- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd; 1ST Edition edition (4 May 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0434007935
- ISBN-13: 978-0434007936
- Product Dimensions: 19 x 12.4 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 586,751 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
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 --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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
--This text refers to the
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
38 of 48 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
22 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
On the evidence of 'Atomised', at least, there is nothing profound or original to Michel Houellebecq that a British reader cannot read in a column in the Daily Mail.
Sex is a commodity, human beings are emotionless automatons (or going that way); we seek instant gratification. Life is pretty crap for most of us unless we manage through some fluke to get laid.
It's a depressing - and dishonest - picture. And although, to be fair, given with some literary panache and at least a dash of humour, Atomised is just another salvo in a reactionary war against humanity itself.
Houellebecq blithely brushes over centuries of of human achievements to give us two horrific characters who we are asked to believe somehow 'represent' humanity. Michel is a scientist who could never even kiss his girlfriend and wonders about in a scientific haze. Bruno drops his trousers whenever he sees a girl - the sticky results follow soon after.
Maybe the author should leave the island he lives on and find some human contact elsewhere. He offers a laughable indictment of humanity which he has no right to give.
For a real insight into the malaise of European postwar civilisation I suggest you pick up the infinitely more erudite and, indeed, humane, W.G. Sebald. ("Austerlitz", "The Emigrants")
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Perfect Schadenfreude
A bio-chemist friend recommended this book to me while we tanned our pasty frames on the beach in Barcelona in 2001. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Camp Bell Mark
The 'last man' and the 'superhuman'
Atomised was highly recommended to me by friend who is a scientist. I am more the philosophical type and I loved the book too. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Timos
Thought provoking !
I recommend this book highly. I started this book a week ago, and finished in about a week. In a lot of chapters, it seemed to say exactly some of the things I have been trying to... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Shopperninja
Soulless verbiage
Vacuous, heavy-handed tosh. What a mystery that it has been so highly rated. It has all the depth and subtlety of a piece of aluminium foil, none of the shine, and doesn't even... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Stetson
novel of ideas
This is a novel full of ideas and written in an original and quirky way. The two central characters in the book are the victims of a beatnik mother who totally neglects their... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mr. Robert Marsland
Atomised
I was surprised to read so many unfavourable reviews on here concerning 'Atomised'. I would totally agree that there are sexual themes within the content of the book that could be... Read more
Published 19 months ago by N. A. Spencer
portentious pretentious
This is a book of ideas, but not very good ones. You do not have something important to say just because you have heard of quantum physics and Aristotle. Read more
Published on 2 Sep 2009 by jd
Quite dull, pretentious and tedious.
I really found this book quite a struggle to stick with, the chapters that follow Michel are incredibly dull. Read more
Published on 27 July 2009 by Lukens
I just don't get it...
Judging from the reviews, there are many people out there who think very highly of 'Atomised' and most of Houellebecq's tomes but I'm not one of them. Read more
Published on 9 July 2009 by George Stark
Not only awful, but boring with it!
I finished this, though I don't know why I bothered. To me it was boring, pointless, populated by characters who could barely be described as human, and full of useless information... Read more
Published on 9 April 2009 by Penny Waugh
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