5 Feet of Fury

Ann Sterzinger: Houellebecq and Cassandra

Ann Sterzinger writes:

Though the word Islamophobie has been trotted out to describe the book with nauseous, endless predictability, the scare tactics used by Houellebecq’s fictional Muslims are creepily similar to what is currently happening in France. Fear is not a mental illness when the tiger is actually in your bedroom.

But these are not Soumission’s most interesting, nor its saddest, predictions. (…)

Zemmour, after having been fired from i-Télé for predicting all of this, is also currently in hiding after a flurry of threats on his life following last week’s bloodbath; the French establishment’s self-destructive fury at Zemmour’s truthiness is classically tragic. It’s like watching Athens stupidly go after the Spartans in real time.