Atomised - Softcover

Houellebecq, Michel; Wynne, Frank

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099283360 ISBN 13: 9780099283362

Publisher: Vintage, 2001

Synopsis

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 tells the stories of the two brothers, but the real subject of the novel is the dismantling of contemporary society and its assumptions, 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.

About this title

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)

"Compelling...wrenchingly terrible... Unhealthy and haunting, rich and provocative, Atomised astonishes both as a novel of ideas and as a portrait of a society" (Independent)

"A brave and rather magnificent book" (Daily Telegraph)

"Sheer brilliance...totally mesmerising, energising, infuriating and moving... Compulsory reading" (Time Out)

"A novel which hunts big game while others settle for shooting rabbits" (Julian Barnes Times Literary Supplement)

"Destined to become a cult book...a genuine page-turner" (Observer)

"Bullying and brilliant... Atomised is nothing less than a road-rage map of our times" (Evening Standard)

"An extraordinary voice" (Observer)

"Makes you re-examine your beliefs... This is a brave and rather magnificent book" (Daily Telegraph)

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0099283360
• ISBN 13: 9780099283362
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384