Wine in Houellebecq: Cultural transgression or literary device?

Why wine?

Wine is the subject of myriad studies from different disciplinary approaches, ranging from soil science and climate change to sociological surveys and literary representations. Its long history in Europe and (almost) global reach nowadays has endowed fermented grape juice with a social and cultural weight that no other alimentary product can wield – apart perhaps from bread. Christian rituals elevated bread and wine to the divine: the body and blood of Christ through transubstantiation. But wine was already sacred before Christianity spread through Europe, the subject of Dionysian and Bacchic cults of worship. Grapes are the most expressive fruits of any given terroir – their ‘natural capital’ or organoleptic properties offer a diversity of tastes that attest to their extraordinary capacity to reflect their natural and cultural environment. It is unsurprising then, that wine plays a different role to other beverages in Houellebecq’s novels, yet clearly enables as much access to inebriation as any other alcoholic drink.

Situated somewhere between food and drugs in his writing (and life), wine is both a regionally anchored product (linked to place) and a globalised commodity marketed for optimal standardised consumption. Given his own background as an agronomist and his acute sense of marketing (Aïssaoui, 2018), Houellebecq is aware of the heritagisation versus globalisation debate around French food and wine. Ruth Cruickshank (2019) reads his 2010 Goncourt Prize-winning novel La Carte et le territoire – published in the same year that le repas gastronomique des Français was inscribed on the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list – as a ‘cautionary tale’ warning against ‘instrumentalising cultural heritage to geopolitical and global-economic ends’ (2019a: 96). The masterful manner in which Houellebecq manages to consecrate and desecrate salient features of contemporary culture is clearly at play in this text. Jed the artist’s Russian girlfriend Olga, who works for the Michelin guides, edits a fictitious but eminently conceivable publication French Touch for foreigners to discover the gastronomic delights of the ‘real’ France, which is of course also a fiction built on stereotypes and exoticism. Cruickshank re-engages with Houellebecq’s global versus local economic models in her book Leftovers: Eating, Drinking and Re-Thinking with Case Studies from Post-War French Fiction (2020), indicating that in La Carte et le territoire Houellebecq uses drinking patterns to demonstrate how cultural production is inseparable from global business (2020). Though she offers such useful positioning of wine and other alcoholic beverages, Cruickshank privileges representations of food rather than wine in her analysis of La Carte et le territoire (2020).

Jean-Marc Quaranta is even more explicit in his focus on food in Houellebecq aux fourneaux (2016). He provides convincing statistics of 200 dishes mentioned in Houellebecq’s first six novels; that equates to 34 per novel, more than one every ten pages: ‘C’est beaucoup trop pour qu’on puisse prétendre que le monde de Houellebecq ignore la chère, et que ses personnages ne consomment que des calmants et de l’alcool’ (2016: 14). Quaranta therefore deliberately bypasses alcohol as a ‘blindingly’ obvious trope, opting instead for the less remarked upon, but apparently more remarkable presence of food in Houellebecq’s narratives. The combination of literary examples, politico-cultural interpretation, culinary guidance and creative humour renders Quaranta’s study both insightful and enjoyable to read. But wine remains relatively under-studied in Houellebecq’s work– nobody seems to write much about it except as one of many means of intoxication. ¹

In his co-edited book Literature and Intoxication: Writing, Politics and the Experience of Excess (2015), Russell Williams considers Houellebecq alongside contemporary writers and their motivations for indulging in their chosen inebriants. Whereas Frédéric Beigbeder, Guillaume Dustan and Philippe Muray all play with notions of ‘fun’ and ‘festivity’, Houellebecq regards intoxication as the key to negotiating tensions between social obligations and inward-looking anxieties, effectively offering a liminal third space: ‘l’alcool à doses modérées produit un effet sociabilisant et euphorisant qui reste sans réelle concurrence’ (Houellebecq, 2009: 86). A short thesis by Felix Rozenberg (2015) studies the role of alcohol in Les Particules élémentaires and La Carte et le territoire, questioning whether alcohol is ‘un ami ou un ennemi’, and examining its representations according to different categories of beverage. He finds that whisky is associated with sexual frustration, cognac with memory, wine with sociality, conversation and consolation, Champagne with celebration, and beer with nothing in particular (2015: 21). This pithy overview of alcohol in the two novels is revealing of its range of uses in Houellebecq’s writing and suggests scope for a much deeper investigation of drinks and drinking, especially wine.

Wine is therefore a trope that requires further analysis to understand its role in Houellebecq’s novels. In the following sections, I will firstly offer a brief overview of wine as a sign of cultural transgression in his work, before examining how it can be read as a more complex literary device. Through identifying the different degrees to which Houellebecq challenges orthodox representations of wine and the methods he employs to critique or embrace them, it will be possible to determine new ways to interpret key notions of national identity, social status and interpersonal relations in his novelistic narratives.

Wine and national identity

Le vin est senti par la nation française comme un bien qui lui est propre, au même titre que ses trois cent soixante espèces de fromage et sa culture. (Barthes, 1957: 69)

Roland Barthes thus began his article on ‘Le vin et le lait’ published in Mythologies in 1957, but which first appeared in the left-wing monthly magazine Les Lettres Nouvelles in April 1955. The timing is important, because Barthes was writing in direct response to the anti-alcohol debate raging in France. This debate was launched by Pierre Mendès France in November 1954, soon after he was elected President of the Council of Ministers, the equivalent of Prime Minister during the Fourth Republic. Mendès France established the Haut Comité d’Étude et d’Information sur l’Alcoolisme (HCEIA) and promoted milk as a healthy drink for children and adults, even serving it instead of wine at international diplomatic meetings, notably during a visit to the United States. Populist politician Pierre Poujade retaliated, ostensibly in the name of every French person:

Si vous aviez une goutte de sang gaulois dans les veines, vous n’auriez jamais osé, vous, représentant de notre France producteur mondial de vin et de champagne, vous faire servir un verre de lait dans une réception internationale! C’est une gifle, monsieur Mendès, que tout Français a reçue ce jour-là, même s’il n’est pas un ivrogne. (Poujade, 1955)

Despite significant resistance and accusations of anti-Languedoc, pro-Normandy tendencies, Mendès France succeeded in replacing wine with milk in school canteens in 1956 – at least for children under 14. Until then, children had been allowed to consume up to half a litre of wine, cider or beer per day, and wine would not be formally forbidden in schools until 1981. He was less successful in reducing wine in workplace canteens and other adult institutions, but his interventions were nevertheless the turning point for France in terms of wine consumption (Bohling, 2014). In the 1950s, the French were the highest consumers of wine in the world at around 130 litres per capita per year, and are now drinking around 40 litres, still only narrowly and recently surpassed by the Portuguese (Anderson et al., 2017). This dramatic drop is in line with an overall decreasing trend in traditional wine-drinking countries in contrast to increasing trends for wine consumption in the United States, Australia, and China (Anderson et al., 2017). The French drinking profile is complicated by increased consumption of other alcoholic beverages since the 1980s, including beer and distilled spirits, which produces a more constant baseline consumption of alcohol per capita than the decline in wine might suggest (Anderson et al., 2017). This portrait is also accompanied by an increasing trend in – not milk – but the prescription of anti-depressants. Again, this is a global phenomenon, but it is a statistic that has been noted and studied in relation to wine consumption in France particularly (Magny, 2013), and bears considering, especially in light of the subject of Houellebecq’s latest novel Sérotonine which begins with a reference to precisely such medication: ‘C’est un petit comprimé blanc, ovale, sécable’ (2019: 9). Even though the lived experience of French wine culture has changed significantly since the 1950s, wine is still embraced as integral to the French national identity, as convincingly demonstrated by Marion Demossier in Wine Drinking in France: An Anthropology of Wine Culture and Consumption in France (2010).

Every one of Houellebecq’s novels offers examples of cultural transgressions that counter orthodox representations of wine as an adjunct to French national identity, and the expected attendant practice of consuming French wines. His French protagonists drink wines from all over the world, ranging from Tisserand and his North-African Sidi-Brahim in Extension du domaine de la lutte to the Michel Houellebecq figure guzzling Chilean and Argentinian wines in Ireland in La Carte et le territoire and François enjoying Lebanese wine at the Sorbonne in Soumission. However, in Sérotonine and La Carte et le territoire, the author goes beyond the simple betrayal displayed by imbibing international wines to question whether and how France and/or Europe are actually supporting their own wine industries and by extension conserving any notion of distinctive identity in the rapidly globalising marketplace dominated by economic considerations above all others.

Sérotonine’s protagonist, the middle-aged agronomist Florent-Claude Labrouste, has a professional engagement with wine and the wine industry in this novel. As a relatively highly paid employee of the Ministry of Agriculture, he is involved in (unsuccessfully) defending the rights of French farmers – notably the AOP apricot producers of Roussillon – who are suffering from competition within the European Union and globally, and attempting to promote the export of Normandy cheese while protecting the integrity of raw milk Camembert from the likes of Lactalis and Isigny-Sainte-Mère (2019: 147). When the relative futility of his life and work becomes apparent to him, he creates an excuse to leave his bank, apartment and job, saying that he will be defecting to join one of the most threatening global competitors for French wine and agriculture, the Argentinians: ‘je crus bon d’inventer la fiction d’un nouveau travail qui m’attendait dans un domaine viticole immense situé dans la province de Mendoza’ (2019: 60–1). Houellebecq uses this apparently banal lie to develop both situational and dramatic irony, emphasising the perversity of his narrator’s behaviour. Florent-Claude is supposed to be representing French wine as a symbolic marker of national identity, not only in his personal capacity as a Frenchman but also as a professional advocate for regional produce. Instead he aligns himself with the globalised, standardised enemy of French wine, in a gesture that can only be read as self-defeating. By introducing this bombshell with ‘je crus bon’, Houellebecq completely undermines any confidence one might have in the competence of this person (or the government who employs him) to make choices that could preserve the prestige of either French wine or French national identity. The narrator’s unreliability is thereby suggested, yet his imagined pathway into enemy territory is greeted with unbridled enthusiasm by the bank employees, and even his boss recognises Argentina’s attractions. The rest of France understands that losing out to world winemaking is inevitable, and almost encourages opportunities to flee the sinking ship, yet the rhetoric linking national identity to its national produce – especially wine – persists.

Houellebecq explores this paradoxical dilemma that pits French commercial viability in a globalised market against French heritagisation for national identity via the relationship between Florent-Claude and his former classmate in agronomy studies Aymeric d’Harcourt-Olonde. He juxtaposes their drinking and thinking to show how easily one slips into betrayal of one’s national identity, even while declaring extreme support and defence of regional values. Florent-Claude drinks more cognac and calvados than wine when he is alone and on a mission to achieve maximum intoxication, but in adopting this perspective, he is perhaps more faithful to France than Aymeric. As the most evident representative of French culture and heritage, the aristocratic Aymeric cannot maintain his cultural capital in the current times. Having made the youthful decision not to work for the globalised company Danone, opting instead for the culturally correct choice to take over the Château d’Olonde family estate in Normandy and milk the cows to make AOP Pont-l’Evêque cheese, Aymeric is already questioning his choice in his late twenties when Florent-Claude first pays him a visit. His wife Cécile is attempting to turn the château into a ‘hôtel de charme’ for foreign tourists and he is already selling off parcels of land to keep ahead of his debts, not to the locals, but to Belgians and Dutch, and also the Chinese (2019: 146). At this point, Aymeric and Florent-Claude are drinking French wine – a Chablis, but the cracks have already appeared as Aymeric points out:

Enfin j’essaie de faire les choses correctement, ça n’a rien d’un élevage industriel ici, tu as pu voir les vaches ont de la place, et elles sortent un peu tous les jours, même en hiver. Mais plus j’essaie de faire les choses correctement, moins j’arrive à m’en sortir. (2019: 150)

Doing things correctly is not helping either Aymeric or France, and so Houellebecq foreshadows that even these efforts will ineluctably dissipate.

When Florent-Claude returns to the château about 20 years later, he again requests a glass of Chablis, but Aymeric has moved on to vodka and is smoking a lot of marijuana as well. After attending the funeral of a farmer friend who committed suicide, Aymeric is already drunk on vodka, but Florent-Claude is not quite ready to capitulate completely:

j’étais tenté de passer à la vodka moi aussi, à quoi bon prolonger nos supplices? Quelque chose me retint cependant, je demandai à Aymeric d’ouvrir une bouteille de blanc. Il acquiesça, huma le breuvage avec surprise avant de me servir, comme le souvenir d’une époque plus heureuse. (2019: 240)

Aymeric’s reaction to the wine, despite his inebriation, confirms its relegation to the past, a sign that he has sold out already and his final efforts to combat globalisation are futile. His death is inevitable, in a scene that evokes and exaggerates the 2018–19 clashes between gilets jaunes and riot police. ²

Although Florent-Claude appears to retain a commitment to consuming French wine, such as shopping for charcuterie, cheese and red wine at Carrefour Market, ‘un dernier vestige de civilisation’, as though preparing for siege – an attack on French (agri)cultural values (2019: 245) – and consuming a stolen bottle of Saint-Émilion while spying on Camille (2019: 296), he betrays himself right from the beginning of the novel. The first and last signs that the protagonist has traded French wine for globalised substances are in the opening and closing passages of the book with the descriptions of Captorix. Reprising the incipit in the final section – ‘C’est un petit comprimé blanc, ovale, sécable’ (2019: 346), Florent-Claude elaborates on the effects of the drug, in terms that could also be used to define the deracinated and unwieldy existence of globalisation:

Il ne crée, ni ne transforme; il interprète. Ce qui était définitif, il le rend passager; ce qui était inéluctable, il le rend contingent. Il fournit une nouvelle interprétation de la vie – moins riche, plus artificielle, et empreinte d’une certaine rigidité. Il ne donne aucune forme de bonheur, ni même de réel soulagement, son action est d’un autre ordre: transformant la vie en une succession de formalités, il permet de donner le change. Partant, il aide les hommes à vivre, ou du moins à ne pas mourir – durant un certain temps. (2019: 347)

What French wine encapsulates – creation and transformation, roots, identity, celebration, consolation and happiness – Captorix’s capsules can only interpret, like a bad actor, for a limited period of time.

La Carte et le territoire (2010) offers the portrait of a much more outwardly successful proponent of French national identity, through the character of Jed Martin. Yet there is something performative rather than profound about wine and national identity in this novel. Houellebecq provides more detail on varietals, provenance and the relative value of wines than in any other text. On the one hand, this is to be expected given the gastronomic emphasis of the narrative but, on the other, it reveals new parodic possibilities for questioning national identity.

At Christmas Eve dinner with his father, Jed understands that gastronomic conviviality is the aim, but is impeded from making conversation due to his choice of a Gewürztraminer which clouds his brain:

Jed, fébrile (il n’aurait pas dû prendre de Gewurztraminer avec les huîtres, il l’avait compris dès l’instant où il avait passé la commande, le vin blanc lui brouillait toujours les idées), cherchait frénétiquement quelque chose qui puisse s’apparenter à un sujet de conversation. (Houellebecq, 2010: 21–2)

Gewürztraminer is clearly not a good choice personally for Jed; it is also an unsuitable wine to drink with the oysters. Though not signalled directly in the novel, Gewürztraminer, especially from Alsace, is usually drunk with spicier or fattier seafood options than oysters: Chablis or Champagne and oysters are the classic pair. The performance of a French-style family Christmas celebration fails in this instance as the traditions of conviviality and care have been scripted by Houellebecq as a satirical parody, replete with multiple examples of Father Christmas and decorated trees in the brasserie on Avenue Bosquet called Chez Papa.

Gewürztraminer does have a second chance in this novel, however, returning in the sweeter form of ‘vendanges tardives’ at a party thrown by Jean-Pierre Pernaut, the beloved television presenter and icon of French national identity. Jed and Olga have been invited to his soirée mondaine where all food and wine matches are carefully constructed and executed for maximising the appreciation of regional authenticity:

Il passa au large, pénétra dans le deuxième salon, accepta un knacki aromatisé à l’emmental et un verre de gewurztraminer ‘vendanges tardives’ proposés par deux serveuses alsaciennes en coiffe, vêtues d’un tablier blanc et rouge noué autour de la taille, qui circulaient avec leurs plateaux entre les invités. (2010: 239)

This theatrical performance of regional identity is perfectly pitched – and is even restorative for Jed:

Il devait y avoir deux à trois cents invités, le vacarme des conversations couvrit peu à peu le hurlement des binious, il eut l’impression qu’il allait être victime d’un étourdissement et s’appuya au stand des produits auvergnats, acceptant une brochette Jésus-Laguiole et un verre de saint-pourçain. L’odeur puissante, terreuse du fromage le remit un peu d’aplomb, il finit son verre de saint-pourçain d’un trait, en demanda un deuxième et reprit son avancée dans la foule. (2010: 239–40)

Jed is actually physically supported by the stand, as well as psychologically bolstered by the identifiable food and wine, which make him feel like himself again, acting act reassuring ‘points de repère’ for his body and mind.

The Michel Houellebecq figure in the novel poses an interesting foil for Jed. Both characters perform their national identity through wine, but whereas Jed appears utterly compliant with the orthodox outlook, an unwitting victim of the parody, the Michel Houellebecq figure openly abuses his liminal position, demonstrating his agency in perpetuating stereotype. At his home in Ireland, in exile to avoid astronomical tax bills in France, he drinks endless bottles of cheap nameless Chilean and Argentinian wines, evidence of the globalised economy and a distinct lack of fidelity to or taste for French wine or French identity. However, when he invites Jed to dine out at the Irish pub – the Oakwood Arms – which serves Irish specialities as well as Pakistani dishes due to the chef’s cultural background, Michel Houellebecq orders not a generic white wine, but Chablis. Chablis is the Chardonnay-growing region to the north-west of Dijon well-known for its crisp, minerally white wines, available in a range of prices, but the appellation is internationally recognised for quality. He laments the fact that the Polish waiter does not have the cultural capital to serve it at the right temperature.

Ils n’y arrivent pas . . . geignit le romancier. Ils n’arrivent pas à servir le vin blanc à température.

– Vous vous intéressez aux vins?

– Ça me donne une contenance; ça fait français. Et puis il faut s’intéresser à quelque chose, dans la vie, je trouve que ça aide. (2010: 146)

His conversation with Jed exposes a more pedantic and performative French identity manifested by his attention to the correct way of drinking wine. Once back in the private space of his home, the public performance is over. He drops the French facade and re-embraces the standardised, globalised wines of Argentina and Chile.

There are plenty of other instances where Houellebecq uses wine as a complex literary device to present an ironic and/or parodic perspective on French national identity. As a final example that contrasts with those analysed above, Plateforme (2001) offers a new perspective, as it extends to an international context via tourism in Thailand. Describing a meal at the resort where protagonist Michel is staying with a group of other French tourists, Houellebecq uses wine to highlight a desire to transpose the French national identity to incongruous and inappropriate environments, but this stance is not necessarily acceptable to all the French travellers:

C’était délicieux; et le rôti de porc était parfaitement cuit, à la fois croustillant et tendre. ‘Ça manque juste un peu de pinard . . .’ émit René avec mélancolie. Josiane crispa les lèvres avec mépris. Ce qu’elle pensait des touristes français qui ne pouvaient pas voyager sans leur pinard, il ne fallait pas le lui demander. (Houellebecq, 2001: 76–7)

Referring to wine as ‘pinard’ links it inextricably to French history and heritage – ‘le poilu et son pinard’ – as a reminder of the wine rations that gave French soldiers the courage to fight for their country and their freedom in World War I, but it also indicates a pejorative, parochial worldview rather than a superior one. In this way, the French national identity as represented by wine is devalued rather than respected, as it was at the Oakwood Arms in Ireland. Clinging to national identity abroad here appears absurd, even ridiculous. However, there is another factor at play in this example, relating wine to social status, which merits further exploration in Houellebecq’s novels.

Wine and social status

Le vin n’est pas un alcool comme un autre . . . je n’ai jamais vu un jeune qui sort de boîte de nuit et qui est saoul parce qu’il a bu du côtes-du-rhône, du crozes-hermitage, du bordeaux, jamais . . . Il faut éduquer à boire un verre de vin, pour savoir ce que c’est. (Didier Guillaume, Minister for Agriculture, in Sénéchal, 2019)

Didier Guillaume, Minister for Agriculture made this statement in response to new guidelines launched by the French Ministry of Health in January 2019 advising a maximum of ten glasses of alcohol including wine per week. He emphasised the special case of wine as opposed to other alcoholic beverages, clearly demonstrating his affinity with the winemakers who are part of his portfolio, and espousing traditional French wine values which are apparently inherent to French national identity. Minister for Health Agnès Buzyn had already issued statements in 2018 condemning such exceptionalist rhetoric around wine (Parienté and Laurent, 2019), and others like Jean-Pierre Couteron, a psychologist specialising in addiction, have criticised the elitist veneer expressed by Guillaume, drawing attention to the €3 bottles of wine that are more accessible both to the young and to those looking for quantity over quality (Parienté and Laurent, 2019). In spite of the latest reports from Santé Publique France suggesting that 10.5 million adults are drinking too much, leading to 49,000 alcohol-related deaths per year (Santé Publique France, 2019), Minister for the Interior Christophe Castaner has openly argued against Buzyn’s efforts (Lepelletier, 2018), and even President Emmanuel Macron has declared that he drinks wine at lunch and dinner (Sénéchal, 2019), undoubtedly to distinguish himself from other teetotallers like the former president Nicolas Sarkozy. The official national discourse on wine consumption is therefore fragmented, but there is certainly an educational element involved. Guillaume intimated that wine needs to be considered in a framework of knowledge and culture, while Buzyn underscored that wine needs to be scientifically understood as alcohol, not as culture. There is a classic clash of Bourdieusian distinction in their cross-purposes. Guillaume’s assessment of the situation targets higher social status consumers, using examples of French wines identified with quality and traditional values such as Côtes-du-Rhône, Crozes-Hermitage and Bordeaux, whereas Buzyn disregards social strata with a blanket critique of condoning excess consumption of alcohol, regardless of its brand, price or context.

The statistics showing that wine-drinking in France is slowing down while other alcohol consumption is increasing, and that therefore drinking is perhaps no longer so inextricably tied to wine knowledge and culture, might support Guillaume’s perspective on the need to educate the French to drink wine comme il faut. Yet recent research reveals that even though young French people (18–30 years old) are drinking less wine and more beer and distilled spirits, they still align wine consumption with national identity and integrity, linking it to family traditions, gastronomy, conviviality and taste, rather than alcoholism, partying or alcohol-induced accidents (Simonnet-Toussaint et al., 2005). They understand and accept that wine-drinking in France is associated with cultural capital and social status, and that is perhaps precisely why they are not as interested in consuming Côtes-du-Rhône, Crozes-Hermitage and Bordeaux, as their parents might be. The new craze for ‘natural wine’ in France and elsewhere, requiring much less education, cultural capital or social status to enjoy its unconventional and unpredictable tastes, is another reflection of the challenges to expected wine consumption in France today.

Houellebecq’s novels contain a wide variety of wines representing several different steps on the social ladder. For the most part, his protagonists do not really transgress orthodox associations between their social status and the type of wine they consume, except in sexually adventurous situations. Generic Champagne is served at farewell parties for staff in Extension du domaine de la lutte, Les Particules élémentaires, and La Carte et le territoire, a standardised signifier for special-occasion celebration and respect for employment service. Champagne is only referred to by its specific brand name twice by Houellebecq, despite being one of the most recognisably branded drinks in the world often referred to simply by a single word (Moët, Veuve, Dom). In Sérotonine Florent-Claude shares a bottle of Ruinart – one of the oldest and most prestigious Champagne houses of Reims – with his Japanese partner Yuzu at the opulent Relais et Châteaux Hotel where they are staying (Houellebecq, 2019: 43). Given Houellebecq’s focus on establishing the protagonist and his partner as possessing a veneer of sophistication, style and ample finances, with a thoroughly degraded, even depraved secret life, the overt branding of their luxury pursuits is useful shorthand for signifying wealth and taste, including cultural capital when it comes to wine. The other mention of branded Champagne is Dom Pérignon – best known for its appearance in James Bond films. In Les Particules élémentaires Bruno reminisces about giving his baby son two Lexomil to shut him up, then going out to a bar called Madison, buying a 3000-franc bottle of Dom Pérignon to share with a young blonde with whom he had sex while his ex-wife Anne was teaching African migrants to read and write (Houellebecq, 1998: 228). Juxtaposing excessive self-indulgence in consuming both an overtly recognisable Champagne and a paid sex worker against the selfless act of educating those less fortunate emphasises the chasm between the two behaviours, and the cultural transgressions that Bruno’s acts portray.

At the opposite end of the social scale, the nameless 30-year-old protagonist of Extension du domaine de la lutte has no social status, and no real interest in wine, which is revealed when he is shopping for supplies:

J’achetai peu de choses: du fromage et du pain en tranches, pour manger dans ma chambre d’hôtel (ce soir-là j’avais décidé d’éviter la compagnie de Tisserand, pour me reposer un peu). Mais j’hésitai quelque temps entre les bouteilles de vin, très diverses, offertes à la convoitise du public. L’ennui c’est que je n’avais pas de tire-bouchon. Par ailleurs, je n’aime pas le vin; ce dernier argument finit par l’emporter, et je me rabattis sur un pack de Tuborg. (Houellebecq, 1994: 66–7)

He realises that he is not ‘equipped’ to drink wine – he hesitates in front of the bottles as though he should be attracted to the diverse range of wines, but he has no corkscrew. ³ This detail is overshadowed by the fact that he prefers Tuborg beer anyway. He has also decided on a solitary evening rather than sharing it with his colleague Tisserand, who is not a good ambassador for wine-drinking. In fact, it is the hapless and unappealing Tisserand who commits the cultural transgression of not knowing how to drink wine properly, which ruins his chances of finally having sex with a woman:

C’est maintenant qu’il faut draguer, c’est là, à ce moment précis, dans cet endroit qui s’y prête admirablement . . . Il me regarde, son visage tremble un peu. C’est sans doute l’alcool, il a bu trop de vin au repas, l’imbécile. Je me demande s’il ne va pas éclater en sanglots, me raconter les étapes de son calvaire; je le sens prêt à quelque chose de ce genre; les verres de ses lunettes sont légèrement embués de larmes. (1994: 64)

Tisserand has also drunk bourbon, but wine is deemed to be the culprit in this sexual (mis)adventure – specifically Sidi-Brahim, a popular North-African usually red wine bottled in France. However, wine is not his killer in the end; it is bourbon that ushers Tisserand to his death at the wheel of his 205 GTI on a foggy Christmas Eve.

Cultural transgression is therefore more subtle when Houellebecq weaves wine into the development of his protagonists’ social status. He allows for both anticipated and unexpected parallels to be drawn between their hierarchical standing and their wine knowledge and choices. Houellebecq is far more direct in his use of certain wines as a complex metaphor for social status in his novels, especially with reference to Châteauneuf-du-Pape. This wine is first mentioned in La Carte et le territoire in a scene that should be culturally transgressive, which is nevertheless neutralised by the metaphor of Châteauneuf-du-Pape as a symbol of male authority and power. ⁴ At Jean-Pierre Pernaut’s party, the president of television channel TF1 Patrick Le Lay is drinking Châteauneuf-du-Pape straight from the bottle. He exemplifies obscene inebriation as an obnoxious and violent presence yet he is obviously a socially valued guest:

Au milieu d’un petit groupe, Patrick Le Lay, très aviné, pérorait avec bruit; il avait carrément raflé une bouteille de Châteauneuf-du-Pape, et buvait de longues rasades au goulot . . . et il jeta la bouteille derrière son épaule; frôlant le crâne de Julien Lepers, elle vint s’écraser aux pieds de trois hommes d’âge mûr en costume trois pièces gris moyen, qui le fixaient d’un regard sévère. (Houellebecq, 2010: 244)

Despite the vulgar and dangerous antics of Patrick Le Lay, he is somehow not condemned for them, except perhaps by three old (wise?) men. Claire Chazal is still by his side and Jean-Pierre Pernaut does not ask him to leave; he just says ‘Tu as trop bu, Patrick’. Patrick ends up crawling down the street with a bloodied forehead (2010: 247).

Châteauneuf-du-Pape re-emerges in Soumission when the Sorbonne-Nouvelle professor François is reminiscing about the time when he visited his young student-lover Myriam’s house, and realising that her family life was warm and caring, so different from anything he has ever known. The trigger for this important realisation is Myriam’s father opening a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape (Houellebecq, 2015: 111). Again, this wine is a metaphor for prestige and power: the literal father of François’ lover mirrors the ‘father’ of TF1, who both drink the wine christened by the ‘father’ of the Catholic Church. However, there is an added politico-religious dimension to the metaphorical wine in the hands of Myriam’s father, as he is Jewish not Catholic, and it is the family’s fear of persecution under either a far-right Le Pen presidency or an Islamic Ben Abbes one that makes them leave France. The redemptive power of Châteauneuf-du-Pape that allows Patrick Le Lay to stay at the party also distinguishes Myriam’s father as an upstanding member of French society rather than a member of any particular religious group.

Houellebecq’s protagonists cannot really lay claim to such a ‘father’ social status themselves though. In fact, they are merely cheap copies of the real thing, as Michel serves his brother Bruno Vieux Papes wine in Les Particules élémentaires, making special note of the modest price, and of Bruno’s indiscriminate consumption: ‘Tel n’était pas le cas de Bruno, qui n’avait fait aucune remarque sur le vin – du Vieux Papes à 11,95 F’ (1998: 221). Houellebecq has not just chosen the name of any wine to insert here. Like Sidi-Brahim, Vieux Papes is a highly recognisable low-cost usually red wine, found in any French supermarket, but it also has deeper socio-cultural significance that is relevant to this reference. Vieux Papes is the oldest wine ‘brand’ in France, as a ‘vin de table’ created around 75 years ago, and is currently owned by one of the biggest French wine empires, Castel. According to Castel, the wine is equated with ‘Tradition, Authenticité et Convivialité’ (Vieux Papes, 2019) and the name written in medieval Gothic letters on the label symbolises power, culture and refinement (Nau, 2012). Vieux Papes obviously strives to evoke an association with the much more prestigious Rhône Valley blend Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but it is not the real thing. In 1961, Châteauneuf-du-Pape took Vieux Papes to court in an attempt to veto their association, but Vieux Papes won the right to retain its name, as did another budget option Chemin des Papes in 2005 (Mollaret, 2009).

The use value of this particular wine – Châteauneuf-du-Pape – as metaphor for power reveals the impossibility for Houellebecq’s protagonists to attain that authority themselves. However, the original power is drawn from the ‘Catholic father’ – the Pope – who is supplanted by another source of fatherly power in Soumission. Meursault is the redolent wine metaphor offered to the protagonist by a prestigious ‘Islamic father’, the President of the Sorbonne University, Robert Rediger. Meursault is a white wine made of Chardonnay grapes from the lower Burgundy region known as Côte de Beaune, much prized for its unctuous texture, rich buttery nuttiness and balanced acidity. Just as the Catholic wine is red like Christ’s blood, the Islamic wine is white for purity and peace, like the colour symbol of the religion. François’ analysis of the Meursault wine reveals it as a metaphor not only of the Islamic father, but of Islam itself:

Et le vin était sublime. ‘Je trouve qu’on ne parle pas assez du Meursault!’ lançai-je avec élan. ‘Le Meursault est une synthèse, il est comme beaucoup de vins à lui tout seul, vous ne trouvez pas?’ (Houellebecq, 2015: 247–8)

Like Meursault, Islam is sublime. It is misunderstood because it is not really discussed in detail yet encompasses so much more than just a single religion. François drinks the entire bottle but appears inspired, even enlightened, by this consumption rather than inebriated, and eminently able to continue the intellectual conversation.

Meursault is also the name of Albert Camus’ murderous pied-noir protagonist in his absurdist novel L’Étranger (1942) set in Algeria, adding an intertextual layer to this metaphor. Camus’ choice of the polysemic name has itself provoked much debate: does it evoke the sea and the sun ‘mer-so[leil]’ – the natural elements blamed for the murder of a nameless Arab on the beach (Haddour, 2000: 131)?; or does it describe the nature of the man himself who leaps to his own death ‘meurs-saut’? (Axelrod, 2016: 69). The fact that the author signed articles for Le Soir Républicain with the name Jean Meursault indicates another potential interpretation – ‘j’en meurs – sot’ – but never is the relevance of wine cited nor the etymological origins of the name of the wine village – early Roman settlers apparently called it ‘Muris Saltis’ after seeing rats leap over the river running through it (Coates, 2008: 241). Camus’ literary (and autobiographical) Meursault is condemned not so much for his crime but for his perceived danger to society, epitomised by his inappropriate emotional response (or lack thereof) to the loss of his mother and the killing of an Arab. Several critics have also noted that such judgement of a pied-noir was highly unlikely in Algeria at the time, and that Camus/Meursault is symbolically killing the entire Algerian Islamic community (Ibrahimi, 1981: 180). ⁵

As Houellebecq feeds this intertextual reference into his Meursault metaphor alongside the Islamic father figure, it appears to fracture the wine signifier into Islamic and anti-Islamic contradictions. Yet considered as part of an evolutionary hegemonic cycle, the combined Meursault metaphor makes perfect sense. Meursault represents the dominant ‘colonising’ power – in Camus’ case, the French in Algeria in 1942 and in Houellebecq’s case, the Islamic Party in France in 2022, which is in complete harmony with the status of Meursault wines, which dominate at the top of the Chardonnay charts.

Meursault is also mentioned in La Carte et le territoire as a metaphor for elevated social status, when Jed remembers dining with Olga on the terrace of the Château de Vault-de-Lugny, eating ‘pressé de homard’ and drinking a glass of Meursault, while discussing how passion in an artist’s eyes attracts those who believe it could be translated into love. This scene is imbued with cultural capital via the choice of this elite white wine from Burgundy and the pressed lobster represents the epitome of gastronomic taste using a classic luxury ingredient in a fashionable new form (Cruickshank, 2019: 107). However, it is another wine that provides the most evident symbol of Jed’s pretentions to high social status and the Michel Houellebecq figure’s complete disregard for it – Château Ausone 1986.

Undoubtedly inspired by the Michel Houellebecq figure’s display of interest in wine, Jed brings one bottle of very good wine for him on his subsequent visit to Ireland:

‘J’ai amené une bouteille de vin. Une bonne bouteille!’ s’exclama Jed avec un enthousiasme un peu faux, à peu près comme on propose des caramels aux enfants, tout en la sortant de son sac de voyage. C’était un Château Ausone 1986, qui lui avait quand même coûté 400 euros – une douzaine de vols Paris–Shannon par Ryanair.

‘Une seule bouteille?’ demanda l’auteur de La Poursuite du bonheur en allongeant le cou vers l’étiquette. Il puait un peu, mais moins qu’un cadavre; les choses auraient pu se passer plus mal, après tout. Puis il se retourna sans un mot, après avoir agrippé la bouteille. (Houellebecq, 2010: 165)

Houellebecq’s insertion of this specific wine into the narrative is no more neutral than any of the other wines explicitly referenced in his writing. Château Ausone 1986 is an obviously expensive wine – measured in the equivalent low-cost flights for the ultimate contrast between budget and luxury. It is one of only four Premier Grand Cru Classé A, the highest ranking in the Saint-Émilion classification. Named after the poet Ausonius who reputedly owned 40 hectares of vines in the region in fourth century, it is now only 7.3 hectares, owned by the Vauthier family for over two centuries. The 1986 vintage was not particularly good, but it has risen markedly in price since the publication of La Carte et le territoire. ⁶ The cultural, economic and social status reflected in this choice of wine all emphasise its symbolic standing in the text, but as soon as Jed hands it over, Michel Houellebecq notes only the quantity, not the quality, and glugs down a glass without even appreciating its significance: ‘Il tendit à Jed un tire-bouchon, et sitôt la bouteille ouverte avala un premier verre d’un trait, sans humer le bouquet du vin, sans même se livrer à un simulacre de dégustation’ (2010: 166). All pretence of performative wine culture has disappeared, and the Michel Houellebecq figure makes no reference to this iconic symbol of French wine and French poetic culture. He seems to consume the entire bottle of Château Ausone while Jed photographs him, then turns to his generic globalised stash for more:

Le Château Ausone était presque terminé. Il ouvrit d’un geste large un placard, découvrant une quarantaine de bouteilles.

– Argentine ou Chili?

– Chili, pour changer. (2010: 168)

Although Jed’s gesture demonstrates an attempt to wield the power and status associated with this prestigious wine, like a parent offering a toffee to a child, he – like Houellebecq’s other protagonists – cannot really master the situation or control the consumption of the ‘status’ that he wants to project. He cannot even partake of the prestige (wine) himself. It disappears without leaving a trace or witnesses, rendering his initiative ultimately fruitless.

Houellebecq’s use of wine as a metaphor for social status and power threads specific historical, cultural and literary references into the text. The resulting framework reinforces and deepens paternalistic structures and hegemonic discourses, underscoring the protagonists’ lack of access to wine as a tool for manifesting capital. Instead, most of Houellebecq’s protagonists display associations with wine that damage or diminish their interpersonal relationships. This representation of wine, mainly as a source of inebriation, evidently exposes cultural transgressions but also offers a subtle literary device revealing the demise of desire in interpersonal relations.

Wine and interpersonal relations

D’aucuns seraient portés à penser qu’instrument de l’ivresse, le vin est agent d’oubli. Or, toute sa geste le proclame conservateur du temps et restaurateur du souvenir. Qu’un instant soit solennel, qu’on veuille le rendre mémorable, quelque cérémonie lui imposera sa marque et, les paroles évocatrices prononcées, le notable, présidant au rituel, invitera la foule à lever son verre à la félicité du moment et à la postérité du projet. Le vin est naturellement associé à l’inoubliable. (Durand, 1984–6: 785)

The first lines of Georges Durand’s contribution on ‘La Vigne et le vin’ to Pierre Nora’s Les Lieux de mémoire (1984–6) recognises the double function of wine consumption in interpersonal relations. On the one hand, it can be an ‘agent d’oubli’, allowing one to forget oneself in drunkenness – either drowning sorrows or lubricating difficult interactions. On the other, it can be a way to remember momentous occasions – intimate or collective – by celebrating them with wine, drinking a ritualistic toast to posterity. Durand embraces the traditional French discourse harnessed by Didier Guillaume and many others, indicating that in the name of France, he would rather reclaim wine for history, heritage and memory than obliteration, intoxication and stupor. The impression of togetherness and harmony between those who drink wine in convivial and moderate amounts is foregrounded. In contrast, Houellebecq performs a simple cultural transgression by countering wine’s status as a ‘singularité’ of French cohesion and clearly emphasises the benefits of forgetting that excess consumption and inebriation can bring. ⁷

The frequently repeated scene of farewell drinks with work colleagues that represents the first mention of wine – Champagne, of course – in Extension du domaine de la lutte, Les Particules élémentaires, and La Carte et le territoire reveals the lack of true interpersonal relations in the workplace, especially for the protagonists. Each of these situations are supposed to be memorable but are described as awkward opportunities for intoxication underscoring the culturally transgressive nature of personal interactions (though in reality such behaviour is frequently observed at workplace functions). These scenes also serve to foreshadow the ambiguous association between wine and interpersonal relations, in a more subtle, paradoxical and even euphemistic manner than the ways in which Houellebecq has used wine as a literary device related to national identity and social status.

Interpersonal relations are notoriously difficult for Houellebecq’s protagonists, ranging from the friendship between ‘our hero’ and Tisserand in Extension du domaine de la lutte to Florent-Claude’s broken ties with all his former partners in Sérotonine. The fact that Houellebecq’s project for a better future existence in La Possibilité d’une île (2005) is built on the absence of interpersonal relations indicates that here lies the problem for society as a whole, even though the solution proposed is eventually corrupted by protagonist Daniel25’s escape from solitary memorialising into collective (counter)culture. This novel is conspicuous in Houellebecq’s corpus in that it contains the fewest references to wine – or alcohol in general. Reading this parallel between a lack of wine and a lack of interpersonal relations in La Possibilité d’une île as a kind of ground zero for analysing the author’s use of wine in this context enables an analysis of the complex and paradoxical device that it becomes in his other novels.

Striving to achieve the convivial act of sharing wine represents a last-resort mechanism for saving interpersonal relations in Houellebecq’s novels, which demonstrates both the positive and negative connotations of such a mise en scène of the final stages of relationships. The author displays a standardised and recognisable manifestation of this phenomenon by introducing wine via the bittersweet yet banal workplace departures mentioned above: the pretence of closeness heralds the already present separation. In each of the novels – even La Possibilité d’une île – this ‘last drink’ trope is always accompanied by wine, not any other alcohol, and signifies both the positive and the negative potential of identifying the continuing degradation of their interpersonal relations.

In Extension du domaine de la lutte, the protagonist’s last effort to engage with society before signing out is to order a gastronomic meal in Saint-Cirgues. Although he has expressed no liking for wine, he appreciates the wine with his ‘last supper’, but it gives him no pleasure, only sadness: ‘C’est absolument délicieux; même le vin est bon. Je pleure en mangeant, avec de petits gémissements’ (Houellebecq, 1994: 154). The attempt to re-engage proves fruitless. Houellebecq elaborates on wine’s last chance function in Les Particules élémentaires, inserting a theorisation of wine as a solution to waning sexual desire. As Bruno laments the loss of his relationship with his son and his ex-wife, punctuating his stories with requests for more wine or continually refilling his glass, Michel reflects on his brother’s inability to accept wine as a substitute for diminishing sexual interest, as other people do:

Après quelques années de travail le désir sexuel disparaît, les gens se recentrent sur la gastronomie et les vins; certains de ses collègues, beaucoup plus jeunes que lui, avaient déjà commencé à se constituer une cave. (Houellebecq, 1998: 220)

Houellebecq’s correlation of the wine cellar with lack of desire in Les Particules élémentaires is paralleled in Soumission by a similar example of couples’ gastronomic interest, described as ‘une passion de prêtres qui, privés de joies charnelles, hennissent devant des mets délicats et de vieux vins’ (Houellebecq, 2015: 95). François’ musing on taking wine courses hammers home the analogy between wine appreciation and maintaining some kind of connection with society:

il faut bien s’intéresser à quelque chose dans la vie me dis-je, je me demandais à quoi je pourrais m’intéresser moi-même si ma sortie de la vie amoureuse se confirmait, je pourrais prendre des cours d’œnologie peut-être, ou collectionner les modèles réduits d’avions. (2015: 37)

A shared passion for wine is a default option for couples to stay together, or a single man to stay interested in life. It is therefore both positive – a lifeline for relationships – but also negative – indicating that the best is already lost and the future is essentially doomed.

As his protagonists watch their interpersonal relations disintegrate, Houellebecq summons their vestiges through reference to wine, offering them a second chance, though there is rarely any real opportunity for redemption. In La Carte et le territoire, Jed has his most memorable and enjoyable wine experiences at his final meal with Olga on the terrace of the Château de Vault-de-Lugny before they break up (Houellebecq, 2010: 174); a convivial soirée accompanied by Chablis with the Michel Houellebecq figure in the Loiret before he is murdered (2010: 257); and ‘un excellent vin rouge du Valais’ in Zurich just after he loses his father to euthanasia (2010: 376). In Sérotonine, Florent-Claude attempts to reconnect to past lovers and friends but the lifeline of wine is unsuccessful. Five bottles shared over dinner with Claire simply reinforce the futility of this desire (Houellebecq, 2019: 124); guzzling stolen Saint-Émilion while spying on Camille and contemplating murdering her son amounts to nothing (2019: 296); Aymeric assists his old friend with accommodation and arms him with a new interest in shooting, but despite a final reminiscence of wine’s attraction, he is killed, thus ending Florent-Claude’s only semblance of friendship (2019: 261–2). Each time wine appears to mend or placate interpersonal relations, there are only more endings or death.

Houellebecq exploits wine’s double function in interpersonal relations to expose the paradoxical nature of his protagonists’ interactions. While they appear to want to reconnect and remember in a positive effort towards some kind of vestige of enjoyment, they also need to forget what they have already lost, the intensity of love’s passion and regret for the past. Wine serves as a symbolic marker of the complexity of interpersonal relations, and the sad predictability of their eventual demise in Houellebecq’s novels.

Conclusion

Mon verre de Saint-Estèphe à la main, je m’assis sur une banquette pour regarder les étoiles. L’année 2002 marquerait l’entrée de la France dans l’union monétaire européenne, entre autres choses: il y aurait également le Mundial, l’élection présidentielle, différents événements médiatiques de grande ampleur. Les pitons rocheux de la baie étaient éclairés par la lune; je savais qu’il y aurait un feu d’artifice à minuit. Quelques minutes plus tard, Valérie vint s’asseoir à mes côtés. Je l’enlaçai, posai ma tête sur son épaule; je distinguais à peine les traits de son visage, mais je reconnaissais l’odeur, la texture de la peau. Au moment où la première fusée éclata, je m’aperçus que sa robe verte, légèrement transparente, était la même qu’elle portait, un an auparavant, lors du réveillon à Koh Phi Phi; j’en éprouvai une émotion étrange, au moment où elle posait ses lèvres sur les miennes, comme un renversement de l’ordre du monde. Curieusement, et sans l’avoir le moins du monde mérité, j’avais eu une seconde chance. C’est très rare, dans la vie, d’avoir une seconde chance; c’est contraire à toutes les lois. Je la serrai dans mes bras avec violence, gagné par une subite envie de pleurer. (Houellebecq, 2001: 325–6)

This scene towards the end of Plateforme encapsulates and enmeshes the three principal functions of wine as a literary device in Houellebecq’s novel as examined in this study. The glass of Saint-Estèphe in the protagonist Michel’s hand is the symbolic marker of national identity, social status and interpersonal relations. As a representative of France in Thailand, Michel celebrates the arrival of the new year with French wine imported especially for the occasion (2001: 324). All the major events he refers to are European ones, relevant to his national identity with no connection to the place in which he finds himself. The naming of Saint-Estèphe by Houellebecq indicates that his protagonist has finally achieved a prestigious social status, as this wine hails from the prized Médoc region of Bordeaux and is stereotypically referred to as a ‘masculine’ wine. It is not Châteauneuf-du-Pape but drinking Saint-Estèphe may render him even more powerful than the ‘father’. His sexual pleasure is at its peak, having been multiplied by three with two Thai sex workers as well as Valérie. It is as though he has been given a second chance at interpersonal relations, but the wine is there to emphasise both the positive and the negative aspects of their interactions. Although incredibly enjoyable at this moment, it is a sign that things will not end well. When Valérie is killed in a terrorist attack and their dreams of a new life in Thailand are extinguished, it is clear that this Saint-Estèphe moment was not really a second chance but the last resort of a doomed couple. The reversal of the world’s order has flipped back. Houellebecq’s protagonists – even when endowed with improved national identity, social status and interpersonal relations – have no place in paradise.

Clearly, the consumption of wine in Houellebecq’s novels and in representations of his life can be read as a simple cultural transgression, whether countering the norms of national and regional identity, drawing unexpected parallels between protagonists’ social status and their wine knowledge, or privileging solitary overindulgence rather than convivial consumption for improving interpersonal relations. However, wine is also a more complex literary device in Houellebecq’s seven novels published to date, serving as an ironic and parodic figure of national identity, a multifaceted metaphor of powerful paternity related to social status, and a paradox foreshadowing the disintegration of interpersonal relations. The presence and significance of wine in Houellebecq’s work therefore goes beyond simple cultural transgression to offer new ways to decode and interpret his challenging ideas on national identity, social status and interpersonal relations.