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
