SOURCE: Tahourdin, Adrian. Review of Plateforme, by Michel Houellebecq. Times Literary Supplement, no. 5141 (12 October 2001): 11.

In the following review, Tahourdin commends Houellebecq's bleak prose and penchant for provoking critics but concludes that Plateforme does not match the success of Les Particules élémentaires.

L'affaire Houellebecq strikes again. Michel Houellebecq is in danger of making a name for himself in the history of publicity. The appearance of his third novel, Plateforme, at the end of August was surrounded by as much controversy as its predecessor, Les Particules élémentaires, had been. The earlier book was notable for the force with which its author challenged the liberal orthodoxies of the generation of soixante-huitards who now make up the Parisian literary and cultural establishment. Houellebecq was denounced as, among other things, a fascist, a crypto-Stalinist and an eugenicist, yet his novel struck a chord with the reading public, and rapidly became a...