Soumission [Submission]

Paris: Flammarion, (December) 2014.
1 vol. (130 x 210 mm) of 300 p., 1 and [1] f. Buffle gris, Chinese-style title on front cover, grey suede lining and endpapers, gilt edges on endpapers, preserved covers and spine, bound and boxed (binding signed by Renaud Vernier – Claude Ribal, 2024).

First edition.
One of the first 120 copies on Rivoli vellum (no. 119).

We apologize for the imperfect translation generated by Deepl for the purposes of the show.

“I indeed like to be read in order […] What best explains a book is the ones that were written before it.” (Houellebecq, television interview, August 2015).

Those who are forward to this advice should therefore read Michel Houellebecq’s previous novel, Platform, in which he already deals with the theme of Islam. Even before the first edition of Submission went on sale on January 7, 2015, this novel had given rise to a major controversy. The terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket on the very day of its release obviously did not help matters. Since then, Houellebecq has repeatedly tried to explain that drawing parallels between the current ‘climate’ and his novel made no sense.

Since then, it has been translated, and here are the best passages, shedding more light than any other preface on the lines of Houellebecq’s sixth:

“Why this book? I noticed some big changes when I returned to France [Houellebecq had just spent 12 years in Ireland], changes that are not specifically French, by the way, but Western in general. […] I think the second reason is that my atheism did not really stand up to the succession of deaths I experienced. [his parents, his dog]. It seemed unbearable to me, in fact (…) And the third reason why I wrote this book is that I did like the beginning. I wrote it all in one go, from the very beginning up to page 26. And I found it very convincing because I can well imagine a student choosing Huysmans as a friend and devoting his life to him. It didn’t happen to me: I read Huysmans much later, around the age of 35 I think, but I would indeed have liked it: my room wasn’t great, the university restaurant wasn’t great either, and I can well imagine what he could have made of all that. I think he could have been a true friend to me. And so, after writing that, I did nothing for a while. That was in January 2013, and I had to follow up on the text in the summer of 2013. But my project was very different at the beginning. It wasn’t going to be called Submission, the first title was The Conversion. And in my first project the narrator also converted, but to Catholicism. That is to say, he was forwarding the same path as Huysmans, a century apart: starting from naturalism to become Catholic. And I didn’t manage to do that (…). Generally speaking, there is an even stronger feeling of entropy than in my other books. A dreary twilight side that gives this book a rather sad tone. For example, if Catholicism doesn’t work, it’s because it’s already been used, it seems to belong to the past, it’s been undone. Islam has an image to come. Why doesn’t the Nation work? Because it has been overused.” (in Interview with Sylvain Bourmeau, December 19, 2014, published in The Paris Review).

A Fine Copy, in an equally Fine Binding by Renaud Vernier.