Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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A litmus test in France’s roiling hostilities
‘Delivered in quantity, a light marinade of pouty dialectics douses the book,’ writes FIONA O’CONNOR
RACE HOSTILITIES: Pan-European white supremacists of Generation Identitaire march in France in 2017
[Pulek1/CC]
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
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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