"Platform" - by Michel Houellebecq

I love this author: I find his books absolutely compelling, superbly written even when read in translation from the original French. He is perhaps the most controversial author in France, which is saying something. His previous book, "The Elementary Particles," rocketed him to fame.

Alas, I just finished this one last night, and now must wait for the next. From "Platform":

Father died last year. I don't subscribe to the theory that we only become truly adult when our parents die; we never become truly adult.[that's the first paragraph of the book]

Taking a plane today, regardless of the airline, regardless of the destination, amounts to being treated like shit for the duration of the flight.

It is in our relations with other people that we gain a sense of ourselves; it's that, pretty much, that makes relations with other people unbearable. ["Hell is other people" - Dorothy Parker]

Not having anything around to read is dangerous: you have to content yourself with life itself, and that can lead you to take risks.

We build up memories so that we will be less alone at the moment of death.

There are some things that one can do, others that seem too difficult. Gradually, everything becomes too difficult: that's what life comes down to.

Valerie, you can't possibly understand, but you're an exception. It's very rare now to find a woman who feels pleasure and who wants to give it. On the whole, seducing a woman you don't know, fucking her, has become a source of irritations and problems. When you think of all the tedious conversations you have to put up with to get a chick into bed, only to find out more often than not that she's a second-rate lover who bores you to fuck with her problems, goes on at you about her exes - incidentally giving you the impression that you're not exactly up to scratch - and with whom you must spend the rest of the night at the very least, it's easy to see why men might prefer to save themselves by paying a small fee.

There're also all those guys who find it easier just to jerk off on the Internet or watching porn films. As soon as your cock has shot its little load, you're perfectly content. [I am reminded of a profound observation by Heidi Fleiss: "Men don't pay my girls $3,000 an hour to have them come and fuck: they pay to have them go away."]

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