E-Books →Without God Michel Houellebecq and Materialist Horror

Focusing on Houellebecq&;s complicated relationship with religion, Louis Betty shows that the novelist, who is at best agnostic, &;is a deeply and unavoidably religious writer.&; In exploring the religious, theological, and philosophical aspects of Houellebecq&;s work, Betty situates the author within the broader context of a French and Anglo-American history of ideas&;ideas such as utopian socialism, the sociology of secularization, and quantum physics. Materialism, Betty contends, is the true destroyer of human intimacy and spirituality in Houellebecq&;s work; the prevailing worldview it conveys is one of nihilism and hedonism in a postmodern, post-Christian Europe. In Betty&;s analysis, &;materialist horror&; emerges as a philosophical and aesthetic concept that describes and amplifies contemporary moral and social decadence in Houellebecq&;s fiction.
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