Houellebecq meets Irving

So it was only four star, with none of the promised oysters and caviar, but darned good gourmet Thai food with free flowing wine – oh, the taste of alcohol again was so heavenly! The green mango and radish salad was a bit too bitter for my liking and the ribs had too much bone, not enough meat.

We were dined by the GM and the food manager, who is taking me yachting tomorrow – hope I don’t kotch, I’ve never been on a boat. They also reassured us that if we returned next week, the oysters would be waiting.

I was given an insiders perspective on the goings-on of a hotel – felt like I was in a novel collaboration between Houellebecq and John Irving. And also had the different types of Islam explained to me. The speaker was Turkish and described a noble country where it is shameful not to work and unheard of not to care for your children – even more so the illegitimate ones. He was of the belief that this was the reason there was no economic corruption in Islamic governments, because everyone is family and you owe everyone a favour.

I’m not sure what that really means, or if that is true. It is very Houellebecq – the decline of the world due to its liberal freedoms. I was reading all these interviews with him yesterday, which is why he’s fresh in my mind again. But I don’t agree with such a simplistic reading of Houellebecq. I think yes, he is saying the world is declining due to liberal freedoms, but also he can’t deny his enjoyment of them. There is some self-hatred and fatalism about it, it’s not preachy.

Last night I dreamt of a web-legged man – you know like webbed toes, the web was between his two thighs. He wore very baggy hip-hop pants. Who needs a TV!? Switch on the subconscious!