'Whatever' by Michel Houellebecq Quiz

Answer: We're never told

The whole book is told in the first person by the main character, and so we never find out what his name is. Some speculate this is to stress the lack of human contact and the depersonalisation the character feels.

Frehaut is the coworker for whom the going away party is being given, LaBrette is a chef at his work and Buvet is the main character's only friend.

Answer: He works in IT

Main characters in other books by Houellebecq have creative jobs like being a photographer or an actor, but this guy works in IT, as a programmer and analyst, and doesn't like it one bit. He does write in his free time, though, but no one ever reads his stories.

Answer: Véronique

It's Véronique. They weren't married for very long, and the marriage and subsequent break up left the main character bitter and disillusioned. According to him, Veronique has been rendered unfit for any sort of loving relationship because of therapy.

Answer: His car

He goes to a party in a part of Paris where all apartment buildings look the same and all streets seem to have names with Marcel in it. After the party he cannot remember where he parked it. After looking for it and not finding it he just decides to tell everyone that it was stolen, because people would think he was crazy if he told them he lost his car.

Answer: Fables

He writes fables that mostly deal with typically emotional subjects (love, sex, relations between individuals) in a distant and clinical way. They're nothing like Aesop's fables.

Answer: He's a priest

His best (and only) friend is a priest who struggles a lot with his faith and the dwindling importance of it in today's society. He advises the main character to either go in therapy or to accept Jesus in his life. The main character only meets this friend twice in the whole book.

Answer: Rouen, Dijon, La Roche-sur-Yon

In order to give training sessions for the new computer program, the main character and his coworker Raphael are to take a business trip to three different cities. Paris is where they live. Marseille and Toulouse are never mentioned. Eventually the main character never makes it to Dijon because he falls sick in Rouen.

Answer: He is very ugly

He is apparently so ugly that he cannot get a girl at all. The main character describes a few instances where Raphael is trying to flirt with a girl and gets shot down every time. Raphael gets more and more depressed and desperate during the course of the business trip.

Answer: He dies in a car accident

After a wildly unsuccessful night out, Raphael has once again failed to attract female companionship, his chosen target leaving the disco with another man instead. The main character convinces him that the only right thing to do is to follow the couple to the beach, and kill them there, so Raphael can have his revenge. (There are strong echoes of 'The Stranger' by Albert Camus here.)
Raphael does follow them, and brings a knife, but decides against the idea and heads home in his car, promptly getting killed when his car swerves off the road.

Answer: Economics

The way he talks about love, turning it into a commodity that can be traded and acquired as long as your market value is high enough, has not endeared him to many people.