Eagerly Awaited French Novel “Outed” By Critic Who “Found” A Copy

The most eagerly awaited book in France this year is by Michel Houellebecq, the enfant terrible of modern French writing. But the book has had an early entry into public by a critic who claims he found a copy of the book on a park bench. “M. Rinaldi’s account of how he came by the book was, therefore, treated with some scepticism. The headline above his review read ‘A Houellebecq fallen from a lorry’. M. Rinaldi, one of the best-known and most acerbic literary critics in France and an outspoken enemy of Houellebecq’s writing, claimed he had found the review copy by pure accident.”