Whatever Book

The British translator or publisher should be beheaded (or, well, at least vigorously booed) for calling this book "Whatever" when its French title is something amazing like "Extension of the Domain of the Struggle" -- if we otherwise lived in a total utopia, I'd say restoring the English translation's title to something closer to the original would be a major issue in this year's elections. This one seemed at first like it was written by someone other than the masterful dude who did "The Elementary Particles" and "The Possibility of an Island". I blamed the translator at first, then Houellebecq's youth, and considered it in the 2/3-star range: intemittently clever but otherwise "eh". But then the narrator goes to a club for young singles and things take off - steam gathers, themes condense, the prose pushes ahead and doesn't just muse about the connection between moving furniture (especially beds) and suicide. What's cool too is that many of the themes are the same ones he develops in later books, but here he's a little more flatly vulgar or theoretical, his tone/style shifts (occasionally exuberantly purple and then also a bit more spare/poetic at times too, more regionally French). But then things really rise and end well in the 3/4-star range (nails the landing). Definitely worth reading, and maybe even re-reading, considering it's 154 not-so-dense pages. Anyway, whatever: I'd like to petition for a new translation by Gavin Bowd or Frank Wynne, someone who'd respect the original title and maybe debritishify things a bit.