Jed Martin takes the art world by storm with a sequence of photographic artworks based on Michelin maps. During the next seven years, he creates 42 paintings in his Series of Simple Professions. Then, in 18 months, Jed completes 22 masterpieces in the Series of Business Compositions, including his most famous work, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs Discussing the Future of Information Technology. Then one last definitive portrait--Michel Houellebecq, Writer--rocks the art world, only to be stolen.
You're hardly 10 pages into this Prix Goncourt-winning novel by the notorious bad boy of French letters before Jed considers hiring to write his art catalogue none other than the novelist Michel Houellebecq, "a good author... pleasant to read" with "an accurate view of society." Houellebecq gleefully depicts himself as a depressed, solitary, tobacco-dependent, drunken, financially needy eccentric, hated and scorned by the media.
Jed Martin's story unfolds like a piece of music, each of the three parts a separate movement: Part One is the education of the artist, Part Two is the encounter between two solitary geniuses, and Part Three becomes a brutal murder mystery when one of the main characters is found viciously dismembered, decapitated along with his dog.
The novel never quite recovers from this brutal dismemberment, which is not to deny that Houellebecq has some staggering pluses. At his best, he sees clearly straight into the very heart of our capitalist corporate planet and has the skill to weave his insights into literature. --Nick DiMartino, Nick's Picks, University Book Store, Seattle