And the truth is that this is a brilliant book. It does echo classic English distopian fantasies such as Gulliver’s Travels and Brave New World, and it does repeat some of Houellebecq’s earlier strategies, but it is nevertheless in many respects truly original. The collapse of contemporary cultures that the book presupposes — the Catholic Church, Asian ancestor-revering traditions and even Islam — are made to seem credible developments that are already underway. Ecological disaster, the background to the chapters set in the future, often feels just around the corner, and genetic engineering is already with us. The idea that nuclear wars are inevitable, and that as a result of modern gadgets — computers, mobile phones, digital cameras — there will one day be so much junk that no one any longer has the power supply to use them, must be part of many people’s fears of what is to come.
It may well be that Houellebecq’s current popularity in Europe is due to his openly expressing racist and sexual sentiments that many Europeans secretly feel. The implication, too, that all religions, including Christianity, are cults similar to the Elohimites, with founders and prophets, and offering immortality to those who’ll subscribe to magical impossibilities, is doubtless another part of its appeal.
Surprisingly, Taiwan gets a mention. Daniel 1 is taken to see an art installation at the Paris house of an Elohimite artist. “It consisted of an Asian wedding, celebrated perhaps in Taiwan, or Korea, in a country anyway that had only recently known wealth. Pale pink Mercedes dropped the guests off in the square in front of a neo-Gothic cathedral; the husband, dressed in a white smoking jacket, advanced through the air, a meter above the ground, his little finger entwined with that of his betrothed. Some potbellied Chinese Buddhas, surrounded by multi-colored electric bulbs, quivered with joy ... [The couple] exchanged a long kiss, both virginal and labial ... Fireworks exploded and there was a fanfare of trumpets.”
Translation is a difficult art, but this one, by Gavin Bowd, appears excellent — vivid, fluent, and frequently devastatingly incisive. However much it may shock you, The Possibility of an Island is certain to become a classic. The present decade will be defined in part by its fears and loathings. This novel is a highly intelligent, acerbic, outrageous, wittily sardonic and in very many places breath-takingly brilliant. This, in other words, is a book that shouldn’t, under any circumstances at all, be missed.
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