A small conceit of the English translation of Michel Houellebecq's
PLATFORM is that certain words and phrases the author originally
used in English are boldfaced, presumably so that readers will know
that they carried a sort of extra Anglo-Saxon punch in the original
text. However, the boldfaced words also recall the talent of Frank
Wynne, Houellebecq's translator. I mention these words because I
otherwise might not have remembered that I was reading a translated
text, so clearly and accurately has Wynne rendered the author's
unmistakable, inimitable voice.

With that said, this is not a voice all readers will appreciate.
Protagonist and first-person narrator Michel Renault lives a small,
sour existence as a middle-aged, middle-management civil servant.
His Paris contains no romance and less contentment, and so he
travels --- but his coldly assessing eye hardly allows him to enjoy
his journeys or his arrivals. Sex in a variety of forms preoccupies
him, and it is through sexual experiences that he seems to at least
feel alive. While the women on his tour mainly disgust him (the
young and nubile he deems "sluts"; the older and more aware he
derides in various ways), women whom he can pay for sex receive the
small bits of appreciation he can muster.

Still, it is a fellow tour group member, Valérie, with whom
Michel connects when back in Paris. Michel, whose barely restrained
anger towards his recently dead father once prevented him from
pairing off with anyone besides his own hand, finds Valérie's
combination of submissive generosity and high-paying job as a
tourism executive irresistible. Their relationship brings him so
much contentment that his boss comments that he seems happy.
Despite their calm domestic bliss, the pair (both of whom seem
quite addicted to orgasm) soon finds themselves drawn to more and
more extreme erotic adventures.

Most of the time, PLATFORM seems more like one for Houellebecq's
extreme yet articulate views than it does a novel --- yet his
frozen-eyed comments on capitalism, religion, and gender politics
are uncomfortably close to the secret thoughts so many people have.
When Michel and Valérie devise a plan to turn her company's
tours into sex holidays, they return together to the Thailand where
he once experienced the zipless pleasures of a remarkably sanitary
sex worker. (As Julian Barnes wrote in The New Yorker, "The
novel's really nice, straightforward characters are Oriental
masseuses and prostitutes, who are presented as being without
flaws, diseases, pimps, addictions, or hang-ups.")

For a moment, it seems that everyone will be happy, even
Valérie's dour boss, Jean-Yves (given his straitlaced
viewpoint, Houellebecq seems to say that it's no wonder his wife
moonlights as a dominatrix). But alas, an early discussion Michel
has with his father's housekeeper-mistress, whose Muslim honor
avenged resulted in Renault pére's murder, presages the
tragic end of the resort community and Michel's brief personal
paradise. That this paradise is based on Western woman's supposed
boredom with the all-too-familiar sex-for-love equation and the
purported eagerness of Eastern woman to trade sex for the simple
things (groceries, reliability, good manners) makes Houellebecq's
Utopia terribly disturbing --- and terribly
thought-provoking.