Meanders of a Civilization of Illusions: Postmodern Society in Dispute in Michel Houellebecq’s Extension du domaine de la lutte and Frédéric Beigbeder’s "Un roman français"

Abstract

 This article analyses the socioeconomic, political and cultural realities that characterize postmodern Western society fictionalized by Michel Houellebecq and Frédéric Beigbeder respectively in Extension du domaine de la lutte and Un roman français. More specifically, it questions the perverse effects that dominant ideologies induce on the individual and his reactions to these factors of social alienation. Relying from a literature sociological perspective, in particular through the concept of sociality stemming from sociocriticism, this reflection shows that the contemporary Western individual is trapped in a social system generating frustrations and bitterness or permanent dissatisfaction due among others to hypercommunication, neoliberalism, hyperconsumerism and individualism. It concludes that Western civilization is a civilization of illusions.