Product Description

Half-brothers Michel and Bruno have a mother in common but little else. Michel is a molecular biologist, a thinker and idealist, a man with no erotic life to speak of and little in the way of human society. Bruno, by contrast, is a libertine, though more in theory than in practice, his endless lust is all too rarely reciprocated. Both are symptomatic members of our atomised society, where religion has given way to shallow `new age' philosophies and love to meaningless sexual connections. ATOMISED (Les Particules elementaires) tells the stories of the two brothers, but the real subject of the novel is in its dismantling of contemporary society and its assumptions, in its political incorrectness, and its caustic and penetrating asides on everything from anthropology to the problem pages of girls' magazines. A dissection of modern lives and loves. By turns funny, acid, infuriating, didactic, touching and visceral.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7970 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Michel Houellebecq's dark and disturbing novel Atomised sees him establish himself as a unique and important voice in European letters. With his first work, Whatever, Houellebecq had created a sassy, street-wise bulletin of disaffected existentialism, and here that voice brilliantly extends its range. Atomised (from the French Les Particules élémentaires) is the story of two half-brothers, Michel and Bruno, who seem to represent two sides of Houellebecq himself (there are more than a few moments in the book where we feel we are reading a strange roman à clef). Michel, a molecular biologist, finds ordinary, human emotions inexplicable, making him seem abstruse and cold. Bruno is his opposite: a frustrated libertine trapped in a body most find repellant but still holding sex up as his most validating moment. Through these skewed archetypes an intricate, sometimes quite moving story of the brothers' lives is formed.

Houellebecq obviously has a formidable intellect and, like the best French writers, manages to rail against anthropology, psychoanalysis, New Age philosophy and modern society in general without losing sight of his narrative--indeed the narrative is controlled quite beautifully, the pacing excellent, the switching from one brother's story to the other's done with a quiet grace. While some of Houellebecq's views are at the least questionable, and while there are moments when the conclusions to be drawn from his broadsides are disturbing, this never negates the value of the work. This is an ambitious book in which Houellebecq asks important questions: if sex is continually degraded by its increasing commodification and, concomitantly, genetics increasingly offers us the opportunity for procreation without recourse to it, where does that leave us? How do we navigate ourselves, afloat as we are, in this new moral universe? What does the increasing pace of scientific change mean to the conversations non-scientists have about our lives? What place does something called spirituality, whatever that means, have in this brave, new world? This is a big, bold, clever book that has already achieved more than cult status in France. Houellebecq should be read, and read carefully, if not always believed. --Mark Thwaite

Observer
`Destined to become a cult book…a genuine page-turner'

Independent
`Compelling... wrenchingly terrible... Unhealthy and haunting, rich and provocative, Atomised astonishes ...'

Customer Reviews

atom of delight
Theres not been a book like this in my lifetime. What is so wonderful about it is the way H shuns 'the literary' and goes straight for the jugular. His writing cuts to the core of what is wrong with our culture, but has the intelligence to never turn itself into a mission statement or credo. if people are perplexed then fine, so they should be, I've been mulling over this book for about 5 years. This is what books are for. Brilliant.

I Give Up. I have gave up. I've given up!
It is a rare thing I read a book and give up with no intention of trying again. It has happened to me twice. Once with Ernest Hemmingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and now this one.

Whilst this is can only ever be my opinion, one of a few compared to the many who seem to like this atrocious book, it is what I think.

I gave up on page 285, 100 pages from the end. I feel bad because for the past 200 pages I have actually wasted time struggling through this book in hope it would get better. For me at least, it did not and I found myself getting increasingly depressed with every word I read. It isn't worth it, to me, to make myself suicidal over a book. It wasn't the ideas, the story or the content that's making me suicidal, but the sheer boredom of having to pass my eyes over these words.

In between meaningless descriptions of masturbation and sex, which add nothing to the story, Houellebecq inserts 'ideas' and the such. Anthropology, philosophy, sociology... but this isn't why I read novels, to be forcefully spoon fed warped ideas. I have studied Sociology at university level, I have read the text books and they're far more interesting then this book. I actually get to think for myself.

I don't care for Houellebecq's take on society. From the other book of his I have looked through it doesn't seem much different from this - sex obsessed, life is terrible, boo hoo hoo. In fact, it was so boring I found myself skimming over entire pages, reading words but not taking anything in. I am very disappointed.

I picked up this book thinking it was going to be really, very interesting. I'm not afraid of reading literary fiction, I love books that had a wider meaning then the simple story. But this, this is not it. This isn't to me, intelligent. If Houllebecq wants me to read about his ideas, then write me an essay. Not hide some great big narrative about society behind badly construed fictionalised characters that act as megaphones for whatever ideas he wants to air.

There isn't a story here. There isn't a plot. It is as subtle as a sledgehammer. I hated it, I despised this book. I even considered chucking it into the recycling bin, but for there are people out there who might enjoy this book. As I say, this is only my own opinion and this just isn't the type of book I'd ever enjoy.

I don't deny that the author is very intelligent, but there are other ways to portray your ideas in fiction, with more subtle means, then this.

Right now, I am going to find a book that will make me happy and that I can ENJOY. I am feeling quite relieved and happy, but slightly sad that I did not manage to finish it, because I do not like giving up after I got so far.

an angry man
Houellebecq is a resentful, bitter man. The main characters of this book are vehicles for an extended moan about his own life and frustrations and his dark, nihilistic view of Western 21st century society and its (assumed) failure to bring happiness to its citizens.

If he could keep away from the chips on his shoulders and let his imagination go a bit, then he would have something much more interesting to say, because his ideas about the tension between the advanced state of human knowledge and our insatiable search for satisfaction and fulfilment are profound. Instead he spends most of his time fiddling around with episodes of frustration, failed and superficial relationships and commodified sex and never quite pays the same attention to the other side of the coin that he clearly sees - the possibilities for a biotechnological solution to our imperfect humanity.

I give him three stars because his obsessions are real and interesting. He doesn't get more because he hasn't done the work of an author and taken them beyond obsessions to something more creative than an extended (if reasonably well-written) rant.