“Serotonin” of Michel Houellebecq: a novel of the “capitalist hell” Cover Image

„Serotonina” lui Michel Houellebecq: un roman al „infernului capitalist”
“Serotonin” of Michel Houellebecq: a novel of the “capitalist hell”

Author(s): Tatiana Ciocoi
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature
Published by: ArtPoligraf SRL
Keywords: novel;literature;culture;humanism;happiness;

Summary/Abstract: The present work is a critical analysis of Michel Houellebecq’s latest novel, “Serotonin”,published in January 2019 at Flammarion Publishing House. The study follows the thematic evolutionof the French writer’s novels in order to demonstrate that his entire narrative universe is builton the idea of a “civilizational failure”.The impossibility of happiness in a conformist, formalized andrigid world is the recurring theme of all Michel Houellebecq’s novels. The theological, philosophicaland literary-aesthetic concept of happiness is reduced to its biochemical, of pure hormonal secretiondimension, in order to underline the indisputable mutations of European humanistic culture and tolament the failures and regrets of the “civilized mammal”.The depth plan of the novel is dominatedby the search for some answers and solutions for the occidental man’s spiritual crisis, which aims toreconfigure from their basis the ideals, attitudes and founding values of the society.

  • Issue Year: II/2020
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 21-28
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: Romany