This long fiction (736 pages) anticipates the years 2026 and 2027, when "France [is] in decline", but the bourgeois elites are not doing so badly.

The most influential French writer in the world is not the one who sells the most books in his country.

But Flammarion bet on a first considerable circulation of 300,000 copies, against 400,000 in September for the national champion Guillaume Musso.

Proof of its success beyond borders: the Italian ("Annientare"), German ("Vernichten") and Greek translations appear between Friday and Tuesday.

The English will wait until the second half of the year.

Michel Houellebecq, who cultivates an image of reactionary depression, himself mocked his success, in the only interview he gave on the occasion of this publication, in Le Monde at the end of December.

"I write to get applause. Not for the money, but to be loved, admired."

And to compare his job to prostitution: "We are happy to please".

There is no lack of provocations of this ilk in "Annihilate".

Between misogynistic and xenophobic remarks, pits against contemporary cultural and spiritual mediocrity, and contempt for the poor, the unidentified Houellebecquien narrator sends his usual share of bitterness.

Some critics, like those of Mediapart, deplored it.

"All these nauseating words are distilled in small touches, as in minor mode," they note.

Leak

Others, like that of Le Monde, found him a lot of finesse: "The most poignant pages of his novel are those where he manages to make float, in the midst of loneliness and dereliction, fleeting gestures that make you cry".

"They don't seem to be talking about the same book," journalist Daniel Schneidermann concluded after reading these two extreme reviews.

L'Obs, Les Inrocks, L'Humanité did not like it at all.

The novelist has drifted away from the traditional views of these leftist titles.

The dailies Le Figaro and Liberation, however on opposite sides, have agreed to rent a successful story, just like the magazine Elle or regional newspapers such as Ouest France and La Voix du Nord.

The critical debate is not the only one to whet the curiosity of readers.

What can be done against the piracy that made the book available before Christmas on illegal websites?

Some have gone so far as to hypothesize (without any proof) that the perpetrator himself was the source of the leak.

The object conceived by Flammarion, with the directives of the writer, is it worth the comparison, often heard, with a volume of the Library of the Pleiade?

This is not the opinion of all: "In truth, the book is ugly, it looks like an old edition of Ginette Mathiot, + I know how to cook +", according to the editor Cécile Dutheil de la Rochère in the review While waiting for Nadeau.

The title being entirely lowercase on the cover, should we call the book "annihilate" or "annihilate"?

If you choose the lower case, you might as well write "michel houellebecq", for the journalist of the Belgian daily "Le Soir" Pierre Maury.

The long-awaited release should start the year well for booksellers, while the previous one ended very strongly. Many of them had to explain to their customers that no, before January 7 they were not selling the new Houellebecq.

© 2022 AFP