The Map and the Territory

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He creates forty-two paintings in the 'Series of Simple Professions' (e.g. Maya Dubois, Remote Maintenance Assistant) and twenty-two more in the 'Series of Business Compositions' (such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs Discussing the Future of Information Technology), and it is for an exhibit of these that he tries (successfully) to get Houellebecq to write a piece for the catalogue. The same goes for Houellebecq, of course -- and fortunately he is quite good in his presentation of these, and especially personality (if often also too lazy to be able to situate it better in any sort of community: Houellebecq's characters thrive only in almost complete isolation). En ‘El mapa y el territorio’, el personaje que más me ha gustado y con el que más he empatizado ha sido la caldera. En serio. Lo más emocionante ha sido descubrir si la caldera, que lanza extraños gruñidos, va a estropearse o no; su lucha por la supervivencia me ha emocionado. Por otra parte, los personajes de carne y hueso me han importado un comino. Y eso que salía el propio Houellebecq como personaje, pero ni así. A ver, la novela es una especie de biografía de un artista, pero en ningún momento me llegó a interesarme ni su vida ni su obra. Es un alienado, como todos los personajes de Houellebecq, pero es que su alienación no tenía nada de particular ni de remarcable; parecía escrito con desgana, nunca llegué a sentir lo que sentía él (yo misma me pregunto si será por qué ya no siento esta misma alienación o por qué la siento ya demasiado). The story develops into a halfhearted murder mystery, but the real meat of the book isn't in the plot. It's in this gifted author's point of view, which while convincing is rarely uplifting. Life in Houellebecq's world can be bleak. His prose is anything but. Spending time in both can be a difficult pleasure, and when you step away, you realize, with gratitude, that there are other ways of seeing things." - Thomas Chatterton William, San Francisco Chronicle

Michel Houellebecq a-t-il plagié Wikipédia dans son dernier roman?" (in French). LePoint.fr. 4 September 2010 . Retrieved 24 September 2010.The Map and the Territory is as strong as any of his previous novels, and that’s saying a lot. It’s no surprise that this book caused both delight and fury when it was given the Prix Goncourt in 2010. It deserved it. Neil Gaiman retells the parable in reference to storytelling in Fragile Things (it was originally to appear in American Gods): Houellebecq is either satirising or protesting the death of the old, traditional France within this novel (it's hard to prise his intent, seeing as he himself resides in exile in Ireland, having spurned France, or surrendered to being spurned by his native country, though this novel won the Prix Goncourt). Martin's photos were of Michelin maps of the French rural heartlands. Not the scenery, not the landscapes, nor the people living there, just the topographic maps, an ironic juxtaposition. The map evidently is the territory after all. Added to that a meditation on Michelin's guides having necessarily to change and adapt, from appealing to the French (who can no longer afford to holiday in their own country) and the Anglo-Saxons (who tour further afield) and now have to resonate with the tastes of Chinese and Russian tourists. The restaurants experiment with exotic fusion menus, only to discover the Chinese hanker for locally sourced pork sausages and France must contemplate returning to its bucolic traditions and away from multi-cultural influences. Just as the artistic Academies would look askance at the dominance of conceptual art of the likes of Koons and Hirst, so French cookery is under assault; lunch now being a rushed workplace half-hour, without the savouring of wine and fine gustation. Other Academie Francaise cultural touchstones are under threat from foreigners and globalisation in this novel. Not least the imposition of a smoking ban in line with the EU stipulation. Por tanto, filosofía pura y también arte contemporáneo y arquitectura, eso de entrada. Pero además el autor reflexiona sobre una Francia convertida en parque temático para los turistas, con la exaltación del 'terroir' y las características propias de cada región recogidas en cadenas de hoteles 'con encanto' y donde la gastronomía es una parte importante de la recuperación del pasado ideal: Enfin, des pronostics sur l'avenir de la France que Jed prophétise comme un pays où l'économie serait de plus en plus essentiellement agricole et touristique.

At some point later in the book, someone observes that the map is more interesting than the territory. Contemplating (and rendering) the world is more interesting than being involved in it. The Map and the Territory is a meditation on the relationship between art and the world it seeks to depict, but it is much more besides. Peppered with references to, and appearances by, figures from French cultural life (...) it anatomises France's preoccupation with its past and its traditions (.....) It is also a more reflective, less ragged novel than some of its predecessors" - Alex Clark, The Guardian En la tercera parte la novela da un giro sorprendente y se convierte en una novela negra, con unos policías que investigan un crimen. El autor nos lleva por donde quiere y la trama es de todo menos previsible. OK, if I have to be completely blunt, Michel Houellebecq must be the most overrated contemporary author since Amelie Nothomb. The Map and the Territory has received so much publicity in the last year or two, and I’ve come across the title in news and write-ups so many times, not to mention enthusiastic comments I’ve overheard during social occasions, that it seemed like I am missing out on something big out there. Not only did the book seem to be in the cultural news every other day or something for the last few months, but it has also been awarded the “most prestigious literary prize in France” in 2010, and its author has been hailed as a unique and brilliant voice and an astute commentator on the world of contemporary art and culture. Then, he meets Michel Houellebecq, a writer as reclusive and despondent as he is, and feels immediately a connection with the man, almost a form of sympathy. Jed is working on a series of portraits defining people by their work, and the last painting he completes is a portrait of the author, which he makes a present of to Houellebecq (the character), even though he could sell it on the art market for nearly a million euros.The idea behind The Map and the Territory itself is perhaps not a bad one – attempting to present a picture, an analysis of current trends, of things here and now and in flux, is challenging, but at the same time, it is, I think, necessary and appreciated by those who nevertheless would like to make sense of the world around them, to hear the opinions of those who are an active part of the current (cultural) landscape and who can offer an insightful analysis, venturing to do it without the benefit of hindsight. When done well, such works can be really thought-provoking and can have a long staying power that enhances the reader’s being in the world and adds to the reader’s critical engagement with it. The problem of The Map and the Territory in being far from this kind of book lies largely, I think, with its execution.

The main character is a painter named Jed Martin who is first launched to fame by a series he does using Michelin maps. On a trip with his father, they stop at a rest stop, where he buys a map. Martin's life is well-to-do Parisian, but mundane. He has an extended affair, off and on, with a Russian media executive named Olga. She is one hot babe, apparently, but even she can't hold his interest. She did abandon him for a time, and perhaps an infantile ego can never forgive the ultimate insult of abandonment. It is in describing these -- and the long inactive periods in between -- that Houellebecq is at his best. The protagonist himself I found completely unengaging and unlikeable. Not that characters need to be likeable in the cutesy, goody, righteous kind of way, of course not. But even normal or bad personages need to be full-blooded and complex enough for me to take them seriously. Jed Martin was simply stonecold. Things just kept happening to him, it seemed to me, almost as if he had no active part in what was going on, nor did he seem like he wanted to have an active part in anything. OK, Houellebecq the writer makes the point of Jed Martin being sort of excited about his art in the beginning of the book, but nothing like the fervor, pain, tribulations, and ups and downs that so often characterize artistic life ever emerges in the narrative, and so the whole idea of Jed Martin becoming an extraordinarily good artist is completely unconvincing. So, I had to share Jed Martin’s own cluelessness when his work ends up receiving a fantastic and unanimous critical acclaim that makes the protagonist the rather unwitting star of his artistic generation.With this quotation of Josiah Royce, Borges describes a further conundrum of when the map is contained within the territory, infinite regress: Author James A. Lindsay made the idea that the map is not reality a primary theme of his 2013 book Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly. In it, he argues that all of our scientific theories, mathematics, and even the idea of God are conceptual maps often confused "for the terrain" they attempt to explain. In a foreword to the book, physicist Victor J. Stenger expresses agreement with this point of view. [9]