“Not quite mainstream, but does feel like a background hum”
As soon as I walked away from my iPad I realized that sounds contradictory, so I’ll expand a little bit to expose the complication:
When it happens that some prominent person says something explicitly and overtly Islamophobic, you can count on it that most leaders in politics, media, entertainment, sports etc will condemn that statement, and will do so sincerely. But alongside that you have a phenomenon like the novelist Michel Houllebecq and his reception there. He’s probably the most famous French novelist internationally, who reads to this American like an uncomplicated bigot with about exactly as much intellectual heft as Chuck Palahniuk. (Sorry, Chuck.*) And the intelligentsia in general heatedly disavow Houllebecq’s implied views; however they also praise his artfulness and basically treat him like a “bad boy” — he’s so “transgressive” — and there’s no getting around the fact that he is, in fact, a major best-selling novelist whom nobody can afford to ignore, whatever they think of him. This might be a little misleading, since the French intelligentsia has a uniquely indulgent attitude towards artists in general and literary artists in particular. But I can’t look at this particular contradiction in reception and not feel that a lot of people kind of quietly don’t completely disagree with such views.
* just to be clear, Palahniuk is definitely not a bigot.
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Date: 2022-01-15 10:22 pm (UTC)As soon as I walked away from my iPad I realized that sounds contradictory, so I’ll expand a little bit to expose the complication:
When it happens that some prominent person says something explicitly and overtly Islamophobic, you can count on it that most leaders in politics, media, entertainment, sports etc will condemn that statement, and will do so sincerely. But alongside that you have a phenomenon like the novelist Michel Houllebecq and his reception there. He’s probably the most famous French novelist internationally, who reads to this American like an uncomplicated bigot with about exactly as much intellectual heft as Chuck Palahniuk. (Sorry, Chuck.*) And the intelligentsia in general heatedly disavow Houllebecq’s implied views; however they also praise his artfulness and basically treat him like a “bad boy” — he’s so “transgressive” — and there’s no getting around the fact that he is, in fact, a major best-selling novelist whom nobody can afford to ignore, whatever they think of him. This might be a little misleading, since the French intelligentsia has a uniquely indulgent attitude towards artists in general and literary artists in particular. But I can’t look at this particular contradiction in reception and not feel that a lot of people kind of quietly don’t completely disagree with such views.
* just to be clear, Palahniuk is definitely not a bigot.