La ferita del desiderio. Michel Houellebecq e il suicidio dell’Occidente

Starting from the privileged relationship with the philosophy of Arthur Scho- penhauer, in this essay I analyze how the central themes of Michel Houellebecq’s narrative are already fully developed in his first three novels. The emphasis on suffering as the nodal fulcrum of existence, the radical critique of economic liberalism and sexual liberation, the denunciation of the loss of identity of the contemporary male and the alienation underlying every human relationship are all aspects of one of the most powerful attacks on the West that a contemporary writer has dared to make.