![]() ![]() ![]() But what happens when we look at our own century from a necessarily imaginary 19th-century viewpoint? How do we recognize fragments of discourse that persist in contemporary texts, ripped from their original contexts, but not quite consciously assimilated as a cultural reference? By reading for the traces of the 19th century in Michel Houellebecq’s last novel, the Goncourt winning La Carte et le territoire ( The Map and the Territory), it becomes apparent that, for Houellebecq at least, the function of art is to mobilize the traces of the past – art creates a break in the continuity of time and then rearranges the remains or fragments to create a new work turned towards the future. When we read literature from the 19th century, we usually try to be vigilant in order not to project our contemporary ideas and obsessions onto the past for fear they might obscure the radical difference of another era. ![]()
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