{"product_id":"without-god-michel-houellebecq-and-materialist-horror","title":"Without God: Michel Houellebecq and Materialist Horror","description":"\u003cp\u003eMichel Houellebecq is Frances most famous and controversial living novelist. Since his first novel in 1994  Houellebecqs work has been called pornographic  racist  sexist  Islamophobic  and vulgar. His caricature appeared on the cover of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on January 7  2015  the day that Islamist militants killed twelve people in an attack on their offices and also the day that his most recent novel  Soumissionthe story of France in 2022 under a Muslim presidentappeared in bookstores. Without God uses religion as a lens to examine how Houellebecq gives voice to the underside of the progressive ethos that has animated French and Western social  political  and religious thought since the 1960s. Focusing on Houellebecqs complicated relationship with religion  Louis Betty shows that the novelist  who is at best agnostic  is a deeply and unavoidably religious writer. In exploring the religious  theological  and philosophical aspects of Houellebecqs work  Betty situates the author within the broader context of a French and Anglo-American history of ideasideas such as utopian socialism  the sociology of secularization  and quantum physics. Materialism  Betty contends  is the true destroyer of human intimacy and spirituality in Houellebecqs work; the prevailing worldview it conveys is one of nihilism and hedonism in a postmodern  post-Christian Europe. In Bettys analysis  materialist horror emerges as a philosophical and aesthetic concept that describes and amplifies contemporary moral and social decadence in Houellebecqs fiction.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946754469941,"sku":"ByrdShop_0271074094","price":53.18,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780271074092.jpg?v=1769964964","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/without-god-michel-houellebecq-and-materialist-horror","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}