The Map and the Territory

Winner of the Prix Goncourt, this deeply amusing novel by Houellebecq (The Elementary Particles) advances the boundaries of fiction. Just as a map shows much more than a simple photo of a place, so this novel shows how fiction can become more real than mere reality. Houellebecq employs the struggle of young French artist Jed Martin to explore the art of life and the life of art, taking him from photography to mapmaking to the painting of telling portraits. Houellebecq himself enters the novel, plays a part, and moves on, ingeniously transforming the plot in a way that evokes Quentin Tarantino's early film From Dusk Till Dawn. The story eventually becomes a direct investigation of the significance of the roles humans inhabit and how change affects them. The incorporation of the ideas of William Morris and the Buddhist practice of sitting with a corpse enliven the protean narrative.