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Read The Elementary Particles (2001)

The Elementary Particles (2001)

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3.78 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0375727019 (ISBN13: 9780375727016)
Language
English
Publisher
vintage

The Elementary Particles (2001) - Plot & Excerpts

You can interpret this book in several different ways. A lot of people view it as a depressing, hate-filled rant, filled with a really startling amount of unpleasant sex. I'm not saying that that's necessarily incorrect. In fact, my immediate association was with the fictitious books that Moreland invents in one of the Anthony Powell novels: "Seated One Day at my Organ", by the author of "One Hundred Disagreeable Sexual Experiences". But I think there are more interesting ways of reading Les Particules, which show that it's not as pointless as it first appears.So, after considering it a while, I'd say that this is basically a book about sexual frustration. Bruno, the main character, has an extremely active libido, but is unfortunately not at all attractive; he's fat, ugly and lacks charm. He spends his days in a constant agony of unfulfilled desire. I recently read Hamsun's Hunger; the poor guy in Hamsun is broke and hungry, and no matter what he tries to think about he always comes back to money and food within a few minutes. Hamsun's very brave about showing how degrading this is for him. Bruno's plight is similar. He's not getting any sex, and that's all HE can think about. And in fact it's not unreasonable to argue that Houellebecq is being brave too in describing just how humiliating that is for him. The author could put it in general terms, or he could indirectly suggest it, but a detailed description of how Bruno masturbates over his algebra notes while watching girls on the train drives it home far more effectively: Il prenait l'autorail de Crécy-la-Chapelle. Chaque fois que c'était possible (et c'était presque toujours possible), il s'installait en face d'une jeune fille seule. La plupart avaient les jambes croisées, une chemisier transparent, ou autre chose. Il ne s'installait vraiment en face, plûtot en diagonale, mais souvent sur la même banquette, à moins de deux mètres. Il bandait déjà en apercevant les longs cheveux, blonds ou bruns; en choisissant une place, en circulant entre les rangées, la douleur s'avivait dans son slip. Au moment de s'asseoir, il avait déjà sortit un mouchoir de sa poche. Il suffisait d'ouvrir un classeur, de le poser sur ses cuisses; en quelques coups c'était fait. Parfois, quand la fille décroissait les jambes au moment où il sortait sa bite, il n'avait même pas besoin de se toucher; il se libérait d'un jet en apercevant la petite culotte. La mouchoir était une sécurité, en général il éjaculait sur les pages du classeur: sur les équations de second degré, sur les schémas d'insectes, sur la production de charbon de l'URSS. La fille poursuivait la lecture de son magazine.But why does Bruno feel this terrible, and what does it say about our society? Houellebecq has some interesting observations about how free-market economics have entered into people's personal lives; having also read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine in the near past, this resonated rather well. In the economic sphere, Klein argues persuasively that the logical long-term result is a world where Dick Cheney and his immediate circle of friends own almost everything, and a good 40% of the world owns nothing. In the sexual sphere, the corresponding long-term result is a world where no one really wants to fuck anybody except Scarlett Johansson or Megan Fox (depending on whether they prefer blondes or brunettes), and will not even consider fucking anyone who isn't young and thin. Bruno exemplifies this horrible state of being; thwarted sexual desire has turned his life into a living hell, and Houellebecq is psychologically credible in showing how it progressively destroys him, making him hate everyone and everything. One interesting angle is that the book contrasts the materialistic world-view that has him in its jaws against the traditional Christian world-view. It's probably not an accident that, when Bruno does in the end meet a woman who truly loves him, she's called Christiane. Here's another example of how the graphic descriptions of sex are not as gratuitous as they first appear. Bruno has just spent a very happy week with Christiane, but must leave: Bruno avait déjà plié sa tente et rangé ses affaires dans la voiture; il passa sa dernière nuit dans la caravane. Au matin, il essaya de pénétrer Christiane, mais cette fois il echoua, il se sentit ému et nerveux. "Joue sur moi" dit-elle. Elle étala le sperme sur son visage et sur ses seins. "Viens me voir" dit-elle encore une fois au moment où il passait la porte. Il promit de venir.In a Brigade Mondaine novel, this would just be pornographic. Here, it comes across as a rather moving scene. I felt very sorry for poor Christiane; it was already clear that things couldn't possibly work out well.The part of the novel I found least engaging was the thread that followed Michel, Bruno's half-brother. Instead of experiencing life as one long torment of desire, Michel hardly feels desire at all. He becomes a biophysicist, and eventually finds a way to create an immortal race of asexual beings, which duly replace humanity. I wasn't very convinced by any of this, partly because Houellebecq seems to be unaware that biologists have spent a lot of time wondering about why it is that sexual reproduction is a good idea. It's an interesting story, and deserves to be treated with more respect. I don't think, however, that we need to discuss whether Michel's idea makes scientific sense; I don't believe Houellbecq is seriously saying that we should find a way to evolve away from sex, any more than Brecht in The Tutor is seriously suggesting autocastration as a solution. He's just saying that the pain that sex and love cause people is such that you're willing to consider an extreme solution in order to escape from it. Unfortunately, Houellebecq has loaded up with scientific buzzwords, but doesn't seem to have any deep understanding, and I found the quantum mechanics much more irritating than the pornography. For example, I suppose that all the references to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen gedankenexperiment are intended to suggest that Bruno and Michel are inextricably bound together, quantum-entangled in fact; their mother is the source, Bruno and Michel are the two electrons. But if you insist on a quantum-mechanical metaphor, a particle/anti-particle pair seems both more obvious and easier to understand; invoking EPR is basically just too fucking clever. Which is a reasonable criticism of the whole book in fact._______________________________________I discovered yesterday evening that Les Particules is listed in 1001 Books To Read Before You Die. Well... I suppose I agree. Though I'm also warning you that it could significantly advance the date of your demise.

http://dreamersandco.com/2015/09/%CF%...Τα στοιχειώδη σωματίδια του Μισέλ Ουελμπέκ είναι ένα βιβλίο που ήθελα πολύ καιρό τώρα να διαβάσω. Κι ενώ περιμένουμε με ανυπομονησία την κυκλοφορία του νέου του βιβλίου Υποταγή, είπα να του δώσω την ευκαιρία που του αξίζει. Είναι ένα βιβλίο για την ευτυχία και πως αυτή ορίζεται στη σύγχρονη δυτική κοινωνία.Παρά τη σχετικά πρόσφατη κυκλοφορία του βιβλίου (πρωτοκυκλοφόρησε στη Γαλλία το 1998), είναι ένα βιβλίο που μπορεί να χαρακτηριστεί ένα σύγχρονα κλασικό μυθιστόρημα της Γαλλικής λογοτεχνίας και αδιαμφισβήτητα δεν μπορεί να αφήσει ανεπηρέαστο κανέναν αναγνώστη. Είναι από αυτά τα βιβλία που είτε θα βρει ένθερμους υποστηρικτές είτε αναγνώστες που θα απογοητεύσει.Οι πρωταγωνιστές είναι δύο ετεροθαλή αδέρφια, ο Μισέλ και ο Μπρούνο που έχουν εγκαταλειφθεί από τη χίπισσα μητέρα τους… και οι δυο τους μεγαλώνουν από τις γιαγιάδες τους… ζώντας τις επιπτώσεις της ελεύθερης σεξουαλικότητας και των κινημάτων της δεκαετίας του 60 που ενδεχομένως οδήγησαν στη διάλυση της οικογένειας όπως οριζόταν μέχρι τότε.Τα δύο αδέρφια θα γνωριστούν στην εφηβεία τους, ενώ το βιβλίο επικεντρώνεται στις εμπειρίες τους όντας πια σαραντάρηδες. Ο Μπρούνο είναι καθηγητής φιλολογίας με τεράστια εμμονή στο σεξ και τις γυναίκες· με αφορμή αυτόν, ο συγγραφέας μάς κάνει ένα εκτενές ταξίδι με πορνογραφικό αέρα σε ένα βιβλίο που μπορεί να χαρακτηριστεί και ερωτικό. Από την άλλη, ο Μισέλ είναι ένας βιολόγος που έχει απαρνηθεί οποιαδήποτε μορφής σχέση. Είναι ένας άνδρας ασεξουαλικός, απομονωμένος από την κοινωνία, σκεφτόμενος μόνο το «μεγάλο» του έργο που αποκαλύπτεται στο τέλος του βιβλίου.Αυτό που μου έκανε ιδιαίτερη εντύπωση διαβάζοντας το, είναι ότι ο συγγραφέας ήθελε να μας παρουσιάσει δύο αδέρφια πολύ διαφορετικά μεταξύ τους που όμως επηρεασμένα από κοινωνικά και οικογενειακά συμβάντα, παρουσιάζουν ένα βαθύ σημάδι στην προσωπική τους εξέλιξη και ανάπτυξη, που διαμορφώνεται τελείως διαφορετικά στον καθένα τους και με επίκεντρο την κρίση των 40.Συνέχεια στο Dreamers & Co. >> http://dreamersandco.com/2015/09/%CF%...

What do You think about The Elementary Particles (2001)?

I'm tired of being human; I wanna be post-human. A start with an aside: an old professor once described his experience of being asked to defend Naked Lunch during its trial in Britain against charges of pornography. My professor declined to defend the book not because he deemed it pornographic, but because it already had enough defenders of a status high enough to insure that it didn't get banned and because he wasn't sure, at that early age in his career, whether or not he wanted his name attached to that defense; his own private verdict was that in order to be pornographic the work in question would have to contain as its aim (or main purpose) the arousal of the reader, and he personally didn't find the book all that arousing; he went so far as to claim that anyone who would be aroused or titilated by the book probably had more issues to begin with than would be caused by reading. All of this is a preface to a consideration of Houellebecq's sex-drenched work. Readers often seem initially put off by Houellebecq for the sex (once they get beyond that, they usually find something else disturbing, and often for good reason; there seems to be something in this work to offend everyone); but is the massive amount of sex pornographic? Is it aimed at (mere (or perhaps not merely mere)) arousal? I don't think it is. Reading this book is a bit like reading de Sade; there's an initial titilation, then a realization of the relentlessly mechanistic rhetoric (and view) of this particular human interaction, and then a kind of coldness sets in... At its best moments, Elementary Particles is a shreddingly funny argument for the elimination of the human species (we can evolve ourselves beyond our stupid, violent, ridiculous selves, so why not), and though it's funny, I'm not entirely certain it's a joke. Houellebecq takes the idea of moving beyond the human to a literal place; that leads to questions of what, exactly, it means to be human, and the book focuses on the extremes of a binary, Schopenhaurian Michel, Nietzschean Bruno. Most of the sex-obsessed passages come out of Bruno's meandering life (most of the funniest too), but at the end what happens to Bruno suggests that his method of existence is exemplary of what's flawed in humanity and must be eliminated. That in itself is a disturbing thought; we're back to Nazis again. Houellebecq finally has enough decency, though, to suggest that humanity doesn't need, necessarily, to be killed off, it can do the job itself just fine. I'm not trying to overlook the obvious flaws in the book (some repetition, sections can get drawn on a bit long), nor am I trying to downplay the mysogyny or the racism (though those aspects of Houellebecq's books are more complicated than his detractors usually admit; the context for the mysogyny and the racism is usually slippery in terms of identification or excoriation); but I would like to suggest that Elementary Particles, and Houellebecq's books in general, can be read in terms of the search for a post-human superstructure on which to hang the human (pun intended; sorry). Here it's science, later it's economics (Platform; even more sex-drenched), but in both books the questions seem to be the same: what is this subject and how do we represent it within the systems that it composed to compose it?
—James

I wish I was able to write a more detailed reaction to this novel, but I feel nothing. Not in the sense of 'poetic existential despair' nothing, but total non-commitment.These cynical rants against humanity are really all the same, aren't they? Occasionally you find one with at least some stylistic flair and originality, like Céline's, but here I see failed edgy attempts to shock with bad sex, loneliness, and a touch of misogyny. So fucking what? I'd go read Reddit comments if I wanted to read that. I do not. That's all.
—Hadrian

Gratuitous sex. For those who have read this book, it’s not a surprising initial comment. The sex in The Elementary Particles is graphic, drawn-out, and explicit. Yet the novel has such an intellectual draw that even at its most seemingly uncalled for, I believe Houellebecq had a purpose for it. Through the suffering of two brothers—Bruno whose libido is painfully (and often shamefully) intense, and Michel who has virtually no interest in sex—Houellebecq depicts mankind’s struggle with materialism and individualism. Our bodies, driven by animalistic desires that translate into religious or spiritual disgrace, only cause suffering. Thus through sex we humiliate and are humiliated. Moments of beauty and insight do exist, but they are rare and fleeting, and as a result, sad.This viewpoint is only strengthened (and by degrees, humanity’s suffering as well) by means of the cultural ideologies that have sprung from the US and spread globally. Materialism specifically—the chasm of need instilled within people who then feel inferior because of genes, the natural process of aging, economic position, etc.—has doomed us to depression, hate, and murder. For society to function, for competition to continue, people have to want more and more, until desire fills their lives and finally devours them. No longer evolving, indeed humanity is devolving as a result: ...materialism was antithetical to humanism and would eventually destroy it. And through our increasing needs and desires, we come to view ourselves as separate from each other, dislodged and unconnected spiritually, heightening our anguish.Many reviewers claim that this work is highly misogynistic, however, Houellebecq clearly laments humanity’s treatment of women. He juxtaposes the ridiculous, base, violent, and selfish nature of man’s sexual urges and tendencies with the softness and exquisiteness of a woman’s touch, both physical and emotional. Bruno only reaches some measure of happiness in life by means of a woman who shows him how to accept and respect his body and sexual needs without judgment, by introducing him to communities in which the sex act is honored. Without her he cannot sustain the joy of his being. Houellebecq also compares a man’s inability to love with a woman’s boundless and unselfish devotion. Michel, emotionally dead, is nonetheless able to recognize that love does in fact exist by means of a pure woman who loves him unconditionally. It is only through the women in the novel that sex, love, and spirituality are seen as one. To enjoy the act of sex, to love through it, is a purity men cannot seem to achieve on their own.What on earth were men for, Michel wondered as he watched sunlight play across the curtains. In earlier times, when bears were more common, perhaps masculinity served a particular and irreplaceable function, but for centuries now men clearly served no useful purpose. For the most part they assuaged their boredom playing tennis, which was a lesser evil; but from time to time they felt the need to change history—which basically meant inciting revolutions or wars. Aside from the senseless suffering they caused, revolutions and wars destroyed the best of the past, forcing societies to rebuild from scratch. Without regular and continuous progress, human evolution took random, irregular and violent turns for which men—with the predilection for risk and danger, their repulsive egotism, their irresponsibility and their violent tendencies—were directly to blame. A world of women would be immeasurably superior, tracing a slower but unwavering progression, with no U-turns and no chaotic insecurity, toward a general happiness.Unable to recognize our own divinity and perfection (an idea explored through notions of metaphysics), Houellebecq also states that man, as a species, is not equipped to cope with death. Mired in materialism and individualism, we view death only as an end, never a beginning, always a loss. Grief pulls us downward into that ever-widening chasm of need until we disappear. Sometimes we can feel the universe vibrate in nature—the water, trees, and sky. In these moments, nature is infinitely beautiful and graceful. But that iota of awareness plunges us into greater depression when it is lost. Buddhism teaches us that nothing is permanent, that the material world is always changing. The more we hold to our youth, to a strict sense of individualism, to life itself and the objects we accumulate, the more painful our existence. Terrified of the idea of space, human beings curl up; they feel cold, they feel afraid. At best, they move in space and greet one another sadly. And yet this space is within them, it is nothing but their mental creation. In this space of which they are so afraid, human beings learn how to live and to die; in their mental space, separation, distance and suffering are born.There is an aching, quiet beauty to Houellebecq’s narrative that makes it difficult for me to disagree with him. And though he does introduce a sort of twisted and intelligent hope by the end, it is not reassuring. Still, he is asking us to face truths about ourselves, about our history as a species that are critical to examine, but that we so often would rather overlook.
—Amrit Chima

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