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“... now, lay in Whatever, with its colloquial roughness and bratty energy.) It’s too bad, then, that Gavin Bowd’s translation is no more and sometimes less than adequate. The decision not to respect Houellebecq’s punctuation, so that a single flowing sentence in the original will become three abrupt declarations in English, seems a mistake: the ...”

“... Towards the end of Michel Houellebecq’s first novel, Extension du domaine de la lutte (1994), translated into English under the dismal title Whatever (1998), the nameless protagonist falls into a severe depression. He leaves a note on his desk saying ‘I AM SICK,’ and checks himself into a ‘rest home’. Relations with his psychologist are not easy: She took me to task for speaking in general, overly sociological, terms ...”