Résumé :

Food occupies a central place in Houellebecq's work. It is an obvious fact that no one has noticed until now. The writer passes on the dishes: couscous and cod with cream prepared with love by grandmothers (Les Particules élémentaires), croustade from the Landes and baklava, signs of the clash of cultures (Soumission), Catalan-style tuna for the bachelor at the end of his tether (Extension of the domain of struggle)... nearly two hundred dishes feed the six novels. Jean-Marc Quaranta invites the reader to this well-stocked table, in a recipe book that is also an in-depth analysis of Michel Houellebecq's work; he interprets the novelistic role of food by putting his hand to the dough and proposing to cook with an open book. This essay of a new kind renews the reading of the work of the author of Submission, it shows the nuances, far from the media caricatures that it never ceases to arouse. It invites us to enter the library through the kitchen, to cook with Houellebecq and his characters to become intimate with this work that has not finished surprising us.