Customer Reviews

Atomised

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4 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

...I picked up a copy at Heathrow before a flight to Boston, expecting to read a few pages while waiting for airline food and blissful oblivion. To my surprise, I couldn't put it down, and I was still reading as we touched down at Logan. I found myself wondering why I actually cared about these unattractive, depressing characters, and then I realized that it was because they represent the unattractive, depressing parts of me, of all of us. The book is deeply un-American in its view of what is important in life. It's stunning. Recommended, unless you're taking SSRIs or similar medication.

UPDATE: Just after submitting the above, I discovered the reason for the absence of reviews for "Atomised": the US publisher changed the name to "The Elementary Particles". Now I've always hated this habit - the original title was just fine, and there wasn't an existing "Atomised" to cause confusion - but I'm particularly annoyed that nothing on the Amazon pages for either title shows the relationship between the two. This is what hypertext is supposed to be to good for.....

Michel Houllebecq set a high conceptual standard with this book, The Elementary Particles, nearly 10 years ago. Without entering the Science Fiction genre, he was able to do what the Best Science Fiction writers have been trying to do for three generations: Out-do Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World." That book is a philosophical Tour de Force. if you have not read it, do!

Incidentally, I picked up a copy at Heathrow before a flight to Kathmandu, and finished it the same day. It left me a bit depressed for three days. To overcome this I thought I'd look for a book that might offer a different perspective on the central ideas of the story. I ran into Fritjof Capra's The Hidden Connections, which I feel is an excellent follow-up for anyone interested in a more theoretical approach to the subject.
For that matter: Atomised is a fitting title indeed, for it's the lack of connection that lies at the core of this excellent story.

Monsieur Houllebecq clearly understands things that most people refuses to even see; the incredible way in which he describes today's life in Europe (and most parts of Western developed societies) trapped my intellect and transported me into France, the US and the UK with mixed feelings of "no way out", "fascination", "pleasure", "pain", etc... The way he "conects" characters with exact and social sciences is superb. Treatment of death as the ultimate result no matter what, perfect. His idea of loneliness as a consequence of superficiality, shocking. Definitely, a mirror in which not always you want to take a look; a great book from a very intelligent author.

After a convincing recommendation from a colleague, I read 'Atomised'. Within the first few pages I was blown away. Houellebecq's honest and raw narrative is astounding and truly memorable. Although disturbing and even, at times, depressing, this novel is indeed one to make you think. The relationship between Bruno and Michel is painful yet somehow refreshing, a break from the norm. 'Atomised' is definitely one to give a new perspective on life and I challenge you to want to put it down for any other reason that to wipe the tears away.

Michel Houellebecq was born to hippie parents and has seen the politically radical, left-liberal-elite movement from the inside. In this novel he exposes the pretentions of that movement and the selfish, destructive society it has created.

The story is told through the lives of two half brothers, Bruno and Michel. Bruno's miserable childhood, a victim of the sadism of boys in boarding school, is horrifically described as is his current pathetic existence searching for sexual satisfaction refused him due to his ugliness. Michel's life bears other frustrations. He has a penetrating intelligence and has been the love of a beautiful girl and woman all his life but has never been able to reciprocate it.

As Houellebecq sees it, the combination of greater sexual freedom, the destruction of traditional values through western left-wing political movements and the infiltration of American popular culture created a society comprised of a self obsessed left-liberal elite who hide (from themselves as much as others) their scathing selfishness in supposed tolerance and equality (though only for certain views and people) and various right-on opinions which they loudly proclaim at dinner parties in affluent suburbs before retiring to smug, self-satisfied sleep in king sized, upholstered beds with fragrant wives.

"It is interesting to note that the 'sexual revolution' is usually portrayed as a communist utopia, whereas in fact it was simply another stage in the rise of the individual...the couple and the family were to be the last bastion of primitive communism in a liberal society. The sexual revolution was to destroy the last unit separating the individual from the market. The destruction continues to this day.

...this decline in Western civilisation since 1945 was simply a return to the cult of power, a rejection of the secular rules slowly built up in the name of justice and morality. Actionists, beatniks, hippies and serial killers were all pure libertarians who advanced the rights of the individual against the social norms and against what they believed to be the hypocricy of morality, sentiment, justice and pity."

Houellebecq paints an ugly picture of our world that is a refreshing challenge to the widely held view that western society is more open, more tolerant, and more humane than it has ever been and that the technological revolution and, in particular, the internet is the vehicle through which this upward trend will continue rather than the polished screen before which society, incapable of recognising the selfish destruction it has wrought, preens in self admiration.

The story proceeds to a resolution of western society's ills that is innovative and convincing, if full of despair for anyone with faith in mankind's reform.

A fine dissection of our failures and self deception.

Original, thought provoking and entertaining. I highly recommend this book now, it will most likely depress you and make you question who you are and what life is all about!

PS - whilst it is out of print in the US it is available in the UK (with the added bonus of being cheaper + no tax).

I wonder whether this book will sell any copies in the USA? It's lengthy philosophical dissertations do not sit well with the American commitment to personal achievement at the expense of everything and everybody else.
That aside it's a bloody good read if a somewhat depressing one. The most admirable characters in the novel (on a moral basis) all die. Get over this. The story is strong and the message is compelling. In a funny way the book is actually a disguised lecture on the virtues of truth, simple morality and family being the core of a successful society. These are the virtues preached loudly (and absolutely NOT practised) by the current run of right wing governments around the democratic world cf. USA, Australia, Spain etc.
The book is not a rant. It's a complex story well told with an interesting cast of characters who will hold your interest because you will see yourself in a number of them. Buy it now and find yourself dragged into it.

I'm 100 pages deep into one of the blandest books I can ever recall reading. Where is the formal experimentation? The merciless social critique? For pete's sake, where is the damn pornography? Over a quarter of the way through this sluggish narrative, and so far it is merely meandering background biography for two thin character sketches, combined with a few historical details around which the author awkwardly sinches his garbled philosophical ramblings. Lest we forget this is an ambitious 'novel of ideas,' there are half-baked asides such as "Water follows the path of least resistance. Human behaviour is predetermined in principle in almost all of its actions and offers few choices, of which fewer still are taken." Why show when you can just tell, tell, tell.

This barely passes for compelling storytelling and it certainly is not literature. Unless many rich subtleties have been lost in translation, I'm confused why this boring essay was even published.

Does it improve at all?

A friend lent me this book, as it had some intellectual underpinnings. I must say that it is one of the worst books I have read in ages. The author is apparently French and was raised by hippies. One can sympathize with him for having such a dreadful upbringing. However the book is full of revolting sexual images. Reading the critical response the theme of the book is apparently with the collapse of the old morality society has become fragmented and pointless. This apparently gives the author some leeway to write about a character who spends most of his time jerking off after seeing young girls. The book is full of big statements such as "there is no such thing as homosexuality. All homosexuals are pedophiles who would drop their current partner for an 18 year old". Generally the book is dull, semi pornographic and filled with bald pretentious observations about the world.