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Michel Houellebecq

The Elementary Particles Paperback – November 13, 2001

by Michel Houellebecq (Author), Frank Wynne (Translator)

139 customer reviews

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An international literary phenomenon, The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel–part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence.

Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale.

Translated from the French by Frank Wynne.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"An original work of art–ironic, intelligent and as airtight and elegant as a geometry proof."
--The New York Times Magazine

"[A] brilliant novel of ideas... [A] riveting novel by a deft, observant writer."
--The Wall Street Journal

"Fearless, vivid and astringently honest…surprisingly funny... [C]an permanently change how we view things that happened in our own lives. Not many novels can do that."
--Los Angeles Times

From the Inside Flap

An international literary phenomenon, The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel-part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence.
Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale.
Translated from the French by Frank Wynne.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product details

Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Soft Cover edition (November 13, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375727019
ISBN-13: 978-0375727016
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 139 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #115,334 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #78 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > European > French
- #298 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Metaphysical & Visionary
- #666 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Self-Help & Psychology

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139 customer reviews

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A pithy commentary on the human condition and what to do about it

February 2, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I must confess that for a long time I didn't know where the author was taking me. The two brothers were dysfunctional in different ways. Neither were capable of human relationships. One was a sensual hedonist, an onanist, the other, an abstracted intellectual. His work product is obscure almost until the final chapters and epilogue when the thesis is fully exposed and theory becomes application. Humanity becomes a complex version of the ....I don't want to give it away. Suffice it to say that Michel, the scientist, follows the trajectory of quantum physics into genetics and seeks an antidote to humanity's flaws. Along the way we encounter some sad people who disintegrate as we all do. This is a work of French intellectual process. It is at times disgusting, other times perplexing, but there is a strong message, not for the shallow. Hard to believe but love, in all its permutations, is a major theme. Sheldon Greene is a novelist and executive in a wind energy company

4 people found this helpful

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Not afraid to challenge the reader

September 3, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

As I was reading (in the case of The Elementary Particles - absorbing, pondering, considering) I was eventually convinced this was a very good book (4 stars). After all, the basic story line of two half-brothers being effectively abandoned by a hippie/hedonist mother to make their own, separate ways in the world was original, if somewhat counter to actual hippie values. And yet the story was well told and the author made marvelous use of a carrot and stick approach with his audience. Most chapters began with a dry, hyper- and/or pseudo-scientific examination of the older brother Michel's work as a molecular biologist. Just as this became too much, after say four or five paragraphs, Houellebecq switched gears and dove into Bruno's, the younger brother, myriad sexual exploits. Though both boys are clearly dysfunctional, the back and forth and the constant forward motion are compelling. The author also drops numerous pronouncements about life and humankind throughout, the type of thing to either dismiss or to pay attention to and appreciate. Approaching the last of the book, I became convinced that this was not just a good book but perhaps a great work. (5 stars). And there it would have stayed, had not the unfortunate Epilogue reared it's ill-fitting head. For reasons not clear the author felt the need to convert what had been a well-written, complex, thought-provoking contemporary novel into a work of science fiction, to this reader's mind, thereby lessening it's believability and impact. The work was stronger when every reader could decide for him- or herself what the ultimate outcome of these two lives would have been. Still, an excellent work of literature, well worth the read (just minus that fifth star - final rating, 4 stars).

One person found this helpful

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Bruno and Michel are half-brothers separated in life by their brilliant, but self-destructive mother

May 25, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

More interesting and composed than his Submission, Michel Houellebecq’s novel The Elementary Particles is an exploration into the question of posthumanism. Bruno and Michel are half-brothers separated in life by their brilliant, but self-destructive mother, who each embody different aspects of modernity in its reified objecthood. Bruno enjoins us to consider sexual liberation as yet another deterministically programmed function of biology; Michel’s research in science is perhaps merely motivated by self-preservation. Although full of great ideas and often hilarious, Houllebecq’s prose is still fraught with adolescent provocations and missteps.

Comment

Kindle Customer

Profound and Profane

November 19, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Houellebecq is a wild ride. "The Elementary Particles" is about sex, death and muddled science. It's really about two brothers who cannot love. They can barely feel. Actually, they are half brothers, same mother, different fathers. Bruno lives a life of promiscuity, ending in madness. Michel is a brilliant molecular biologist. He can barely have sex, but does finally reunite with Annabelle, a woman who has loved him since childhood. Neither Michel, Bruno nor anyone else reaches a happy ending, although from a scientific view, Michel achieves much in his life and career. At times, Houellebecq is brilliant, deeply insightful. At times, he seems caught up in science fiction nonsense. Is the book worth reading? Yes, yes, yes.

,

2 people found this helpful

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Lambert J. Mathieu

One aspect I like is his ability to tell the story of a ...

August 21, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This was an extremely provocative, visionary book. Houellebecq writes with Camus' calm, austere voice, but the story he tells is much more grand than Camus' work. One aspect I like is his ability to tell the story of a few individual people, while at the same time, giving the reader a total view of the world, looking both backwards and forward. The chapter that talks about Aldous Huxley (9, I think) is worth the price of the book alone. If the continual descriptions of sexual behavior and sexual escapades seem tiresome at times, I encourage the reader to persist through till the end. The payoff is worth it. And the conclusion of the book sheds more light on the relevance of all the sexual meanderings. It also caused me to go back and look at certain parts of the beginning of the book again with greater understanding (such as the poems at the beginning). I also enjoyed his book, The Map and the Territory, and am now reading The Possibility of an Island. I'll buy future books of this author as soon as they come out!

3 people found this helpful

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