a priest reviewing an amazing book, this is the best the day of my life

Interesting to hear a priest review this book!

please do more book reviews

Great review.

we need more of these types of book reviews

What a great review ! Thanks a lot 😊

Can you please make more book reviews

Great review

Loved your review of the book. Was definitely an interesting read

excellent

This guy is trying to save his salary.

One of the best reviews of this book I've seen.

Houellebecq has said in an interview that he goes to church, but he is unable to maintain faith outside the church. He can believe as long as he is inside the church and the service goes on, but when it is over he falls out of the bubble. He seems like a wonderful sensitive being, not like a stone faced bad boy at all.

It is my favourite book, I must have read it 25 times by now. I enjoyed your review.

Sharp prelate here... Interesting old question of theology that inheres for this lapsed Catholic. I'm not a philistine but do wonder if some art is so immoral that it is less an occasion of meeting the world and more a deviation to temptation than one can sustain. I say this not as someone who doesn't enjoy this writer, and the general humanism of your review, but because one can't help ask if the world has gotten so besotted of late with a nihilism of the senses that Christianity cannot be sustained except by withdrawal from it. I witness for example this pope. I'm no big fan of hell myself, but the pope is captain of a ship of one billion souls, holding on for dear life against the buffets of postmodernism, secular spiritual collapse, and a degraded culture that reminds one of late Rome. In such a storm-tossed milieu, is it really time for this jesuitical Jesuit to start opining about the unlikelihood of hell? What about the patina of authority, the centuries' old bulwark against people simply giving into chaos. The Church is hardly above reproach; my concern rather is with a discourse that is so dilatory that one cannot find plausible authorities (take the green insufferable bishop of the Anglican Church also) for Christian canonicity. The new theology of identity, covid, and green energy seems to have stronger exponents at the tops of our churches than the gospel of Christ.

You make a very likeable and engaging book reviewer. I've searched through your channel for more, but this appears to be a one off. Too bad! You seem to enjoy it.

It's far worse than H describes in his novels . The one thing he really can't hack is spiritual evil especially the innate nature of women - you get their total damage in H - but the spiritual ontology behind the end of the West is beyond his reach he's John the Baptist but not the Moses we really needed . But it's too late any way . Jesu's doctrine of hell ? No thanks an obvious fraud and much worse than a mere fraud . Spiritual warfare is now the new thing the political and sexual ontology of decades as parsed by H is a chronic bore a predictable pathology of evil which is why I never bothered with his last 3 novels . Literature has no real function or large audience or reason to exist in such an expiration of the West - at best it's just laughter in the dark a mockery of death . The imminent spiritual war is the last and only place to stand . Those things that were hidden are now showing their hand .

totally epic video

I wonder if anyone has an e-mail address for Fr Peter? I've tried contacting him through ASMS website but those e-mails never seem to go through. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Thank you for posting. I have an impression it's a little bit too quiet though.

Wonderful review of an important writer. Thank you for this

Thank you for that.

I've just finished 'Serotonin' this afternoon, a truly devastating diagnosis of contemporary Western spiritual malaise and its deleterious effects on the human being. Darkly funny too. Houllebecq's humour is the blackest of black. Wonderful novel, but hardly a reassuring read for those of a timid or conformist temperament. Like Huysmans he is not afraid to examine the 'secret sewers of the soul'. A seriously thought- provoking read for sure.

" . . . mourns the collapse of certain cultural certainties, but hasn't really got an answer of what should replace it . . ." Not the job of the novelist mate, a pamphleteer perhaps, the cloistered academic to be sure, but not the novelist. That Houellebecq raises issues that are uncomfortable to some, offensive to others does not require him to have solutions that are oftentimes resistant to one-size-fits-all solutions. It's the act of creation and the rippling consequences that motivate him, not tidy endings. That said, I like that you recognized that Houellebecq trusts his readers and your general overall tone of approval. As regards the ending, one thing to bear in mind with Houellebecq is the thread of ennui woven throughout his novels. It is an actual reality for some of his characters, particularly his narrators/protagonists, not some cheap plot device. This is a man who obviously has a deep and abiding familiarity of 19th century writers and literature. Cheers!

Do more of this please.. You have talent

Thanks for the book review , very interesting . I arrived here when someone recommended Houellebecq, and because the power of the EU and the UN is obscene >> we should take up arms against those dictatorial bureaucrats .

This review is a wonderful proof against Michel Houellebecq's notions against individuality and liberal humanism. Houellebecq knows he's punching against the grain, and that we'll relish the luxury of pushing against the entire evolution of thought from Cynics to Jesus to the organized church to secular humanism---there isn't a place to regress to. Modernity is a complex moral tapestry. One which culminates in a Rabelaisian priest like this one seeing the value of nihilistic literature without any fear of being destroyed by it. There's a courage in that. A fearless acceptance. And a wonderful openness to the humor of it. The basic human truths aren't in jeopardy. To pretend they were, would be pretty insulting actually. I loved how Michel Houellebecq's answer to Huysman's conversion to Christianity was having a character convert to Islam for shallow reasons in "Submission"

“Extreme sexual gratuity” he chuckles jovially… What a great guy. This was a wonderful review, thanks!

Where and when? Jerusalem on and immediately after the day of Pentecost. 2000 people got saved and they met in the temple (public place) and houses. The Apostles taught from house to house and the Lord added to their number daily. I've been to house churches in Rome dating to the 3rd century and the main room is no bigger then my dining/lounge area. Plus it had many pillars blocking the view to the front.

Fascinating review. You should make more. Perhaps a series on Huysmans's Durtal books? Or on Leon Bloy? Regards

wap - worship and prayer

Interesting!

Great review! Houllebecq is a fantastic writer. I crave a solid nihilistic, existential, depressing book every so often and Houllebecq is exactly that.

Thank you for sharing 🙏🏻

Thank you for sharing. A very beautiful mass. Thank you 🙏🏻

Reminds me of Father Ted:”good luck with the book!”

Thank you for this Mass 🙏😊

Thank you, Father for this Mass this evening

You're a legend.

A very beautiful mass.With all my heart I thank you for sharing. 🙏🏻❤️

I just love Kentish Town liturgy.

Thank you for sharing . Was a beautiful mass.🙏🏻

I do think it’s somewhat Rabelaisian a man of the cloth reading Houellebecq! I love it 😂😂

Thank you 🙏🏻 for sharing.

Thank you for sharing 🙏🏻 praying for everyone.

Thank you for sharing always looking forward for this day.🙏🏻praying for everyone to be healthy and happy always.Tonight I and 9 month old and 8 yr old grandsons were watching mass. And my 28 yr old son. It is so beautiful that you share this with the world. Every time They watch and listen it changes something in all the boys for the better. So I thank you from my heart . Thank agian for sharing.

Thank you, Father. Very sound and practical teaching.

So are people allowed to remove their masks in a group in the UK? My understanding of the scientific advice is that masks should be worn at all times in a crowd as the covid19 can be airborne. So that means that there should be no communion at any Mass or Service. To give people communion is to make them remove their masks while in a crowd and that's not covid19 safe.

As a Plymouth Brother, I would be quite happy to have a silver chalice with some strong undiluted ruby port. I am not so keen on having it wiped with a common cloth. Each person could wipe the chalice with a fresh clean piece of linen.

As a non-conformist who is used to receiving a piece of bread broken off a communal loaf and a glass of non-alcoholic wine from a common bottle, I find it strange that Anglicans are agonising over whether it would be a "proper" sacrament if the wine were poured out into glasses before having the words of institution said over them. Why is it correct (indeed, I get the impression that this is preferred) to have separate communion wafers, but not separate glasses for the wine?