[In the following review, Tahourdin commends Houellebecq's bleak prose and penchant for provoking critics but concludes that Plateforme does not match the success of Les Particules élémentaires.]

L'affaire Houellebecq strikes again. Michel Houellebecq is in danger of making a name for himself in the history of publicity. The appearance of his third novel, Plateforme, at the end of August was surrounded by as much controversy as its predecessor, Les Particules élémentaires, had been. The earlier book was notable for the force with which its author challenged the liberal orthodoxies of the generation of soixante-huitards who now make up the Parisian literary and cultural establishment. Houellebecq was denounced as, among other things, a fascist, a crypto-Stalinist and an eugenicist, yet his novel struck a chord with the reading public, and rapidly became a bestseller. His new book, unsurprisingly, sold over 250,000 in its first three weeks.

Houellebecq's publishers Flammarion must have been prepared for difficulties this time; within days of publication, they apologized to the Rector of the Paris Mosque for some offensive remarks in the novel about Islam (the author was unrepentant, and used his now customary ploy of pointing out that his narrator's views are not necessarily his own). The publisher of France's culturally aware Guide du Routard threatened to sue over some insulting comments about their guide to Thailand. John Grisham, Frederick Forsyth (“cet imbécile”) and Jacques Chirac would also be entitled to take exception to their cameo appearances.

Plateforme describes a year in the life of Michel, a forty-year-old bachelor, who is politically disaffected and a mediocre civil servant in the Culture Ministry in Paris (he doesn't vote). He takes an organized holiday to Thailand, in order to indulge his appetite for young prostitutes, armed with the Routard guide to the country. Enraged by its editorial stance against sexual tourism, and its “vulgar elitism”, he flings the book out of the window of his coach. Sexual tourism, according to him, is an economic and sociological inevitability, a practical system of exchange between the overworked and loveless inhabitants of the West (in Paris he visits peep shows and SM clubs), and those in the East who are without money but who are in a position to sell sexual favours. Michel's fellow sexual tourists run from strapping young Americans and Antipodeans to single women in their forties, beer-swilling Northern Europeans and whisky-drinking Arabs. Houellebecq is as sharp as ever in his dissection of social groups: the tour party includes retired petit-bourgeois couples who have saved up for the holiday of a lifetime but who have trouble adapting to the local food, a fifty-year-old divorcee and sexual tourist who stopped taking his holidays in Spain after Franco's death, and two twentysomething “nanas” who work as “event organizers”. While in Thailand, Michel meets Valérie, a high-powered twenty-eight-year-old executive with the travel company. On their return to France, Michel and Valérie become lovers. Valérie is intrigued rather than disturbed by Michel's sexual adventures and allows herself to be persuaded by his contention that, in order to survive in a very competitive market, her company will have to diversify into concepts such as “Eldorador Aphrodite”. Their “researches” take them to Cuba and back to Thailand, where Valérie is killed in a graphically described attack on the resort by Islamic fundamentalists.

In common with Houellebecq's two earlier novels (the first, Extension du domaine de la lutte, was recently made into a film), Plateforme contains a good deal of sex. Asked for the reason why, the author replied “because I write well about it”. But the redeeming potential of love is also hinted at, in the finely drawn affair between Michel and Valérie. There is dark humour in the book and, as ever, Houellebecq writes with photographic precision and a clarity of purpose, although when he is developing a theory, the book can read like a sociological tract (there is even a footnoted reference to a journal, Annals of Tourism Research).

Plateforme doesn't have the impact of Les Particules élémentaires, whose originality and emotional force make it a landmark in French fiction. Houellebecq's view of society, French society in particular, remains bleak (there is an alarming description of one of Paris's satellite towns). His talent to provoke and scandalize is considerable, and is clearly one he takes some pleasure in (it may also partly explain why, at the age of forty-three, he now lives on a remote island off the coast of Ireland). But his (very French) blend of insolence and intellectualizing does not seem to travel well: when Les Particules appeared in an English translation last year, as Atomised, it failed to create much interest in Britain. The New York Times critic called it a “deeply repugnant read”. That critic won't be charmed by the new book either, but might have to acknowledge that Houellebecq has a pretty good idea in which direction the world is headed.