Conversely, the "Non-innocence" of the victims does not appear to have numbed the libido of pot-bellied western men. As evidenced by the Irishman's experiences with Englishmen and Frenchmen, the global fantasy lives on.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Dead or Alive?
For me it was a surprising ending to Platform. To think that a terrorist attack was bound to happen is true. But for Michel to return to the "Scene of the crime," that being the place where he lost Valerie is surprising. As Michel explains he has pretty much given up on life. His catatonic state and mental disjunction did not prevent him from recover. He could still see what was going on, such as his visits from Jean-Yves and Marie-Jeanne. He seemed to be living in a surreal existence which for some reason felt to me as it was Michel, pre-Valerie. If he was "Paralyzed" by the terrorist attack the lost of Valerie ended up "Killing him." It is a tragic "Loss of life" but despite losing Valerie he felt loved finally recognizing as the saying goes "Tis better to have loved..." It is as if Houellebecq already wants us to forget about the book and move on to the next one, as he has.
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I don’t believe that Houellebecq was getting at the idea of “Tis better to have loved…” because I think that at the end the day, Michel describes how he thinks he will die (alone in a room, where no one will find him for a couple of days etc.) it brings up the idea that the moral of the story for Michel is a true love story does not exist. At the beginning of the novel Michel is a cynical misanthrope with no interest in falling in love or being married, until he meets Valerie. He then falls in love and is heart broken when she dies, and reverts back to a misanthrope but to a more extreme level. At the end of the novel it seems the message Houellebecq is portraying is that Michel was better before he met Valerie then after her death.
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ReplyDeleteFor me, that she was killed by "bad guys" was sort of foreshadowed earlier in the book.
ReplyDeleteHe spent some time talking about how dangerous the gang activity had become near her office. How she was never directly in danger, but she remained sort of...in a cloud of imminent danger.
As the build up to the launch of the Aphrodite Hotel line happens, there is also talk about where they had to avoid over saturating the market with overt messages about the nature of business the hotels were engaging in.
For me, it seems natural that Valerie's life would end with a combination of "gang" violence, in this case, the terrorists who are like gangs except on a more global scale; and she gets killed while at one of the sex hotels. The two elements that Houllebecq framed the plot around.
- Aaron Kinchen
The ending of The Platform was not surprising for me to read at all. After all, the story was basically about Michel's depressing life before he met Valerie and then how it improved for him after their relationship had blossomed. It's only natural that when Valerie is taken out of the equation again, he would return to his melancholia, only intensified because when you're ignorant of something (in his case, love) you don't know what you're missing out on but when it's taken away, it's like you're deprived and desperate to have it back. Valerie's death wasn't even surprising either, because as Aaron had stated previously, there was some foreshadowing of her demise and it just doesn't seem like Houellebecq's style to let anyone have a happy ending. What surprised me however, is how deeply I was moved by Michel's character after his death. This despicable character with his foul thoughts and language, the very one that I found annoying and depressing, I was still none the less sad to see his death because despite his disgusting nature, I found this character relate-able and very human. I think that's what made Houellebecq, as an author, a pretty decent one for me despite my annoyance at his attitude towards the media. Somehow, he managed to capture the essence of what it is to be human, which I guess for me is to experience love and to suffer.
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