Submission by Houellebecq - with Henry Oliver

Hi Henry and welcome. Always a pleasure. So today we're going to be doing a single book dive and I w was looking forward to this for quite some time. This is a long time coming. And I think there might be some spoilers for people who haven't read the book. So I would say this is a post reading episode. Probably even read twice before you come to episode, I would say. And we're going to discuss the literature and the philosophy, the sociology of the book Submission by Michelbeck.

It's one of those books. I hate plot spoilers, I hate s plot summaries, I think it's just a disease of literary criticism. But we can't discuss it without talking about the ending at all. So the problem. That is the problem. Look away now, kids. So here we go. So again I'm going to assume you've read the book at least twice a priori. Now Henry, the first thing we need I think to get to terms with is the Surface reading of the book. Yeah.

Which is this is a book about Islam in France or broadly in Europe and that is a bad thing. I'm using air quotes here for listeners. That is generally how most people perceive and of course that is the complete wrong way to see the book. But w what's your view on that one? I don't know if it's completely the wrong way to see the book. What happens is that an Islamic government is elected and France becomes

governed by Shia Islam. Men have multiple wives, women wear the burqa, educational institutions are reordered according to religious ideas and the main character that we follow is a professor of French literature and has been under the Western system, alienated, dissatisfied, typical Hellbeck, he's dead on the inside, everything is miserable. And eventually he submits.

to the governing order, but also to the idea of Islam. He's no longer a Western individual, he decides to become a member of that order, temperamentally or ideologically, however you want to say it. So I don't think it can be right to say that the idea of an Islamic quote unquote takeover of France is the wrong reading. Even though I agree it's not the whole reading, but there is an extent to which Wellbeck is, I think, genuinely concerned with that question.

Okay, I think that's fair. I guess when I want to say it is not about or I stress about Islam is usually how it's perceived. It's like the point of the book is to discuss Islam. From non-Islam to Islam is the arc of the book. Of course, yes, that's clearly to surface. So that's why I try to push hard against that interpretation. But yes, the Islam idea features. as a core tenant of what I guess you will come to the underlying raison desk of the book, i essentially speaking.

If it's not about that, what is it about? Get through it.

'Cause I see I do think I I do think Wellbeck is writing about this what he calls in this book and in the elementary particles and elsewhere, the suicide of the West. And There is an extent to which what happens in this book is that France gives up on itself. and Islam French French version of Islam does not give up on itself, the replacement, as some people would say, happens. It is left open I think important to say this, that there will be future elections.

And so it may be that in the future this government is removed from office. But it seems pretty clear that culturally there's a sort of great acceptance of what happens in the novel. Quellbeck sometimes makes the point that this is for economic reasons, sometimes for political reasons. sometimes for frankly sexual reasons. Maybe it's not about from not Islam to Islam, and it's more about what he calls the suicide of a culture. But are the two not so entailed within each other?

Yes, the Islam feature of the book is relevant to the suicide feature of the book. But I think the Islam feature is more or less Almost superficial to the underlying suicide part. And I take that reading pr from the beginning, which is the preface or the epigraph to the book from En Route by Huisimon. of course the book starts off the first line itself with a reference to

how he is a scholar of Wiesmon and this was his most important time and he was finishing his dissertation on Wiesmon. But the page prior The first thing you read when you open the book is a quote from Wiesman, of course, on route. the character that We Smon is writing about is complaining about the effort or the absence that he is feeling that where he wants to potentially get to is Catholicism.

And to me, that opens the core irony of the book. We are talking about something which we are not talking about. which is also the suicide part. So Islam is a good counterweight to think about the real core feature of this which is hey, what is that absence that we are missing in our own societies? But Islam just holds a mirror up to it. I think that is why I try to push the you kinda have to talk more about the absence than the actual thing itself.

Yes. And it's certainly true that this is a feature of other Wellbeck novels that do not feature Islam or do not feature it in this kind of structural way. and his criticism of individualism I think entails both that it is secular and therefore that it does not offer a suitable foundation for human progress because it leaves people without any kind of meaning, belief system, purpose. So I accept all of that. But I think the point of this book is that

the suicide of the West is endogenous, as some of our Mercatus colleagues might say. It's so inherent to Western liberalism, that rather than going back to Catholicism, which is the foundation on which the culture was built, it's the foundation of the liberal idea, they will submit to Islam, which is a fundamental break. I think

Huelbeck would say it wasn't a fundamental break, it was a sort of long evolution out of something that ended up killing itself. But Islam represents a fundamental break. And I think this book is actually pretty clear that it is A break that allows people to act on some of the desires that they had not previously been allowed to act on and that's one reason why the break is so accepted.

I'm not sure if I agree that it is such a clear example of well back putting up a clear example of Islam being a fundamental break. from what has come what's currently here or what's currently being exhausted. So I made that point in reference to some of the flourishes that come through the book. One quick example is the way how the Paris mosque was introduced to us in the book. And it was introduced as There are two colleagues, it was Francois and forgot his name. He's the younger one.

He say hey and you want to get some coffee, let's go to the Paris Mosque. Now people who are not very familiar with France might think this is a complete fiction. This is a real place. The Grand Paris Mosque is there in Paris. It's a typical place for a drink tea. So the banks drink tea and some baklava and you can go right now into Paris Mosque and go to the touristy area and drink some tea and baklava. It is such a central part of Paris. Still wonder why that was the initial choice made.

Of course I could be reading too much into this, but when the Paris Moth was constructed, it was not constructed via invasion forces. it was t constructed by the government of France to give reverence to the Muslims that fought for France in World War One. And they paid for it, the city of Paris gave the land. It was one of the very few times where the government of France broke his secular rules to build a quote unquote religious Institution

But they called it a Muslim institute. They have it some study rooms, a tea house and things to make it seem much more secular other people might think it is. And now it's just seem like a normal feature of the Paris skyline. It's saying Moorish Hispanic culture, architecture as Lucia in Spain. So I when I see that I'm like is he trying to hint

at a sort of continuity. To me as well is a bit darker in the sense that the Islam isn't the break. It is the haunting that you can actually just move towards quite easily. It's not a jump with a slip. I agree with that. I think that's absolutely right. I found this on this reading it affected me more emotionally and I think part of it is because what you're saying, the suicide of the West evolved out of what the West is in this novel.

By a break, what I mean is for example from monogamy to polygamy, things like that. Whereas liberalism and Christianity actually are, apart from the secularism, in many ways quite similar. By the time the France of the novel has become Islamic, all sorts of things are changing overnight. Basic norms are being fundamentally changed.

And I think part of his point is it evolves out and it's a normal part of French life and it's been there all the way. But that's exactly the problem because at that point you're prepared to step into this Right. And to begin with he doesn't want to do it. He he's offered a job. No, he's not offered a job. He just takes the retirement money and he finds out he could have a job if he signs up and converts to Islam and he thinks

Crazy, I'm not gonna do that. And as you say, he just accommodates himself to it quite naturally. It's just already within him. But that doesn't mean it's not a fundamental break to become y Quellbeck goes to some trouble. He goes to the boss's house the head of the president of the university who then becomes Secretary of this and cabinet member and he meets in the hallway a young woman, or I think she's a teenager.

15. Fighteen. Yes. And she is just wearing ordinary secular French liberals would think just think ordinary clothes and she shrieks and runs away. And the president of the university comes down and says, Oh, she is appalled that you've seen her without the burqa. And we learn that she's one of his new wives.

So that's a very clear example of those scenes in previous Hellbeck novels. It would have been on the beach, it would have been highly sexualized, it would have been maybe a bit perverted, or there'd be something like that, right? The girl is now in a fundamentally different position morally, socially, economically. Her life will never be what it would otherwise have been. She'll never be seen in the same way. I think those sorts of breaks are fundamental.

Yes. Whereas just to make the point doubly clear, if they'd reverted to Catholicism, there would have been much more continuity for her. Not as much, but As much. But more, yeah. That was on page In the English version of the book. He mentions again this is a de polygamy point. And look at how he lived. It is the boss we're talking about. A forty year old wife to do the cooking, a fifteen year old wife for whatever else.

Ellipsis. No doubt he had one or two wives in between, but I couldn't think of how to ask. So this is uh it was the same point. This sexualization of Islam. is a key feature of how he thinks about why he wants to potentially convert to Islam. And we will see some hints of that in other places in the book as well.

But before we get towards that, I I wanna pull back a bit more to a recurring feature of the book that runs through every page, every hint, every thesis, every comment. We're on is the mirror to everything we're doing here. And people haven't really taken much time to think about why. Of all the potential people in French or world literature, did Huelbeck choose Huismann to be the core anchoring of the literature professor's work.

How about you? I have some views on this of course, but why do you think that Relbec are we small is so relevant to understand to really think about the themes here in submission? It is an interesting point and it is reinforced to us when

the narrator is offered the chance to do the Pleiadee. That's Helbeck reaching out and saying, Please realize that Whisman is underappreciated and he's so important. It's a very good moment. And it's dealt with so wonderfully because Whisman is a sort of nihilist.

and there is a w a wonderful moment, obviously upsetting, but a w wonderfully done moment when Francois is working on his preface to this edition and it's stimulating, rewarding work, and it's the pinnacle of his career, and he's spent his whole life becoming capable of doing this and he's finally getting this guy into this edition and people will pay attention. And he's so dead on the inside. And it's such a dramatic letdown and leaves him with a kind of emptiness. Which is a very Huismanesque.

Okay. Response. And I think that there are obviously varieties of nihilism in the European novel. But Helbeck is not a nihilist. So in the sense that Bazarov in Fathers and Sons is a nihilist. Actually Wellbeck is opposed to that. He's not a blunt materialist He doesn't think everything can be explained with a chemistry textbook or whatever it is Bazarov s carries round preaching to people about.

the elementary particles is an earlier statement of that view. And Huisman's gives him a source or a fount of not quite nihilism, but what it means for a man or a person become inert, to just lose all feeling, to stop being to become idle in the real sense. And it's that is the strain. of European culture that he thinks is leading to the suicide. He's not a bazaar off and he's trying to position himself in that line. And it's a lot of line of thinking actually that gets as much airtime

The question of whether Helbeck is a nihilist is a live question, and it shouldn't be, because he's gone to great pains to show that he's the opposite of a nihilist. And one of the things that's so m moving about his work is that he understands the hedonism of ordinary life. I think in this book Francois talks about the undeniable will to live. Yes. And Quismans is the place he goes to get the material for what it means to lose there.

So going back again to the epigraph coming into the book and you read the epigraph you don't think that much about it But then you get to the end and then if you let me you go and read Wiesman for the first time mm you have to wonder why of all the Weisman texts he chose En route as the epigraph. Because you think about this book. uh book this book meaning submission. You would think it would be p something from Against Nature. I actually don't like the title in English of that. It's Akraboh in

French and a cono in Spanish which is a gli again the grain in one of the gritty translations. That's also sometimes the English translation too. You would think it's that. But Henriute was in the Catholic cycle of tetrology for So is he mocking is he mocking me with this particular epigraph? It feels now somehow even like more haunting to see a en route epigraph from Luis Mon to open this particular book of all books.

This is not a fun story. This doesn't end in the place that we think it's gonna end. That alone to me is very odd. But I think you've read more Wiesman than me, so I can't give you as good an answer. But I think you're talking about the right thing and Francois does talk about the conversion of Huisman and the change in his work and his plan for the work to be in two volumes reflects that break in Huisman. I took that as further evidence of what I was saying earlier that the West

because it is committing suicide, will not be going back to its quote unquote own religion. And I think that's why that opening epigraph is mocking you as it were, because the provocation of the book is that

once you have become desiccated in the way that Huisman describes and there are some wonderful descriptions of human desiccation and submission. Francois's problem is not that he comes to accept life or that he becomes revivified with the idea of having restraint and structure and all the things that Quelbeck thinks are necessary for Meaning that liberalism can't provide. It's that he's prepared to just submit because there are indulgences available or pleasures available.

The restraints that Catholicism would put upon him are one way of thinking about this, restraints on him. Whereas submission puts restraints on the women. Islam puts restraints on the women. And I think that is part of the desiccation of Francois.

And uh you made that slip just now by trying to point it out, which is Islam Islam means submission. The title of the book is doing a lot of work. Yes in the book. Another thing I wanna point out which is to me in terms of this Weesmon Nexus here. So I have a personal view. I like to read Francois as Dorian Gray. Okay. Not Dorian Gray in the world, in the picture of Dorian Gray. So literally the picture of Dorian Gray leaves The house as walking in the window. Francois is the painting.

First one is the phone. Modern Front is the real Gorye. And he thinks that this in Dorian Gray The the painting is what absorbs the decay. It absorbs the atrophy. It absorbs the moral degradation. It absorbs the decadence in many ways. But then that is hidden away and you Dorian, real Dorian, is allowed to go into the world and be looked at as unmaimed by the world. However, Francois to me, if if you

trapped the real Dorian and put the painting in the world and you see all the decay, you see all the moral atrophy in the world as it is. And we're forced now to look at the painting. And I think that view because of how the literal book, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar What is pretty well established. The book that corrupts Dorian along with Lauren Henry in the yellow book referenced is

Weisman. It even came out on the trial of Oscar Wilde where he was like, Is the book you're mentioning? It's actually very decadent. So we know that Oscar Wilde loved Wiesman. And even when you look at, for example, Wilde Salome, it's not Salome from the Bible. It's Salome from Wiesman. It's very clear. So Wiesman is a very big feature of Dorian Gray.

So it feels to me like mocking again where he's saying, No no, this is actually even a different thing than what we're actually on the surface thinking.

I think this is all very apt and I think the wild interest in Huisman, as you say, is clearly at least a parallel to submission, if not some sort of direct influence. But do you not think that if we take Francois to be the painting? that he is mocking you because he's saying you'd sooner give in. The Wildean system can't hold. That it's fundamentally unstable and you would rather submit.

This is why it's very uncomfortable to read this book. Because I think that's the case. I do think most people I'm not sure me personally has more introspection that has to happen, but I think most people would rather submit. to this new world that offers you all these other I suppose Wellbeck's point is that we're not going to be able to do I promise. made that I it's weird. This is the first time p anyone's using this sexual

drive of men to talk about this what was the term people use now? The prominence of incels is actually quite a good example of why Islam could be taken root in our Western culture. not something you hear about enough. Okay, don't think of A Slam as sexualization. Granted g given how well Beck pushes it here, this is actually a pretty substantial drive.

Yeah, and he talks about that in the conversation between the president and Francois and Francois is interested in how polygamy works. And the president says it means the high status men can be married. What I find so interesting about submission is that some of the things he's concerned about in a way have already happened in the West, which is The high status men are much more likely to be married now than the incels and so on.

And Francois says, Oh, I'm not a heist I'm just some desiccated old professor of French literature and The professor says, No, we could get you we some young wives. You're probably a three wife kind of guy and we can pay you some money. And at this point Franco Oh, maybe this is qu I system sounds good to me. And there are other books that deal with this topic like The Handmaid's Tale. Yeah. It's got something in common with nineteen eighty four.

And the dystopia that has often been imagined, P D. James, is in response to some kind of internal crisis to the society, an authoritarian government would take over from within. And I think Wellbeck is not talked about as dystopian in a genre way. He's not compared to Atwood and Orwell so much.

But it is interesting that the dystopia could come from without. Obviously it's not without exactly, but from a different tradition. As you say, with the incels and many other aspects of contemporary society the emphasis that's put on status in in marriage and in partnerships and so forth, sortitative mating. Just the way those things are discussed. I think it has a lot more in common with submission than with the handmaid's tale.

And maybe maybe the Liberal West does need m a warning from Helbeck more than it does from the Handmaid's Tale. Maybe not. But th it's an interesting topic. It definitely is.

Let's focus on the sex part of it. Mm. That I think some reviewers just that's the only thing they talk about, the misogyny aspect. One of the C curious things about discussion. It is very frequently extraordinarily not in a bad way, is frequent vulgarity in this book. Do you think this book's vulgar? Vulgar in the prime basis of that term. Not vulgar like oh my gosh, gosh, my pearls vulgar. It takes the way how men think about women seriously.

I find serotonin vulgar in the straightforward sense. I think the elementary particles is at times very good at representing vulgarity and there's a voyeur in that book. It's really quite Unfortunately unforgettable. One thing I like about submission is that he handles the vulgarity qua very sensitively, much better, much more subtly. The sort of symbolic meaning of all the sex acts is much more Apparently.

I agree. I I think we had mentioned bef in the previous conversation. The last time he had said with Miriam, the a student, the passage opens up where h d he awoke at four AM. Anytime in Western literature, four A. M. we know that signifies. Ha ha ha. And but the way he approached that sex scene, it's hard to read that and think I hear women.

I think what's happening in submission, like in the elementary particles, there's a lot of sadness and a lot of the difficulties of love. But there's also, as I say, the hedonism of ordinary life. And it's really affected me. It's a sad book. People Find it so hard to just be in love, just have a normal relationship, to just live with sexual pleasure without it becoming complicated or deadening or whatever.

And the characters in that book uh manage that and then they don't. And in this book he manages it much less and much more fleetingly, and that scene stands out as really almost the only happy moment in the book. Certainly the only happy sexual moment. Not the only moment of gratification, but the only happy, joyful moment and this is part of the desiccation or the suicide of the West, that it has lost the ability in Huelbeck's mind, to do what should come naturally.

which has been building in his work for some time, but comes out very poignantly here. And so I don't think of it as vulgar, I think of it s more tragic. I think he thinks it's tragic. I think he pr presents it as a tragic thing that they can reach that point. And then They go their separate ways and they just don't have the will to stay together or make it work. And it is actually curious how right after that scene there was a completely separate scene. We forgot about that, let's move on.

And that's what happens to Miriam. She moves on, she forgets about it, he gets that sort of email later. Now, I do think that's because Francois as part of his being so decadent and I I think the book thinks degraded. Is sleeping with his students. So part of the suicide of the West is that he's conducting his romantic life in a purposefully ephemeral That's right.

and detached manner. But it is m more tragic because of that. Yes. Yeah. Because they did inf out of out of that ridiculous situation, they did find something happy. And again in the elementary particles there's a lot of talk of forty year old men finding eighteen year old girls attractive. That's right. And in that book, The Unworkability, because of the as I say, vividly Hwelbeckian voyeurism. Yeah. But in this book it's really

Just sad. I sound sentimental. But I think sentimentality is actually a big part of Hellbeck. I don't hear it discussed very much, but he's got a broken heart.

Yeah, I agree. I never read him as particularly angry or nihilistic. I'm gonna get back to the nihilistic point, but before that, another literary figure that was mentioned not super often. I mentioned at particular strategic points, Grenade Genon. Again, this is the Elbec is playing with me arc on my points here. The cat and the mouse.

Yeah. Because Grenagano of course is another t I'm not sure y we have the same people don't read anymore in even in France the people don't read either, uh personally. Because of a tourist figure of French metaphysics and philosophy in the nineteen hundreds. He was a a well known French metaphysician, he was well read, and he converted to Islam. He converted to Islam for the reasons that Wellbeck is toying with us here in submission. He wrote a book called The Crisis of the Modern World.

where he expressed these opinions that we are exhausted, we are running on fumes, we are not dynamic, we've lost our way. Essentially the suicide of the rest are yet again. But for him, unlike Weissman, Weissman did the Catholic transition, the conversion. But Renee Genon already he said eighteen uh nineteen what, nineteen twenty, something like that, was al already said, no I Catholicism also is already exhausted. It's Islam.

But this this happened and I kinda wonder why didn't Wellbet put more emphasis on Crenegano in the book, but rather the Huisman art. Or even d talk about Renegan on more in the book, besides these careful references by some other person is a scholar of Again, I feel like he's again toying with me here again we're saying, but what actually am I trying to to tell you by not really centralizing in on more and just sprinkling him here from other main characters?

What do you think he is trying to tell you? I feel again, I feel like for all of the for all of the tragedy that the book is saying, I think it's some kind of hopefulness still in the sense that maybe we don't actually we really have to succumb to the determinism of the exile of the West. And again, this to me again is in the last line, but we'll get to that at some point in this conversation. But I still feel he's at least

not to the very end, but at least within the book, he's pushing back on his own argument, which is, No, I think maybe this is actually still potentially a way forward. We we don't have to actually realize or we don't have to succumb to suicide. We still have hope. So it feels like some kind of optimism layered in with the tragedy. But it still feels like he's a toying going on as well. You don't think Submission is a deterministic novel? No. Why? So well better.

Yeah, yeah. So back wrote a book about Schopenhauer a it published around I think thousand five. I read the Spanish version. I I mentioned this uh one thing to note, the Spanish version was translated by Let me remember the name by Jean Rambawk. He's actually from Barcelona, who's a cat Catalan name. He's the same person that translated the book Submission into Spanish.

That's why I mentioned I think that the Spanish version has a bit more oomph to the feeling of Bellbeck compared to the English version. So sometimes I have to go between the French and the Spanish and the English and I'm like, what is Laurence Stein doing? But we we'll get back to that. Because he wrote the book on Schopenhauer.

And you go through the book and you kind of feel like well Beck is arguing. He's arguing. It it's not simply I think Shibhai is correct. It's more no, this is not enough. And that's why you think submission isn't deterministic? I think that submission may not be a chopin Howrian book or whatever. I don't think submission necessarily expresses the Schopenhauer philosophy. But I do think that Huisman is one influence on this.

I do think that Francois is guided by the circumstances around him into his conclusion. He's not guided by himself. Угу. And th that is the most pessimistic thing about the book. And I think But yeah, that that's pretty deterministic.'Cause he tries to opt out and he doesn't believe and it gets him anyway. And it mu again, much more subtly compared to other dystopias, it happens much more

slippingly or slidingly or there's no sort of dramatic mo I know there's that joke about you have these wives and these Yes. But i he comes to it gradually and he doesn't quite realise and maybe we won't quote the last line'cause we've given spoilers but that would be too much But the last line is really upsetting and powerful. No, we we have to quote it because unfortunately we've we've warned you. We've warned you it is the very it is like the key line of the book. We cannot cut it.

So having submitted Converted to Islam, taken the job. We don't know if he's covered. No, because he has to get the job at university, doesn't he? Yeah. But we don't know. We don't literally know. Rashid. But I agree with that. I agree with that, but we still don't know if that happens. And the reason why I'm pushing the last line, so in the English, the last line is again a separate paragraph. The last line says I would have nothing to mourn.

Yes, but it should be you told me regret. I haven't looked at the French copy but it's regret in the French. Ja, so... Also the English one the Spanish one is not regret, but it's a similar vibe. It's very different from more. However, this is a massive however that m I might be pushing too hard here, but I think it's a massive however. In France, this line has a p very unique connotation as well.

How how do I even get into this? There's a very famous song in France by Elise Piaf that you might know. Of course. Exactly. It's just for listeners you will go and check on YouTube. Uh this is also the song you use in exception, of course. And it's a sort of song of resistance. It's not it's it is uh not only is it a song about resistance. This is deeply interwoven with French political history. Yes, yeah, exactly.

Whereas that this was the song that she dedicated to a troopers in Algiers war and it was a whole thing and then the troopers adopted the song for themselves and use it when they do a parades and they're marching. because it's not simply a resistance to anything. It's also tied in to s French culture. Yeah. To French resistance to Yeah. So it it feels like it It's the French equivalent of Mine Eyes have seen the glory.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I feel like you are not going to use that line on a Singular paragraph. No. As soon as you told me that it should be regret instead of mourn, oh so it's a reference to Eat of Pierre. Ha ha ha. It's a reference to a PF and this it means a lot more and it has a resonance that Mourn just kills. That's why it's the But to me that only reinforces the determinism.

Let me let's go two pages back. I'm gonna I'm gonna read you a passage. Sure. Because I'm a literary person, so we just have to resort to going back to the text. He's this is Francois narrating He says at the beginning of this page the conversion ceremony itself would be very simple, and it would take place at the Paris Mosque, as you can see. referenced earlier. The idea was that I should bear witness in front of my new Muslim brothers, my equals in the sight of God. So whether or not

He has converted at the end of the novel, which I agree with you. He narrates what will happen in his conversion. So I think we can take it that. The novel ends before the conversion, but it ends with the what is perhaps more important to Hellbeck. It ends with the inner convert. Inside himself, he has decided to submit. He has converted already. In the eyes of God, as it were, he's made this decision. He's changed. And he says.

That morning I would be specially allowed inside the Hamam, which was ordinarily closed to men. Wrapped in a bathrobe I would walk the long corridors with their arch-topped colonnades, their walls covered in the finest mosaics. Then in a smaller room, also covered in mosaics of greater refinement, bathed in a bluish light, I would let the warm water wash over my body for a long, a very long time, until my body was purified.

Then I'd get dressed in the new clothes I'd brought with me, and I would enter into the great hall of worship. Silence would reign all around me. Images of constellations, supernovas, spiral nebulas would pass through my mind, and also images of springs, of untouched mineral deserts, of vast, nearly virgin forests. Little by little I would penetrate the grandeur of the cosmic order. Then in a calm voice I would pronounce the following words.

which I had learned phonetically. And I'm not going to say those words'cause I will get it wrong. It will be offensive. But he says, I testify that there is no God but God, that Muhammad is the messenger of God. And then it would be over. From then on I'd be a Muslim. That is not a good thing.

Uh yeah, unarguable, no. And then you read the last paragraph in the light of that, I've been given another chance, it would be the chance that a second life with very little connection to the old one I would have nothing to regret. Straightforward enough. Mm my issue though, Henry. I know that you never think it's straightforward enough. My my issue, Henry, is these few these last few pages here. feel so estranged from the Francois that we've met. Exactly.

So you c and it's just all just Paragraph and paragraph or paragraph of conditionality. And I do wonder if It really is that shit far. I it just feels so foreign to the grand squad that was in the Black Vir that was in the church of the Black Virgin and just felt nothing. I felt emptiness. And now he's now talking about bathed and body purified.

it feels again, it's not like I'm saying it's a show play, but it does feel like he's discussing something in such an abstract literary way that is seems like foreign from his own life that at a point where it's just mere discussion. And I feel like that last line goes to the end because it's such a strongly strongly conditionality that of course you can read it in terms of yeah, this will happen.

Or you can read it of m this is potentially a place where we can say we can forget what just happened and we can actually fight for something else.

I'm going to read you another parameter. Okay, Henry. This is from sh shortly before what I read before. The reception was winding down and the night was surprisingly balmy. I walked home without really thinking, in a sort of reverie. Yes, my intellectual life was finished. though I could still participate in vague colloquia and live on my savings and my pension.

But I started to realise, and this was a real novelty, that life might actually have more to offer. Francois has changed. That's what makes the book so upsetting. I I'm not gonna say okay. I'm not thinking I'm not saying that he definitely has or has not changed. I'm saying that the playfulness of this part of the book is to me the thing that is pushing one particular view of a direction, but given what has happened could also push a view that yeah, this is a hypothetical.

I don't mean that lightly. Yeah. What is it in the text that brings you to this view? This is where I should have a note. Because I I'm not aga I'm not against what you say. To me it's primarily The way how he The way how he discuss his experience in the church in the black Virgin Church when he was tr praying to get some light in the same route as Weismon to feel something spiritual with God in the

that town in France. It was so banal discussion about how I just feel nothing. I I don't think you go from that quickly from that. to this kind of waxing poetically about the purity of my body. Again, because it is not like it has happened, it's not like it will happen. It's like this is all preface by preface. And I feel again that when you are going and this all it's all comes to the very, very end. When you're going from

When you are making these comics again, this is a a completely separate chapter. When you're making these comics right up to that final line, mm it's such a weird thing to put just in a conditional. That's all the way to the end. That again because I feel like it's some strange toying sensation Especially given where we started out with Weesmon. There's no mention of Weisman as part of it. She's peculiar in many ways too. And also given where the book starts off from the epigraph to the end.

when you read the other like other books of Wellbeck i you don't really get A character. Yeah of course people could change their writing styles, of course, of course. But you don't usually get a character that has such epiphanies. But isn't that the whole point of the idea of submission? The internal change may not be

authentic, but it is a huge internal change. He's decided, hasn't he, that since he's desiccated he may as well submit? Not that he's necessarily found true meaning, but but he has fundamentally converted That's the whole point of the conditional writing. Yeah. I think that yes, it is possible and is likely one can read it that way. That's not what I'm saying not. H however I I feel I suspect that given the route towards there, again from en route all the way down here.

I'm I guess I'm at f I'm contesting the deterministic view of the submission. Which is what I guess I have some pains. The conditionality of it at the end and the fact that it's a submission rather than a Explicitly genuine conversion. I think makes it more deterministic. He has been left without a choice other than to submit. The all the talk about the building of a new Roman Empire, the expansion into the terr into the exact territories that

Rome used to occupy this being the sort of explicit policy of the university president who I mean by the end he's the third most senior man in the government or whatever. Only reinforces that, doesn't it? This is a movement of history. And Francois's mistake was to think that he would be an authentic individual or could get back to being an authentic individual during the movement of history, but no. And the bigger determinism is that

Catholic, the revival of that will not be either of those two things. It will be this break and this new thing. And he's caught up in the in that great wave and he hasn't really there's nothing he can do. So I mean that sense then. Yeah, I think Quelbeck goes to quite a lot of trouble to to place the determinism not just at the level of his immediate circumstances. Right. This is He pulls back quite quickly and shows you this is happening on a very big scale. Okay. That's fair. That's fair.

And that particular point you mentioned about how Ben Abbas has d was this so Robert Richarder, the president we keep mentioning, it's his name, and then he becomes a very senior person in the government of Ben Abbas who was the Muslim Brotherhood leader who became president of France. I actually like how they're tied not tied, but I like how they're m

really push that'cause that wasn't necessary to mention the book at all. No. Uh it wasn't really was not necessary. It's the some inside politics conversation. Yeah. But I also like it because it is realistic for France in this sense. So again we forget now, but Napoleon the third had a big vision for France as an Arab kingdom. It was his his entire preference towards actually being more in Mediterranean. Even Charles de Gaulle

had a large like third wave view after the Cold War where he wanted France to have a bigger role in I think the key ally of Muslim nations of the big Charles de Gaulle plan. It even continued J Jacques Chirac where he has large idea of declaring France Arab policy as being like key to future France.

and even the Mediterranean Union idea mentioned by Ben Abbs in the book is a direct statement from Nicolas Chacozy'cause he had an entire view of the Union of the Mediterranean, where France was in the center. So this was not some random thing that Belbet plucked out of the ear. This was this is the French polity at its top. Yep. Force. And it's a an explicit alternative to the secular liberal individualism of the EU. That's right.

Right. And as this is an interesting part of French history. I'm not by any means read in French culture, but I was just at the National Gallery looking at Delacroix and his painting of I think it's literally called Arabs Fighting in the Mountains. And Delacroix had a view that these were real men. Living as living in a sort of natural, strong, energetic way. This was what li this was proper manhood compared to the decadence of modern Paris or whatever.

I I'm not sure Hellbeck's so far away from that point of view. So I think that goes along with the Roman thing and the as you say, it's it's deep in French culture and French history or a certain strand of it. Right. And Hellbeck is giving up a fully deterministic alternative.

And Francois comes to feel as a smaller part of that. And that's why he goes into that second chamber. He goes all the way in and then comes or he's completely rebirthed, he's passed through the Valley of the Chen, all that stuff. Yes, I think okay, I think you're right. I think in that sense if you look at it as a the grand movement of history. I'm here to depress you, yes. No, I think that this is true.

as a grand movement of history, especially when Relbeck goes out of his way to actually make these large political rap in French politics of course. Sure, sure. When you m when you think of this r not as some Fiction But grounded in French which sorry, grounded in the France as we know France today, it's also by the way peculiar in many ways why he chose Marine Le Pen as a r real character in this book.

But it g it goes to this point of y this is not a foreign France that I want to portray. It is super, super Yes, exactly. Where we are right now. If it's going to come from within she's the obvious foil. Don't they make a point of her ignorance? Yes. And I think that's his point is that what French nationalism thinks of itself is ironically wrong and that there it is part of

French national character to for this dystopia to to happen. Yeah. No, I thought that was very I as I say, he's very careful to show you all that and I think he makes his point quite forcefully, but with a sort of subtlety that's often missing from dystopias.

Exactly. But he's very he's I think he's very good at dystopius. I think you haven't read the possibility on the island. No, I haven't read that one. But that's also dystopia. Debatable. But the the dystopia there, it wasn't like the end, you know how you have a big blockbuster movie, there's a big boom and then there's a after.

His dystopia on that was more else no, it was a thinning away and the dystopia was the isolation that you just don't know people around you, you don't know this. It was much more of I guess almost. I know it's not painful, not tragic and not I I'm trying to find a word. But this isolation of after the end was the real dystopia in this sense. There is no like massive destruction per se, of course that happened. But he was always careful that in a realistic dystopia

It's ignorance, it's movement, it's not some massive force against you. It's complicity, for example. Like for example, you read the for example here in the book with the yes, people are not too surprised, maybe, that the socialist party supported the Muslim Brotherhood, but the Conservative Party also did. And that was a thing that you don't think about that now. But how it was framed is the things that we care about.

they don't really have a strong view on that. I mean we can like the pious lifestyle, we can like good education policy. So th they strong family values, exactly. So they weren't too upset. No. And I doesn't in the book I think they they say don't they say I mean it's great stability. That's the sort of unifying value. Yeah. So all these kind of things. It's very funny. I was thinking I if you if you put this in a movie. Yeah.

Mayor Mamdani from New York can be a very good Ben Abbas. Because it's the description that in the Ben Abbus. He's he has a very twinkly eye, he's very charming, he's very flirty, innocent, click charisma. He that's all he's very non confrontational. Yeah. As also described in the book. And then you you see that description in the back written in twenty fifteen. And then you see Merrima Danny in New York today as I may be a punked now, it's that kind of thing.

That's what I said earlier. I do think it's remarkable that some of these things are real now. Not in the sense that France will become Islamic nation or whatever, but he clearly has a a reasonably good sense of some of these internal uh dynamics in the culture. Kyle Cohen. He made a point where he mentioned d isn't this a very swifting novel? I don't know what Jonathan Swift would think about being compared to a French author.

Yeah. He obviously was a great admirer of many French authors, but and he liked the regularity with which they attempted to treat their language. With The preoccupation with personal immorality under a regime which allows for too much religious diversity and opposition and therefore brings in the Hypothetical absolutism. Yes, very Swiftian. But this could be a a book of the travels. If Gulliver turned up and experienced all this, we wouldn't be so surprised, would we? Forgive it that.

There there was how then do you think we should Talk about this book. in terms of yes, it is great literature. But then it also has ongoing real world effects. Yeah. And particularly most people who read this book don't get to this conversation we're having now. And even when you see the reviews.

I I know you have read many of them. On this book, your your favorite category person, the li li li read it. They don't seem to get to this part of the conversation either. And believe me, only one I found that was particularly good at least in English, was by Knosgard. And he gets there very quick. Yeah. And of course he would. And He's Red Husman. Yes, he has read he's one, yes. And I wanna read some luck a couple quotes a quote from his review, but before I do that, earlier in the review

I read it back today just to prepare for this. I I missed this first time. He mentioned here it sounds very tongue in cheek to me, but he s he says here as he was making a comment on a line, a quote from Willbeck. Said, At least as I read it in the Norwegian rendering, which I think is perhaps closer to in style to Wellbeck's original than Lorenstein's graceful English translation.

I'm we're s I'm sure he doesn't really mean it's graceful in in this case.'Cause it's very clear it's not. So that was a very interesting little put there. But the main quote is this. From the review by Knose Garden. This lack of attachment This indifference is, as I see it, the novel's fundamental theme and issue, much more so than the Islamisation of France, which is the logic of the book, is merely a consequence.

What does it mean to be a human being without faith? This is in many ways the question posed by the novel. I hate to say it because I am the same as him. But I do think Nasgard is being a hopeless liberal in in that statement. The idea that you can separate the consequence from the real substance of the book

The this book makes me uncomfortable. I'm sure it makes most liberals uncomfortable. But I think we have to accept that The book is about the Islamification of the French state and therefore of French culture and the willingness. of Francois and the others to merely submit to that. Yes, because of the loss of meaning, the loss of faith, the desiccation of the individual. I think both in this book and in the elementary particles of the liberal order. But I think the power of the book

is not incidental to the choice of Islam. If it had been some other religion, if it was in fact a reversion to Catholicism and that the the French government became non secular, reinstated Some the rule of the Pope, whatever. That would not be the same sort of book at all. And th the consequence changes how we think about all those other elements that he identified.

So I don't want to fully disagree with him, but I do think that's a sort of weasling out. And one reason why Helbeck is controversial but also undeniable and Fascinating. He he's constantly getting press coverage and people always want to know what he thinks and everything. Is because he has he's chosen the right conclusion to make the book scary. I think also when you read it. I should say before I before anyone thinks I'm saying anything nasty.

That is not an anti Islam statement. The idea that the West might give up on itself in these as I say fundamental ways. That is obviously scary. And living through a period of Disastrously low fertility, inertia, political indifference to some of these issues. I think his warning is real. Or at least to be taken seriously.

I think it is m taken even more seriously when you read platform. And his comments. on Islam in platform. It not a core comment, not a core feature of that book. But it was just violence. Mm. His view of Islam in platform was it was a terrorist attack in Thailand. It was very violent. And then you come to submission. N I don't think anyone can step away from this to claim that Beck is writing a h islamophobic book. It is

especially with one of I think one of the most compelling characters, the president, R Robert Richarder. It feels extreme extremely welcoming. In the the presentation of Islam is framed as This could be good. Hence why it's also seductive to Francois. To Francois in this case. It could be good for Francois. semi suicidal alcoholic who is depressed, has given up on his work, has no love life. and is hardly an advert for the Islamic takeover as a generally good thing.

Richard is a parallel person in the book. I would say his Well, he's incredibly politic. His conversion to Islam to me was very sh obviously it was meant to be strange. But it was so whimsical. Yeah. Exactly. That's a whimsical conversion. Oh I was walking in Brussels and the cafe clothes and my God you're possessed. Yeah. That was what happened, actually.

Isn't it a bit like French cooperation with the Nazis? Just the sheer willingness to go with whoever because it's because of the lack of meaning. I think it's I don't know, I think Hellbeck is When he says, Yes, I probably am a bit of an Islamophobe, I take him at his word. No, I think of it is more of this way. I don't think you can read the book and easily come away with Islamophobia.'Cause people don't mean it in people where people say that when they read this book.

they don't usually mean it as some uh philosophical way of anti Islam. They mean it as, Oh, I hate these people Oh I see. No, sure. You can't get that quickly from the book. No. I and I say that in reference to I was watching a No, you are absolutely right. None of them none of the Muslims in the book is presented as being personally obnoxious or repellent or any they're all presented ac quite nicely. Yeah. Especially Robert. But that is part of what's sinister. Exactly.

Half the faculty just sign on the next day. The whole thing is insane. It's It's cooperation. Oh, there's a podcast I was listening to in in a a Spanish was a guy who was in Spain, Spanish podcast. He's a Muslim convert from Spain. He's a somewhat bit intellectual. And he made that he was talking about this book submission, so like, oh I must hear what he has to say about this book.

And he reads it as a utopia. He's a Muslim convert. He reads it as no, this is a thing that could show Yeah, it is not actually as foreign as you think it is from us. This is his argument. What is it what is it in the book that suggests that? Because I th as I say I've given those examples, I think Helbeck is going is pains to show you that it's very different and that the secular Paris mosque is one thing but

I agree with that part. I think it's more of How the character of Robert Bring someone into the Islam conversation. without trying to break you so far away from your own path. And he thinks that when Robert was discussing how do my Muslim brothers think of me when I was a hardcore Christian before?

and their view was like, No, that's normal. That's what we would expect as someone in this natural society. Mm. So they don't see it. And that's why Robert was made s Robert made it so clear in his monologue to Francois in the house. That no, they see it as yeah, that's natural. This is just a different version of that thing you were discussing before in that Christian view. We aren't that so far apart, me and you. But that is what makes it dystopian. Yes. That's a lie.

I agree with that. That's a lie. I agree if you want that. Yeah. I'm saying this particular person. Sure, I can see why someone who has converted in the way that the character has converted would emphasize that point. Correct. And as I say, I want to be careful not to say anything that makes me sound Islamic But I do think the book gives you plenty of evidence to work out for yourself that's a lie.

And I think it's hugely important that the single point of continuity in Francois's life is that he is studying, he's still going to be studying and teaching and professing a writer who prophesied the inner death of the Western individual and the need to submit. I think that What an extraordinary point of continuity to emphasize when the West quote unquote falls and the whole Roman Empire becomes the Islamic Empire. I just think I think it's I think Quellbeck's too obvious in a way. Ha ha.

I I will say I I When I first read this book, I was extraordinarily skeptical about any realistic way. of how Western society, Western Europe could actually become more Islamic. How could people that are grew up in a very Catholic and a Protestant society actually take it on like Francois? Again I was so abrasive to it.

And then I went to I started more times going to Abu Dhabi. Mm. And I started to think about things a lot. And I I tried also to visit other parts of the UAE because I've been to many other parts of the UAE. And if you go to the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, they just open Louvre in Abu Dhabi. You walk in.

And if you read if you're like me and you obsess over Michelle Lebec, of course, and y you walk in and you're immediately truck by what's happening in front of you and I always say but you you then have to think about first while What they do in the Louvre in Abu Dhabi is they have this essential exhibit. that juxtaposes Christianity, Islam and Judaism in the same exhibit to and they call it, this is our universal civilization.

It's what they do. And the Louvre Abu Dhabi isn't a mere private institution. This is the government of the UAE saying to signal what we want to present to the world. And then you go to the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, the Grand Mosque. I I was trying to find some'cause I didn't take any pictures of this thing. I can't find any online. If you go you walk into the tunnel and you go out, the thing that hits you in your face the hardest, at least to me.

When you're going to enter the moss from the under tunnel part in the mall, there's two giant photos Towards the entrance of the mosque. And the Queen of England I'll be Queen of England. Add the moth. Because again the point is hey you know this is not foreign to you dear tourist this is us And that forcing of trying to make the

thing that we call Islam to be so central to the universal civilization. I realize that this is it's not a game that's being pla it's not just some random game that's being played. this is a much of a very strong long term thing that is easily I can easily see it being seductive because you if you're not a very strong willed religious minded person.

You could just actually see that and say, you know, it actually isn't that foreign from what I've come to know in my own culture. And to double dump on that I went to Sharjah, which is one of the Emirates in the U. They have a museum there called the Museum of Islamic Civilization. On the ground floor you go in, again I'm coming from Spain. There is a massive exhibit about Andalusia. Because of course at one point in time, yes, Andalusia was part of the Islamic civilization. And behold it.

They talked about it as part of Islamic civilization. And you see that and you're like, Who's right? Who's wrong here? Am I do I am I wrong? Are are they right? Those things aren't that simple. And then one last thing comes along comment. There was a T V show the gay not gay, but they have gay couples sometimes. It's a dating show in Spain. Where they it's called blind dates where you come together, you meet two people and like different ages, different sexes and so on.

There was an episode that really struck a chord. Yeah. In Spanish social media. There's a young couple, a young date, it's like a nineteen year old, twenty year old guy and a similar age girl. And the guy was Muslim. Very good looking guy. And the and after a date they asked but the guy said after a date they do a post date interview and the guy said, I can't really date someone a woman she that's not Muslim. And the girl said, I could convert to Muslim. So Islam. That she was not joking.

And things like that and y again y you come back to Wellbeck. And it's like i it doesn't really yeah, it doesn't really seem like it takes that much.

No. Very much like V S Nypaul in this respect and interested in similar issues, presents the not in not presents them in similar ways literary manner, but presents them in similar ways otherwise and attracts a lot of controversy for it, but he's very much working from the material Of the news and of developments in the world and this is as I say, what makes him resented but also unavoidable is that he's not making it all up.

And I Paul he obviously was in some ways terrible, but he had seen something real in the world. And I th yeah, I agree with you about that. Henry, we're coming to the end here.

Guess the final thing I want to mention here is surprising to me, but not to you I'm sure how poorly analyzed this book is by people who do this for a living. Why? I I don't usually read reviews of books. Oh I So now that I'm actually reading reviews of a book I'm um doing a podcast, I'm like, how is it that these people are so blind? One one answer is that a lot of the people reading book reviews

will not have read the book already. And so they require a book review that is contextualizing, explanatory, expository, whatever, and therefore doesn't have time to come to these issues. Another answer is that book reviewing is not always done by people who are book primarily book reviewers, and so they have other preoccupations, which may be quite legitimate in the broader context of the newspaper and what it's offering its readers.

And the third thing is that Michelle Houelbeck is genius at attracting this sort of controversy. He was trolling people long before Twitter was invented. Right. And it may be in his best interests to have lots of reviews that don't come to this point.

And I and a fourth point would be to say that books like this are not easy to understand straight away. Either for the individual or for the at the sort of population level because they're so closely bound up with what particularly when it was published. Mm-hmm. It was very provocative about what was in the news and what was happening in France. a natural human thing to be startled by that and whatever. But I agree with you, the quality of book reviewing is not superb. But to read

Nineteenth century book reviews of what of books that are classics is instructive in this manner. It is not only a modern problem. Okay. It's a sort of slightly blighted genre. And I don't think it's so unusual. Okay. Okay.

And he understands the European novel. It may be that there aren't enough people writing in English who understand the European novel. One feature of modern literary culture is that there are these breakout international books is no longer a French novelist in that sense, he's a global novelist and so he becomes part of a reading list of

of those types of books, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's being read by people who are thinking about quote unquote the French novel or the European novel or European history or whatever. So he's being pulled out of his context in that way as well. I should say I'm not as deeply read in in some of those aspects as I should be. before I start telling everyone else they're no good. I'm also no good. Okay. I I guess to close may not be the best question to close this kind of conversation on.

it's hard not to be pessimistic about liberal pluralist thought. in modern Europe. Yeah. if you really take submission seriously. I think that of course more people should not just run away and hide behind the curtains if you read submission. But it does really bring up that the on the other side the people who discuss liberalism, who discuss classical liberalism. We're here in the Mercato Center. Yeah.

I do feel like sometimes like y there y y these people don't Try to really bargain with what Gripping. liberal society as it is today and Sometimes I'm like, who who's supposed to do that? Yes, the other way I think about this is aliens, which is obviously slight change of tack from what we've been talking about. But there's so much information coming out that makes it impossible to any longer be the sort of person who says, Oh, UFOs, poo, this is all right.

And yet everyone is just going about their lives as if nothing is happening. And it's quite extraordinary. I was at a party a few months ago. Everyone is milling around, having a nice time, there's beautiful weather and all we have those funny little cakes that we like and meanwhile Congress is getting testimony about aliens and watching these videos that senior members of the military cannot explain. And it's all very extraordinary. And

This was to me it was like a scene from a novel. The party's going on and they're all talking and Oh my god, did you hear about this? Oh she didn't say that. The aliens guys, it's right here the alien and I think actually Huelbeck is very good at Showing us that. I don't know that no one's thinking about it or talking about it. I'm not sure. I'll I mean I'm happy to take your word for it. Probably not enough. I can't think of anyone right now.

I agree with you that there's a complacent a deep complacency too in the West and in the And I think a lot of people are aware of that complacency, but Hwelbeck's point is that it's very hard to break, and I don't think we know how to do that. Henry, thank you for coming on the podcast. As I'm English, I love to end on that disappointing note. Thank you so much for having me.