Rob Pattinson Is Reading Michel Houellebecq's The Art of Struggle

The poems of Michel Houellebecq fit the character of Eric Packer. They are short, in French and English on facing pages with wide white borders around them.

                                                                           THE DOLE

I cross the city with nothing in mind
And the endless turnover of souls,
The overhead line, I know it by heart;
Days go by, I've nothing to say.

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Sometimes we live in a fraudulent stillness
With little feints and little tortures
The cafes were swarming with cleavage,
Two o'clock and the city was hot

Everything was set for reproduction:
All teeth, behavior and smiles
Everything made endlessly impossible
Fragments of a dream, soon unprimed.

Humans were busy in the walls of their city:
Crowds on the streets and mobile phones;
Anxiety all the way, hostility and looks:
Everything runs smooth, my nerves are raw