Status Updates From Aan de vrouw

in Michel Houellebecq's novel Submission the hero compares the experience of reading Huysmans to having a close friend who is always there for him. I suspect this is true of anyone who enjoys titles like Becalmed and Domesticity. It's a feeling I've had only a handful of times. so rare it makes the answer to the ubiquitous questions, "so, what kind of books do you read?" sound more ephemeral than I would like.