Michel Houllebecq and Jane Austen

I have just finished Lanzarote by Michel Houellebecq.

It’s a novella of less than 80 pages and contains his normal themes of sex obsession and mass tourism.

The story – such as it is – is that Michel, refusing to go to a Muslim country, decides on Lanzarote the Canary Island for a New Year break.

He hooks up with 2 German lesbians – Barbara and Pam, one bisexual- and spares no sexual details on their threesome.

There is a fourth character, a Belgian cop called Rene, who gets involved in a weird sect.

Houellebecq likes to shock and there is a sinister development regarding the sect.

Those who – like me – admire Houllebecq enjoy his travel writing.

His graphic descriptions of the volcanic island I visited in 2018 are supported by photographs.  It’s much better than any travel guide.

After this, I sought a total opposite and recalled a volume in a Folio edition of Persuasion by Jane Austen which I had started a month ago.

After peering into a Kindle and listening audiobooks I found this volume – with creamy paper and bound in leaf motif – most enticing.

Although one can say with confidence that Jane Austen – unlike Houellebecq – has never visited a swinger’s club, she has a feel for yearning and passion.

Quite where she got that from I know not, as she never married and – aside from a close relationship with her sister – is only known to have one male intimate rapport with a cleric.

Her world is one of snobbish class divide.

In Persuasion the landowner Sir Walter Elliot – though impoverished – looks down on those on the professional and naval classes who do not own land.

The heroine is his third daughter Anne, who has an affair with Captain Wentworth, who later reappears in her life when his sister – married to Admiral Croft – and husband take over the Estate owned by Sir Walter.

Jane Austen ‘s literary position at the pinnacle of English literature is assured whilst Michel Houellebecq will remain the enfant terrible of contemporary French writers.