Submission is about an academic-intellectual's conversion to Islam, It's also about the end of a brilliant intellectual life devoted to research the life and works of J.K.Huysman, the French novelist.
The setting is the new imaginary France under Islamic rule. The professor- an atheist - loses his job in the university, but he's given a grand compensation as pension, and materially at least he has no worries for now or the future. Soon he is trapped by an intellectual whore of the new regime, who offers him the post of a departmental head in a newly founded Islamic university. But on a condition: he has to convert to Islam.
As it happens, he faces a lot of conflicts around this time. Just in his forties, a bachelor, and with a vibrant sex life, he used to choose his partners from his students in the class. Now he has to collect his women from dating sites.
In his analysis of Islam vis-a-vis Christianity or Buddhism, he doesn't find anything different or new about it, but he's curious about polygamy permitted by the religion. His new mentor suggests him he could have as many as three wives along with a fat salary in his new position.
The professor has submission at last, fully aware that his dear intellectual life with his special fascination for Huysman is now over.
Written in the first person, Michel Houellbecq's "Submission" is apparently a simple story, but a fine and discreet critique of Islam in the new order of world politics. It's also a masterly narrative about the academic environment and intellectuals not only of France, but the world over.
It's an honest and original work. I liked it.
The setting is the new imaginary France under Islamic rule. The professor- an atheist - loses his job in the university, but he's given a grand compensation as pension, and materially at least he has no worries for now or the future. Soon he is trapped by an intellectual whore of the new regime, who offers him the post of a departmental head in a newly founded Islamic university. But on a condition: he has to convert to Islam.
As it happens, he faces a lot of conflicts around this time. Just in his forties, a bachelor, and with a vibrant sex life, he used to choose his partners from his students in the class. Now he has to collect his women from dating sites.
In his analysis of Islam vis-a-vis Christianity or Buddhism, he doesn't find anything different or new about it, but he's curious about polygamy permitted by the religion. His new mentor suggests him he could have as many as three wives along with a fat salary in his new position.
The professor has submission at last, fully aware that his dear intellectual life with his special fascination for Huysman is now over.
Written in the first person, Michel Houellbecq's "Submission" is apparently a simple story, but a fine and discreet critique of Islam in the new order of world politics. It's also a masterly narrative about the academic environment and intellectuals not only of France, but the world over.
It's an honest and original work. I liked it.
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