Poor man's J.G. Ballard

The non-joke answer is that he's an alcoholic.

does alcohol do that to your hair?

no, that's the cigarettes

J.G Ballard was a chain smoking alcoholic.

he didn't end up looking like a butt-troll

>houllebecq
>not JUST from birth

>holding a cigarette like a fag and going bald from the age of 12

he's no j g ballard

he's far superior

Harlan Ellison is the poor man's Vonnegut

i read most of some book of his and i don't know if i "got" it, but i enjoyed it. there was a virgin guy who jerked off on a train and a depressed scientist or something. also the jerker-offer's mom whored around. what is he "about"?

haven't gotten around to houellebecq yet but ballard is a favorite of mine. are they actually anything alike (other than a mutual propensity for boozing) ?

baka senpai

vague idea that modern life isn't what it promised to be.....houellebecq is weaker in almnost every respect but that might be due bad translation

>poor man's Krasznahorkai

is this actually him as a teenager?
because this is starting to explain a lot of his writing
poor guy

Here's a short poem from a collection of his.

I address all those who have never been loved,
Who have never pleased;
I address those absent from liberated sex,
From ordinary pleasure.

Fear nothing, my friends, your loss is slim:
Nowhere does love exist;
It's just a cruel game where you are the victims,
A game for specialists

That's our Celine

That's just stupid

this man is truly the GOAT, I wish I could understand French a bit better so I could read in the original language

he's been looking pretty normal again lately

Yeah me too. Can't help but think a little is lost in translation.

This guy never hear of conditioner?

Which of Ballard's works resemble Houellebecq's? I'd like to read them.

Five bottles of red wine, 60 cigarettes and a handful of benzos every single day is going to wreck you that hard.

Nah, not really. His prose is just simple depressive realism. Part of his gimmick is that his prose is as stylistically uninteresting as the 21st century nu-male he writes about. At least that's how I interpret it. It's clever if you look at it from a detached perspective and it pre-empts most critiques of him, because why have grandiose prose for such a mediocre subject?

Houellebecq is a dude mostly concerned with reactionary ideas.

His teeth were terrible thought that's just him being British

abandoned by his whore mother as well, raised by his commie grandma

Sometimes he looks like him.

I think someone just first encountering him from this thread alone would wonder how he could not be reactionary. The man's life has led to the themes his books cover.

>tfw no french BF

Houellebecq seems to go through phases of falling apart and healing, like one of those biologically immortal jellyfish that just alternates between youth and adulthood forever.

Wow, never even noticed that, now that you point it out it's pretty obvious.

Beautiful.

This particular cycle seems to have started after his dog Clement (may his memory be a blessing) died, back in early 2011. In September of the same year, Houellebecq disappeared for a few days while he was supposed to be doing a book tour. This incident actually led to the production of a movie in which the incident was explained as him having been kidnapped by a gang of gypsies. If you look at him in the movie (it's great, by the way), it's obvious that he was in a moderately advanced stage of degeneration already. That seems to have peaked with the release of Soumission. His publicity photos from that period were pretty shocking. I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

How does one degenerate like that so quickly? It's like he's a wizard, casting a death spell on himself.

Having a routine similar to this probably. And on top of that he probably took shitty care of himself. He was talking about how bad his teeth were and losing them and how it made him look like shit in an interview I read right around the release of Soumission.

I don't see the resemblance

>He famously claims to be indifferent to the honours and attention he attracts. As we chat on the steps, a BBC film crew buzzes around us. Houellebecq waves them away with his fag smoke and we start to talk about dogs, in particular, his faithful pet, a Pembroke corgi called Clement, who has been left behind in the author's home near Dublin.

>'This is one of the difficulties of fame and travelling,' says Houellebecq. 'It is always hard to abandon him.' Houellebecq reminds me that this is the same breed as the Queen's dogs ('I am more English than the English', he jokes lamely). Then, for a brief moment, he looks genuinely near to tears, raising his doe eyes heavenward. 'The love of a dog is a pure thing,' he says. 'He gives you a trust which is total. You must not betray it.'

>Then, for a brief moment, he looks genuinely near to tears, raising his doe eyes heavenward. 'The love of a dog is a pure thing,' he says. 'He gives you a trust which is total. You must not betray it.'
;_;

>poor man's Osteen

>tfw no slavpoo gf

Holy, there is no way you can have that hairline at that young age.