Michel Houllebecq: "I am overrated as a prophet"

When Michel Houllebecq (1958) enters the room, there is silence, a silence like that of an apparition: it is him, a man who resembles his image, not so much his legend. He wears an unnecessary, baggy parka, greets us politely and wordlessly, and sits with an almost ceremonial slowness, making no noise, as if he were afraid of breaking something, perhaps the air. His nails are the color of nicotine and his gaze is hallucinated and penetrating, not always in that order; it is the gaze of someone who has gazed for a long time into the abyss, and to whom the abyss has returned something. Houllebecq maintains this timeless attitude when he begins to speak. He pauses for long periods of time, like reflections, because he knows that silence is a verb, too, and that an interview is the spectacle of one man, sometimes two, thinking live.

—A couple of weeks ago, María Pombo, one of Spain's most important influencers, said that not reading doesn't make us worse people. A national debate erupted here about whether reading makes us better people or not.

—But literature isn't for that.

—And what is it for?

—Literature is a distraction, above all. There are many people who still read, and it's because there's something unique about it. The easiest thing is to compare novels with film, because they're similar. But they're not the same. When a writer describes a character, the reader does half the work, which is why the big problem with adapting novels to film is casting, choosing the actors... Literature is a strange art, because the reader does half the work. It's not like anything else. But I don't think it makes us better people; that's not what it's there for [there's a silence]. Can we say it makes us reflect? Well, it depends on the book. There are books that make us think, others that are invitations to the imagination... But if you don't like reading, why read? It's not worth it. If you don't want to read, you shouldn't read.

—But if it demands more from us, doesn't it improve us mentally?

—Yes, it demands more from the reader... I'll put it in a slightly extreme way: basically, there isn't a big difference between reading and writing. When you read, you're already writing the book in your head. I don't know any writer who doesn't read a lot.

—And you: do you enjoy reading or writing more?

—Well, writing requires a certain amount of energy, and we don't always have it. Reading is like… [and a pause] a kind of drug. It's a drug, but it's not dangerous [and smiles]. And it's an alternative to life.

—We've been talking about the decline of reading and literature for years. Do you feel like you're practicing an art in decline?

—It's true that the number of readers is declining, but I don't think it's going to disappear completely. It's going to stabilize [and smiles]. But I don't think literature will disappear, because it's something unique. It can't be replaced by anything else.

—Not even for smartphones?

—I don't see the correlation.

—Mobile phones take away time that we could dedicate to reading.

—It's true… When you spend enough time with a smartphone, you reach a level of numbness where you no longer know what you're doing. And that numbness is very visible today.

—You don't have a smartphone or social media.

—No. However, I use the internet and email a lot. What scares me about smartphones, from the start, regardless of social media, is being able to access my emails at any time. I like having moments when I can't access my emails, when I'm away. And as for social media… I'm not interested in that world; I'm too old for it.

—You're a keen science fiction reader, and in fact, you've set many of your novels in the near future. What does artificial intelligence inspire in you? Curious, fearful?

—AI is the only somewhat interesting thing that's happened in the last thirty years. Social media, at its core, isn't interesting at all. Artificial intelligence is, though I don't know what the future of literature will be like in this regard... However, I've tried writing texts with AI, and it was very interesting. Because I realized that there were quite a few published novels—I won't name names, I'm not that bad—that could have been written by an AI. They were very similar. It's not so easy to see the difference between AI and the human hand... It's something difficult to define. I think artificial intelligence fails to integrate surprise. You give it words, ideas, characters, and it plays with those elements, but it doesn't stray far from that playing field. Humans, on the other hand, are capable of making strange, unexpected, surprising associations. But they can improve a lot over time. For now, we're ahead.

—Will writers end up competing against machines like Kasparov did with Deep Blue?

—In the long run, humans can't beat machines. They'll lose, sooner or later. It's inevitable. It's a matter of calculating speed.

—In a lengthy interview published in June in the Danish newspaper 'Information,' you said: "The 'Charlie Hebdo' killers have won. They don't make caricatures like that anymore."

—That's true. The idea that the Charlie Hebdo people had gone too far is widespread in France, increasingly so. It's almost a majority opinion. The Charlie Hebdo killers have won.

—Are you not confident that this situation can be reversed and the core value of freedom of expression can be defended again?

—I don't think it's the spirit of our time. The spirit of our time is: let's not go too far, this deserves respect, let's not exaggerate freedom of expression... It's a defensible point of view, but it's a big change.

—What do you think?

—I don't agree, but I'll keep quiet [and laughs]. No, I just spoke: I never keep quiet. It's a very profound movement.

—In fact, in the United States, with Trump's return, it seems that the cancellation has simply changed sides. But it hasn't disappeared.

—The United States is a country capable of rapid and extreme shifts, much more so than Europe, where things change slowly. So yes, it's possible that the United States is heading in that direction... In France, it's sometimes said—the left, in fact—that the right won the battle of ideas, which is completely false. But if this were true, we'd end up seeing that the right could become as intolerant as the left. It's not impossible. But we're not there yet.

—But are we going in that direction?

—Yes, but very slowly.

—In Spain, the genocide in Gaza has been a central topic of public conversation for several weeks, even months. The government's position is clear. How is it being experienced in France?

France can't be compared to other countries on this issue, because there are more Muslims than in other European countries. And also more Jews. So the situation is very tense, extremely tense, so much so that the easiest thing to do is to say nothing. I recently went to Israel, and upon returning to France, I had many problems. The mere fact of going to Israel was perceived as an abomination, as consent to genocide. Since I had stopped following current events, I hadn't realized that the situation had become so severe so quickly.

—Some people read your novels in search of answers or sociological keys to understanding the present and the ills of our time. Do you think literature can be a place to go to find the pulse of an era?

—Yes, I think so. If you want to know what the mood was like in France in 1830, the best thing to do is read Balzac. He's a living testament to what worried and occupied people at that time. Balzac, for example, showed the enormous importance money suddenly took on. In thirty years, everything changed in France in that sense. Before the Revolution, it wasn't so important, because there was hardly any movement between social classes: you were determined by birth. And since you couldn't change it, people thought less about money... In fact, I think the difficult thing about writing a historical novel is getting into the mind of another era. I know of very few successful cases.

—Is it easier to write about the near future?

—Yes, I think so. In fact, novels set in the near future aren't considered science fiction novels, but rather anticipatory ones. Science fiction has more to do with distant futures, with pure imagination. It doesn't so much try to predict as to unleash the imagination.

—You have a reputation as a prophet. How are you doing?

—Well, I think I'm overrated as a prophet.

—He also has a reputation as a misanthrope.

—That's more deserved: it's quite true. It's a shame, but it's true. 'The Misanthrope' is a Molière comedy, perhaps his best. It's not that the protagonist doesn't like people, it's that he doesn't like social life [he leaves a silence again]. There's something that's lost in the social. In the contact between two individuals, there's something false, something artificial. We're always playing a role. That's what Molière showed us.

—Is truth lost in the social?

—Yes: it is something systematic and automatic.

—However, despite this misanthropy, you've written a lot about love. From 'Widening the Battlefield' to your latest book. Do you still believe in love at this point?

—Yes, love exists [he leaves a long, argumentative pause]. I don't like Lacan very much, but there's a phrase of his that's not bad: "Love exists, but it's a mystery." It doesn't fit into his system. When I talk about love, I always repeat the same thing: love exists because its effects can be observed.

—Like black holes?

—Yes, like black holes. It's the general principle: there is no effect without a cause. Yes, black holes are a good comparison, because they suck in the energy of everything around them, and nothing comes out of this hole. How interesting.

—I bounce an idea off him: "I know the truth will get me into trouble."

—That's a tendency I unfortunately already had as a child. Even then, the truth caused me problems. When everyone seemed to agree on something, I was the one who said, "No, I don't see it that way." The problem is not keeping quiet. Lying is one thing, but you can always keep quiet. There have been many times in my life when it would have been better if I had kept quiet.

—Do you regret many things?

—It's not my style to regret my mistakes, but it's too late to develop this.