For this passage and others deemed offensive both in interviews and in Atomised (where a character describes Islam as ‘the most stupid, false, and obscure of all religions’), Houellebecq found himself the target of legal proceedings in France. Whether for this reason, or his oft-cited desire to minimise his taxes, Houellebecq left France to live in Ireland.

Perhaps it was the stupidity that chased him away. After all, anybody who actually read Houellebecq – as opposed to just the excerpts they hoped to be offended by – could see that the characters in his novels are infinitely harsher in their criticism and contempt of the modern West than they are of the precepts and claims of Islam or Muslims. Houellebecq’s contempt fires in all directions – including at homosexuals, heterosexuals, the Chinese and most other nationalities. Dragging Houellebecq to court for being rude about Muslims was a demonstration of a gross game of sensitivity trump-cards, but it also showed a literary ignorance. Not just in hauling an author to court for his expressions, but in the fact that Houellebecq’s derision or contempt so clearly goes beyond the whines and pleadings of special-interest groups: his is a rage and contempt aimed against this age and species as a whole.

Yet however great the acrobatics and pyrotechnics in a literature of this type, it is always the case that it must at some point either mature or fizzle out. The evidence that Houellebecq wasn’t going to fizzle out came with The Map and the Territory (2010), the story of an artist who makes himself fabulously wealthy through his deeply occasional work. The wealth allows him to seclude himself from a France doomed to become in the near future little more than a cultural theme-park for the new Russian and Chinese super-rich. The work is not only an exploration of the traditional Houellebecq themes (dysfunctional family life, empty sex, solitude) but a profound satire on modern culture. It includes a hilarious and devastating self-portrait – a reminder of the truth that the most savage critics always also turn their gaze on themselves. The artist visits the drunken writer Michel Houellebecq in his remote and unattractive Irish retreat.

The self-portrait is remarkably accurate. Dissolute, alcoholic, depressive and meandering, the portrait of Houellebecq in The Map and the Territory shows an almost affrontingly desiccated life. It is also a life that produces enemies. A curious detail is that at one point in the novel ‘Houellebecq’ is found dead – decapitated, flayed and mutilated. In 2016 that scene assumed less amusing overtones.