Just read The Elementary Particles, my first Michel…
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Just read The Elementary Particles, my first Michel Houllebecq book
So I've been aware of Michel Houellebecq and his reputation for some time now and the supposed sexism, pornographic vibes, nihilism, Islamophobia and general edgelordiness in his works. I finally got around to trying one of his books, starting with what seems to be his most well-known work - The Elementary Particles (also known as Atomized).
It's a fairly short book and I made my way through it quickly. I'm still trying to figure out, however, exactly how I feel about it. It's absolutely a provocative book, there's no doubt about that. You can just tell this guy loves to really "go there" lol. It's weird - I think a lot of the aforementioned complaints I've heard definitely *do* apply to the book, but despite all that, I still found it to be a pretty fascinating and often compelling read.
Now, I wouldn't really say I *enjoyed* it - it's a bleak, nihilistic and generally nasty story with protagonists who are not so much unlikable as they are almost completely devoid of anything close to a personality except for their urges, or lack thereof. Or maybe that's the point - this book has that very late-90s Gen X turn-of-the-millennium atmosphere of ennui, detachment and disconnect, of people struggling to find their individuality in the midst of an indifferent, materialistic society, specifically in the Western world. It gave me some very Fight Club/American Beauty vibes if I had to compare it other, more popular media. The prose has a flat, affectless quality to it that matches the tone of the story.
It's a very interesting study of not that just that specific time and place, but of two drastically different characters that populate it. Bruno is driven almost entirely by his sexual urges and his libido, whereas Michel has literally no urges and no drive to speak of other than his curiosity around the titular elementary particles that make up our world.
The characters really aren't more than mouthpieces, imo, for whatever Houellebecq has to talk about, and boy does have shit to talk about. I definitely get some of the edgelord complaints - a lot of the scenes in the book really just seem to be there to shock. I kinda get what he was going for, about how desensitized we become to such things, but specific examples like the story Bruno tells Michel about the cult leader and how he castrated a baby and ate it, and made a 12-year old girl give him a blowjob while chainsawing the dick off a snuff film victim just kinda crosses the line into being lurid, ridiculous and shock for shock's sake.
The sex parts (and there are a LOT of them considering that's like Bruno's entire story arc) I found really interesting, partly because it's an incredibly sexually explicit - one could argue pornographic - book that also makes the sex feel almost completely unsexy and unerotic, and downright depressing and sad. But again - maybe that's the point? For Bruno it's just a coping mechanism to get through his shitty life like how the science stuff is for Michel.
Or who knows? Maybe Houllebecq *doesn't* have anything to say other than being a cynical provocateur and depicting sexual and moral degradation. That's why I'm conflicted as to my feelings about it. There's no denying that there is a sort of dark and unsettling power to the book making a point about the world the characters live in, but a lot of the times it does feel like empty nihilism.
At the very least, I'm compelled enough to try out some of his other work. I'd give Elementary Particles a 3.5/5, maybe 4 on days I'm feeling particularly misanthropic myself.
#entertainment
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So I've been aware of Michel Houellebecq and his reputation for some time now and the supposed sexism, pornographic vibes, nihilism, Islamophobia and general edgelordiness in his works. I finally got around to trying one of his books, starting with what seems to be his most well-known work - The Elementary Particles (also known as Atomized).
It's a fairly short book and I made my way through it quickly. I'm still trying to figure out, however, exactly how I feel about it. It's absolutely a provocative book, there's no doubt about that. You can just tell this guy loves to really "go there" lol. It's weird - I think a lot of the aforementioned complaints I've heard definitely *do* apply to the book, but despite all that, I still found it to be a pretty fascinating and often compelling read.
Now, I wouldn't really say I *enjoyed* it - it's a bleak, nihilistic and generally nasty story with protagonists who are not so much unlikable as they are almost completely devoid of anything close to a personality except for their urges, or lack thereof. Or maybe that's the point - this book has that very late-90s Gen X turn-of-the-millennium atmosphere of ennui, detachment and disconnect, of people struggling to find their individuality in the midst of an indifferent, materialistic society, specifically in the Western world. It gave me some very Fight Club/American Beauty vibes if I had to compare it other, more popular media. The prose has a flat, affectless quality to it that matches the tone of the story.
It's a very interesting study of not that just that specific time and place, but of two drastically different characters that populate it. Bruno is driven almost entirely by his sexual urges and his libido, whereas Michel has literally no urges and no drive to speak of other than his curiosity around the titular elementary particles that make up our world.
The characters really aren't more than mouthpieces, imo, for whatever Houellebecq has to talk about, and boy does have shit to talk about. I definitely get some of the edgelord complaints - a lot of the scenes in the book really just seem to be there to shock. I kinda get what he was going for, about how desensitized we become to such things, but specific examples like the story Bruno tells Michel about the cult leader and how he castrated a baby and ate it, and made a 12-year old girl give him a blowjob while chainsawing the dick off a snuff film victim just kinda crosses the line into being lurid, ridiculous and shock for shock's sake.
The sex parts (and there are a LOT of them considering that's like Bruno's entire story arc) I found really interesting, partly because it's an incredibly sexually explicit - one could argue pornographic - book that also makes the sex feel almost completely unsexy and unerotic, and downright depressing and sad. But again - maybe that's the point? For Bruno it's just a coping mechanism to get through his shitty life like how the science stuff is for Michel.
Or who knows? Maybe Houllebecq *doesn't* have anything to say other than being a cynical provocateur and depicting sexual and moral degradation. That's why I'm conflicted as to my feelings about it. There's no denying that there is a sort of dark and unsettling power to the book making a point about the world the characters live in, but a lot of the times it does feel like empty nihilism.
At the very least, I'm compelled enough to try out some of his other work. I'd give Elementary Particles a 3.5/5, maybe 4 on days I'm feeling particularly misanthropic myself.
#entertainment
source
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