportedly, no reconciliation.
Some readers draw a solid red line between authors and their protagonists as if characters were completely independent of their creators; at another extreme others allow little or no distinction between them. Houellebecq excels in confounding all such readers: his characters, his protagonists, in particular, are so much like and so different from their creator.
The narrator in Sérotonine (Florent-Claude) is a 46-year-old agronomist addicted to nicotine, alcohol and antidepressants. He is also obsessed with his eroticism or lack of and he is an expert on the history and effects of antidepressants. “Captorix”, the new (fictive) antidepressant he uses, is judged to be much better than the old ones, but it is rendering him impotent. He muses regretfully on his past relationships with women and he pays an important visit to an old friend he has not seen in 20 years.
Florent-Claude explains that “God had disposed of him,” but that he has never been but an inconsistent weakling. He blames no one but himself. He adds that his parents had done their best to give him the arms necessary in his life’s struggles, but that he has never been able to take charge of his own life; that it seems very likely that, like the first part, the second part of his life would be nothing but a painful breakdown (P. 10-34).
There are pearls of poetry, irony and wisdom in the otherwise raunchy telling of this depressive narrator. He is often caustic and downright provocative in his assessment of people and places: “The English is almost as racist as the Japanese. … Holland is not a country. How can a Dutchman be xenophobic? There is a contradiction in the terms. Holland is not a country; at best it is an enterprise” (P. 34).
Like all journeys, Houellebecq’s novel has its end; the narrator has decided that the life that awaits him is not worth living, and so he plans his exit meticulously: he will let himself fall to his death from the apartment he purchased when he had to leave his hotel due to new non-smoking ordinances.
Florent-Claude ends his narrative with the following observations: “God really looks over us, He thinks of us all the time and sometimes He gives us directives that are very precise. These impulses of love that flow into our chests to the point of rendering us breathless, these illuminations, these ecstasies, inexplicable considering our biological nature, our state of simple primates, are signs that are extremely clear.
“And today I understand the point of view of Christ, his repeated annoyances faced with the hardening of hearts: they have all the signs and they don’t consider them. Must I truly give my life for such wretched souls? Must I be that explicit? It seems I must.” (P. 347).
If to regret is to blame oneself for choices relating to one’s personal decision-making resulting in action or inaction; if remorse is an even deeper feeling of sorrow and self-reproach, an even more distressing emotion; and if redemption is rescue and recovery, atoning for a fault, an action, a judgment that was wrong, misguided or unjust, Houellebecq’s Sérotonine is a resounding “mea culpa” and a cry for redemption in a world that is desperately lacking in kindness and solidarity.
Gérard M. Hunt
