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: #36290 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-01
• Original language: French
• 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

Review
'Very moving, gloriously, extravagantly filthy and very funny', Independent .'Destined to become a cult book... a genuine page-turner', Observer .'A brave and rather magnificent book', Daily Telegraph

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

Customer Reviews

Not pleasant but essential. Extraordinary.
I started reading this book almost a year ago and got through the first 2/3 very quickly; then something strange happened: I was so depressed by the contents of it, the constant pointless sex, the graphic descriptions, the callousness and emptiness of the characters and the emptiness of their shallow lives that--despite knowing that all this was deliberate by Houllebecq, that it was his razor-sharp deconstruction and commentary on the modern Western lifestyle--I was just not able to continue, until two days ago, when, with nothing else to do, I picked it up off my bookshelf and started from where I'd left off. The hiatus worked wonders and I whizzed through the remainder of the book, enthralled and riveted, although at times disgusted too, and full of admiration.

This is a difficult book but a necessary one and, I have no hesitation in now saying, a brilliant one. The book is full of some extraordinary ideas and incisive commentary on humanity in the late 20th century, especially that of European society. The ending--it goes into (very plausible) hard science fiction territory--the erudition of the writer, his eye for detail, and his twin obsessions of sex and violence, and his ability to be brave enough to write what he sees without any thought for political correctness or any of the other sops of the liberal left, is breathtaking and--despite the ocassional Islamophobia, nay contempt he portrays for organised religion but Islam in particular, his racism, makes this book essential reading especially after the tragic events of 9/11 and those in London on 7/7 and after. This book has more important and accurate things to say about the human condition of contemporary European man than any number of the dry academic essays on sociology and anthroplogy you can care to read. Understand Houllebecq and you understand what people nowadays really care about and think. I don't think I'd like the man but to ignore him and what he is saying would be to do so at our own peril. I haven't read a book full of such big and radical ideas for a long time.

A profound and thought-provoking read
I don't even know where to begin this review. It's no exaggeration to say this book is profound; it stayed with me long after I'd finished the last page. It's not a normal novel by any stretch of the imagination, encompassing as it does, a sociopolitical history of the 20th century. Atomised touches on many big themes, including the soullessness of existence and how the human condition - our individuality - is the root of much unhappiness. Through the story of two half brothers, growing up apart but in similar social conditions, Houellebecq is able to explore the nature/nurture paradigm. His characters, one an unfeeling academic and the other a sex-obsessed wanderer, are both emotionally distant and struggling to make sense of their lives. In many ways this search mirrors the shallowness of today's society. I found Atomised to be an incredible, thought-provoking and highly intelligent read. While the subject matter is deep, intense and thick with ideas, the book is a surprisingly genuine page turner. I will be recommending this to everyone I meet; it's one of those rare books that is both enriching and entertaining.

Standing at the crossroads of art and science.
Someone once said that trying to introduce ideas into a novel is tantamount to letting a gun off in a theatre – in which case Houellebecq here revels in firing a shotgun during a premiere performance. His is a fresh and fascinating take on modern living, supposing that society today is half defined by our awareness of the consequences of popular science and half by our awareness of the consequences of pornography. His characters are educated and intelligent but their lives are filled with frustrated lusts and insights into an essential emptiness of the world around them. There is a deliciously honest political incorrectness about Houellebecq’s views and a fierce sense of his desire to shake-up the accepted norms. In France, where intellectual arguments can still make headlines in the popular media, the book caused a storm of protest and debate. The contention is that just because we know a lot of things about a lot of things, just because we think that we understand the dynamics of society in a way that no previous generation has, just because we feel that we have an appreciation of the value-systems that structure our lives; none of this has moved us on any distance from being prejudiced and boorish and base. Houellebecq argues that society has fractured into individuals and that this lets us see ourselves for what we really are – for all that we may have learned to walk upright and use tools, we are still just naked apes. This book is quite simply unmissable.