From streetwise to (meta)physics, a philosophical rogue novel (2023)

The books introduction:

In this novel, the author introduces the character Ron. A gangster philosopher who is put on the divan with gentle coercion. Ron roams ‘undercover’ in three contrary, separate worlds: academia, the boxing world and the criminal circuit.

It would be absurd to suppose that you can separate the life of a gangster philosopher, on the one hand, and his ideas, on the other. To truly understand him, you need to see all his worlds, however paradoxical, as one. So Ron – always focused on puncturing social bubbles – recounts his experiences as a criminal, boxer and academic.

That makes this handy little book a philosophy of the underground, in which power and counterpower, the state and the street come face to face. They, together with all the philosophical knowledge acquired by the protagonist, form the building blocks of a dissonant view of man and the world; detached from any form of prejudice, condemnation, duality and learned groupthink. In other words, free from the sufficient ignorance that Austrian author Robert Musil so aptly called “Dummheit”.

Die Dummheit, that is the famous blue pill, by which everything remains as it is, even if it is not reality. The fusion by getting to know the – possibly disturbing or even life- changing – truth, that is the red pill. And that last one, the protagonist in this novel takes.

Bon voyage, motherfucker!

Don’t join anything. Or join and commit treason immediately.

Michel Houellebecq

The book will be published end 2023 in Dutch (paperback) and English (epub).