Ben’s Reviews > Annihilation: A Novel > Status Update
Ben
is on page 393 of 523
A fantastic novel about the evolution of a family, which after many hundreds of pages transforms perfectly naturally & in a style typical of Houellebecq into a sociopolitical study of something prescient, in this case the increasing power & destructiveness of lone-wolf terrorists, particularly the kind about whom I myself am writing a novel, the rare kind that is intelligent intellectual & effective, eg the Unabomber
— Jun 12, 2025 06:46PM
Like flag
Ben’s Previous Updates
Ben
is on page 393 of 523
But to cite only the Unabomber as an example is somewhat to mislead, because he is merely the harbinger of much worse things to come. Of course, there are many apparently intelligent but actually stupid lone wolves, such as Breivik, but the truly huge atrocities will be committed by much smarter persons, misanthropes such as antinatalists, deep ecologists, negative utilitarians, who'll wage war against all humankind.
— Jun 12, 2025 06:52PM
Ben
is starting
Houellebecq has changed. His standard themes return: the penetration of market forces into every corner of life, contemp. politics, terrorism of one kind or another, anomie, the extremes of sex. But other topics, such as love, which were always present in his writings, are now treated with an unprecedented, almost palpable yearning. The enfant terrible is as prescient as ever but he seems finally to have softened.
— May 15, 2025 06:22PM
