The Possibility of the Island

One of the most famous novels by the French writer Michel Houellebecq has been drawing consistent interest from readers around the world for nearly two decades. The novel cannot be called a story in the conventional sense, and the author... does not consider himself a "storyteller"; the narrative seems to be woven from many threads. It contains both the eternal plot of love and signs of the real show business, totalitarian sects, and a fantastic and frighteningly convincing picture of the future, in which neo-humans exist—direct cloned descendants of modern people, "looking at the world with understanding, but without participation," unaware of pain and suffering, whose lives are prosperous, yet somehow unbearable. This telebridge between the present and the future is built with such cinematic precision that it is astonishing and mesmerizing, overturning established notions of the structure of the world and society, possibly even erasing the boundary between reality and fiction.