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Annihilation
by Michel Houellebecq, translated by Shaun Whiteside
Picador, £11
FRENCH master in the art of dissing everyone, Michel Houellebecq has written his longest book and claims it will be his last.
Published in France in 2022, Annihilation has taken a while to emerge in English. It reads somewhat like a Covid project — that lockdown feel of ennui, aimless and boring for long, long passages is there.
Approaching his retirement, Shakespeare imagined every third thought being of death. For Houellebecq, now 68, every three pages or so gets animated by thoughts of sex.
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