Michel Houellebecq’s La possibilité d’une île: autobiography as human final stand.
Abstract
The article wants to investigate the narrative device at the heart of Michel Houellebecq’s novel La possibilité d’une île (2005). Its structure is based on the alternation of two different worlds, one human and the other non-human, populated by clones. For the reader, this implicates a double effort to adapt to both settings; for the text, this implicates the possibility of exploiting the bifurcation to establish mutual, meaningful links. With the help of the Possible Worlds Theory, we emphasize that this mechanism enables the author to highlight the crucial role of autobiographical writing, which is the only instrument of communication between the two worlds, and the last indispensable feature even in a literally post-human future.
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