false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1219646870m/4409166.jpg 58314 38 Bruno and Michel are half-brothers, born to a hippie mother who believed in following her bliss. As boys they live in ignorance of each other--at one point attending the same school without knowing of their blood connection. As grown men they're not truly close, but they occasionally phone each other late at night. Bruno's a hopeless sexual obsessive, often drunk or on his way there, and Michel's a molecular biologist, distant and inaccessible.<p> Michel Houellebecq's <I>The Elementary Particles</I> follows these brothers through the latter half of the 20th century. Bruno and Michel are buffeted by history, vessels of disappointment and desire rocked by the ocean of time. Shuttled away to a boarding school where he's sexually abused by other boys, Bruno grows up full of twisted sexual longings and a contempt for aging women so palpable that at times it's stomach-churning. At a commune in the country, Bruno takes stock: <blockquote> The women were intolerable at breakfast, but by cocktail hour the mystical tarts were hopelessly vying with younger women once again. Death is the great leveler. On Wednesday afternoon he met Catherine, a fifty-year-old who had been a feminist of the old school. She was tanned, with dark curly hair; she must have been very attractive when she was twenty. Her breasts were still in good shape, he thought when he saw her by the pool, but she had a fat ass. </blockquote> Michel doesn't hate women; he doesn't even notice them. Instead of leering at bodies by the pool, he stares at particles in microscopes. He wins prizes for his experiments, but never experiences the rush of life. For both men, the damage has been done by history, by mother, before the story begins. What interests Houellebecq are the permutations and recapitulations of damage--the way the particles of the self can never be completely reconstituted. <I>--Emily White</I> 2595873 book 1999 The Elementary Particles total:1980|5:540|4:694|3:487|2:165|1:94| 1980 7361 2726 291 4 10 false false Thu Aug 21 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 21 20:45:08 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 22 05:36:44 -0700 2008
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 s...more...]]> 3 6 false false Fri Feb 20 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Dec 04 04:03:32 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 22 08:33:43 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 4 false false Sat Oct 13 07:42:35 -0700 2007 Thu Jun 12 06:15:45 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 3 false false Tue Jun 26 05:04:25 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 25 05:28:28 -0700 2007 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 bo...more...]]> 5 3 false false Sun Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Mon May 14 06:03:22 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 18 15:05:05 -0700 2007
First of all, I like Houellebecq's unrelenting pessimism. It's far beyon...more...]]> 1 4 false false Thu Jul 12 08:38:11 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 14 04:08:58 -0700 2007 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. ...more...]]> 5 2 false false Sat Feb 07 12:44:35 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 24 13:19:06 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Tue May 22 11:12:28 -0700 2007 Tue May 22 13:43:31 -0700 2007 Naked Lunch during its trial in Britain against charges of pornography. My professor declined to defend the book not because he deemed it pornographic, bu...more...]]> 0 2 false false Thu Sep 18 01:53:04 -0700 2008 Wed May 27 11:43:57 -0700 2009
The Elementary Particles
by Michel Houellebecq (goodreads author!)

***

Started reading this several years ago and sober each time. But this time: three PBRs and half a...half a bottle of California merlot and I'm laughing. Hou...more...]]> 2 1 false false Sat May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Tue Feb 19 19:09:09 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 19 19:09:28 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 3 false false Sun Nov 18 10:11:24 -0800 2007 Wed May 07 13:17:50 -0700 2008
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/...

Sam...more...]]> 2 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Sat May 12 19:50:37 -0700 2007 Sat May 12 20:03:41 -0700 2007
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 re...more...]]> 2 1 false false Sun Sep 21 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 17 08:40:36 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 21 21:12:09 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Jul 18 14:39:32 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 18 16:50:26 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Nov 25 07:26:30 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 25 07:31:44 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Mon Aug 17 09:55:30 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 17 09:56:23 -0700 2009
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-bonh...more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 06:07:57 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 10:26:56 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Feb 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 13 20:59:46 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 15 15:09:52 -0800 2009
I presume it will take other shapes as I get further on - als...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Jun 08 07:18:05 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 08 07:18:27 -0700 2009 ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Apr 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 07 09:39:18 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 09 14:52:17 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=4409166