Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Feb 12, 2012

Greg rated it:

"It's a curious idea to reproduce when you don't even like life."

It's rare to come across a book filled with so pure of hate. At first I thought maybe it's was just some good old fashioned misogyny, with maybe a little bit of nationalism and Arab hating thrown in, but then something curious happened, the whole of society got thrown into the hate-fest that is this book. Hippies? Hate them a lot. Italians? Yep, really hate them, we don't say why we just do. Nature? F More...

9 comments like (36 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2010

Manny rated it:

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 way More...

20 comments like (19 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Lorenzo rated it:

This book has made me laugh. It's not a compliment.
Every character here is monodimensional and unrealistic, while the story itself is quite ridicolous.

And after the tenth masturbation scene filled with philosophical rubbish and Andre Gide quotes I've felt a big nausea coming up.

There are many novelists who have a kind of obsession for sex and many of them are quite good like Philip Roth and McEwan, but Houellebecq in my opinion is not.

2 comments like (9 people liked it)

Feb 21, 2010

Rhonda rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

5 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jun 12, 2008

Avital rated it:

An unconventional, provocative book that seduced me into the heart of the most pessimistic social and philosophical conclusions regarding the collapse of the individual as well as the whole society in the face of failed values. Houellebecq puts the most outrageous words in the mouth of his characters, two brothers. They complain or comment about aging and body decay, lack of communication and cruelty of men. They also discuss wisdom, science and religion. One brother goes to extremes with his se More...

5 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 25, 2007

Grayem82 rated it:

Oh God. I'm about half way through this book, which I picked up on a whim after finishing the excellent Blindness by Jose Saramago. I needed something else to read until I got a copy of Dave Eggers' What is the What, and this had got a lot of raves.

So far, I'm as close to tossing this book away unfinished as I have ever been. I almost always finish books, but this is just a chore.

As offensive as parts of it are (yes, yes, I'm supposed to be offended, and I can see the amb More...

4 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jul 18, 2007

sarah rated it:

Okay, I decided I would take a go at actually justifying my rating for this book, rather than just make half-hearted apologies at my preference for a so-absurdly misogynistic and, let's be frank, pornographic novel.

First of all, I like Houellebecq's unrelenting pessimism. It's far beyond nihlism - so more destructive and negative, so more emphatic in its rejection of bougeoise norms, of religion, culture, capitalism. This book (as well as the other Houellebecq I read, Platform) capt More...

3 comments like (14 people liked it)

Aug 23, 2011

Emily rated it:

Although I had heard of Michel Houellebecq before, this was the first novel of his I've delved into. The Elementary Particles created somewhat the controversy in France when it was released, and did so on a smaller scale when it was translated into English and brought to our American shores. The Economist writes that "Houllebecq is France's biggest literary sensation since Francoise Sagan, people are saying Since Albert Camus." While that is an extraordinary comment to make, I must s More...

2 comments like (12 people liked it)

May 22, 2007

James rated it:

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 att More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 12, 2010

R. rated it:

Some things you'll just never see:

The Elementary Particles
by Michel Houellebecq (goodreads author!)

***

Houellebecq! Mon semblable, mon frer!

6 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 28, 2010

Erin rated it:

Wow. I'm not sure where to start on this except to say, it is unlike anything I have ever read. To be honest, I'm not quite sure I've even processed everything in the book, for it is so filled with minute details, both subtle and cruel digs at society as a whole, merely scratching the surface of the real, intrinsic web that is the human psyche. Houllebecq's writing and ideas are like helium-inflated balloons, light as air but possessing the ability to float beyond a clear blue sky into the frigh More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 07, 2008

Paul rated it:

A lot of this book consists of a tirade of hatred against the author's dear mama. Now finally, the 83 year old hippy herself has emerged from her retreat with all guns blazing. Hilarious article about the whole rancid argument here

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/...

Sample quote

"If it hadn't been my son, I wouldn't read that kind of crap, I would put it down straight away, because if there's one thing I detest in the world it's pornography. That boo More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 12, 2007

St. rated it:

Think about all the negative stereotypes that might enter your mind on hearing the words: French novel.

This book will turn those stereotypes into truer reality than you ever thought possible.

And yet, despite the fact that I hated the experience of reading this book, I kept reading it. A friend of mine continues to read Houellebecq's books as they come out,* and I can sort of understand why.

In some ways, it reminds me of the experience I had watching the movie More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 21, 2008

Arwen rated it:

Both oddly engrossing and somehow also barely readable, Elementary Particles, like all of Houllebecq's narcissistic novels, focuses its aim on men solely obsessed with getting their aged and increasingly flaccid penises erect long enough to fulfill the characters' unending pedophiliac whims. This one is worse than The Possibility of an Island, which at least gave readers a few sci-fi reasons for the dystopian world. In the end, nearly both books arrive at the same end: humanity is doomed, fille More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Connie rated it:

This novel is offensive and rude and is certainly not one to read before you go to bed. However, it is also a complex novel that raises a lot of questions about the legacy of 60s and 70s hippie culture and how 'free love' has been succeded by abandoned values, moral disillusionment and the commodification of sexuality and relationships. Parts of this book may be considered offensive and it is clear that this book was written to shock but it doesn't do so without purpose. A lot of things in this More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 25, 2008

rachel rated it:

something was very compelling about this book. Despite the rampant misogyny, the blatant racism, and the long camp/club sex scenes that lead no where, I couldn't stop reading. It was like watching clown porn.

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2011

Mangoo rated it:

Seguendo le vite contemporanee di due semi-fratelli dai destini assai diversi ma legati dall'incapacità di vivere, Houellebecq si fornisce il pretesto di gettare uno sguardo lucido, tagliente e analitico sulla decadenza della società occidentale moderna. I fratelli sono particelle "intrecciate" nel senso di EPR, ed esperiscono aspetti ortogonali dell'esistenza contemporanea. Uno si abbrutisce e accanisce sulla perversione sessuale, l'altro si astrae dai piaceri sensoriali per immergers More...

0 comments like

Jan 10, 2011

Edma rated it:

Senza bellezza una ragazza è infelice perchè perde qualsiasi possibilità di essere amata.

*

Sarebbe bello se l'io fosse un'illusione; anche se comunque sarebbe un'illusione dolorosa.

*

Esseri umani di questo tipo esistono: esseri umani che lavorano per tutta la vita, e lavorano duro, solo per abnegazione e per amore; che per spirito di abnegazione e di amore danno letteralmente la propria vita al prossimo; che tuttavia non hanno mai in alcun modo la sensazione di sacrificarsi; che in realtà non hai More...

0 comments like

Jan 14, 2012

David rated it:

An absolute nuclear bomb for the mind. If this doesn't make you feel uncomfortable with yourself, no book ever will. His style is by turns philosophical, pornographic and with an emotional poignancy that is bereft in much of contemporary fiction. Another aspect of Houellebecq I admire is his bravado when it comes to tackling very large concepts; in this case it is trans-humanism, essentially. In fact, the whole book can be read as a sort of treaty for trans-humanism. These characters, Bruno and More...

0 comments like

Oct 21, 2011

Gene rated it:

It's soaked in irony, or at least that's how I had to read it--if you take it as earnest, then you've got a whole lot of explicit philosophizing, and it's a severe lapse in taste to let characters talk about how profound everything is. In general I prefer my fiction to embody values rather than discuss them. Houellebecq's ideas are not very profound in themselves anyway--hell, they're odious. However, because he juxtaposes the philosophizing with explicit sex and bathetic take on death, it lends More...

0 comments like

Sep 10, 2011

Michael rated it:

A friend had told me the last few pages of this book really flips everything and changes how you feel about the book overall and it's true, if I'd skipped the Epilogue, I might very well have taken a couple stars off this rating. It is ostensibly the story of two half-brothers and what's difficult to take for long periods of time is that peculiar brand of French misanthropy on display, rendered in such detail here that the mood lingers for a time after reading a section, until you re-gain your b More...

0 comments like

Aug 28, 2011

alex rated it:

being a troubled male, this book was always going to appeal to me. i can see that it's the sort of book that preaches to the choir: women will find this book repulsive. it must feel like being talked about by men as if you're invisible when you're stood right there.

however, the problem with so many criticisms of this book is that they are redolent with the stench of people rejecting advice that they don't want to hear. houellebecq is dirty and honest. at best, it can be said that, in More...

0 comments like

Aug 22, 2011

Melzie rated it:

I'm torn, truly, on my impression of this book, though I am finally decided that I won't want to be the one responsible for anyone else I know picking it up. Therefore, I better not make anyone too curious as to my strange reaction to it or I'll find myself in just that situation.

Darkly humorous - oh yes. I would describe the novel as vivid and disturbing - delving into the lives of half-brothers in various states of disassociation and sexual awareness and response as they react to t More...

0 comments like

May 11, 2011

Sophie rated it:

"He didn't know what was at the end of the chute. The opening was narrow (though large enough to take the canary). He dreamed that the chute opened onto vast garbage cans filled with old coffee filters, ravioli in tomato sauce and mangled genitalia. Huge worms, as big as the canary and armed with terrible beaks, would attack the body, tear off its feet, rip out its intestines, burst its eyeballs."

"He spent his time building and photographing small altars of pebbles, drif More...

0 comments like

Jan 29, 2011

Tancredi rated it:

"La storia esiste; essa s'impone, essa domina, il suo imperio è inesorabile. Ma al di là del mero piano storico, l'ambizione ultima di quest'opera sta nel rendere omaggio a questa specie sventurata e coraggiosa che ci ha creati."

Il romanzo che ha fatto conoscere in tutto il mondo il nome di Houellebecq, e dal quale è stato tratto un film.

In questo secondo grande romanzo l'autore riesce già a portare a maturità i suoi temi e la sua visione della vita. "Le particelle More...

0 comments like

Dec 30, 2010

Lisa rated it:

This is a thoroughly distasteful book, most unpleasant. I can't remember now why it was hyped back in 2003 when I read it; one can only wonder why. (This review is taken from my journal notes at the time).
It's supposed to be the story of two brothers, one a sex-crazed boor and the other a molecular biologist, thinker and idealist. So it said on the blurb, but I got so bored by the ramblings about atoms and DNA that I skipped most of those bits.
Which left me to read the pornographi More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 15, 2010

Reuben rated it:

Sex! Misanthropy! Cloning!

I found this to be lively, more entertaining than it had a right to be, deeply scathing, and occasionally funny, but I was left with a rather sour aftertaste in the 'ol frontal lobe.

At first, I was enjoying the new age commune/summer camp scenes that drip with thinly concealed hatred. "Yeah Houellebecq! stick it to those hippies!" I thought to myself, but much like Houellebecq characters (perhaps the author himself? authorial presence HE

More...

0 comments like

Feb 28, 2010

Revista rated it:

(Buenos Aires) Araceli Otamendi

Las partículas elementales, segunda novela del escritor francés Michel Houellebecq, ha sido reeditada ahora por Anagrama. En la novela hay dos personajes principales que son hermanastros: Michel, un científico prestigioso, investigador en biología y Bruno, un profesor de literatura.

Los dos son hijos de la misma madre, una mujer que en los años `60 los abandona para irse con una comunidad hippie en el sur de California. No es extraño que esta More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 17, 2009

Mazel rated it:

L'un est un scientifique de renom, l'autre est anonyme ;

l'un a choisi une solitude absolue, l'autre ne l'a pas choisie mais la subit quand même ;

l'un et l'autre sont frères et n'ont rien en commun, sinon cette propension au malheur.

u plutôt au "non-bonheur" : bonheur dont les auraient privés les débordements libertaires des années soixante-dix.

Chacun de leur côté, en se traînant de fiasco en désastre, et de retraite en désert, ils von More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 18, 2009

Hallie rated it:

This book may well turn out to be one of those I look back on a few years from now and think "I really gave that five stars?" By all rights, I should hate this book. The characters are depressed, depraved, racist, chauvinistic, and at some points pretty much wallowing in moral filth. The perspective on life is unremittingly bleak and pessimistic (à la 1984); pretty much nobody gets a happy ending.

All that said: I loved this book. I thought the frame story was interesting an More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

reviews