The Elementary Particles

by Michel Houellebecq

Sunshine briefly broke through the clouds.

Death is difficult to understand;

His grandmother had been buried in a coffin, but among the freshly dug earth there remained only fragments of broken wood, a rotting board and indistinct white fragments. When he realized what he was looking at he quickly turned his head and forced himself to look the other way, but it was too late. He had seen the skull caked with earth, clumps of white hair falling over empty sockets. He had seen her vertebrae scattered in the clay. He understood.

After twenty years, that was that. Bones and earth mingled together and the mass of white hair, so much of it, so alive.

It took me years to come to terms with the cliché that men don’t make love because they’re in love, but because they’re turned on.

every man I ever met was terrified of getting old. They worried all the time about how old they were. They get obsessed about it when they’re quite young—I’ve

For many women, adolescence is exciting—they’re really interested in boys and sex. But gradually they lose interest; they’re not so keen to open their legs or to get on their knees and wiggle their ass.

Thus they begin the difficult years.

It was pleasant, though not intensely so; in fact, it never had been.

He slipped a leg between hers and placed his hands on her stomach and breasts; in this warmth, this softness, he was at the dawn of the world. He fell asleep almost immediately.

The self is an intermittent neurosis, and this man was far from cured.

the root of time itself. This root sent out tendrils across the universe, knotty at the center, their tips cold and sticky. They wound around, encircled and encapsulated portions of space.

He saw the brain of the dead man as a part of space, containing space.

He saw the mental conflict through which space was structured, a...

In the first sphere there was being a...

in the second was nonbeing and the destruction of...

Calmly, without a moment’s hesitation, he turned and walked towar...

What the actual fuckkkkk

His indifference had left him on the periphery both of that movement,

I can’t understand how things can have gotten so fucked up. I just can’t accept it.”

Michel proved able to penetrate

what he liked most was simply sleeping next to her, feeling her living flesh.

His eyes were bleeding; he knew that he would be blind, and his right hand was almost severed. In spite of the blood and pain, still he knew that Annabelle would stand by him, shielding him forever with her love.

the society in which they lived accorded them a surplus above and beyond their basic nutrional needs, so they could live a little, but in fact they no longer really wanted to.

it was perhaps the only human emotion which could still touch him.

He simply could no longer love.

No longer??

They sometimes were sad, but mostly they were serious. Both of them knew that this would be their last human relationship,

they could feel a gray shadow moving over them, on the earth that supported them, and in everything they could glimpse the end.

To compensate for the inability of such a society to listen, it is necessary to ensure that every member of every sales force become an “ambassador” to the elderly.

In any case, it was here that his mother—Janine, rechristened Jane—had chosen to die, after spending five years in Goa on the west coast of the Indian subcontinent.

Apparently the old whore converted to Islam,

His voice became strangulated and suddenly broke into sobs. In his letter to Michel, Bruno had mentioned that he had moved back to the psychiatric clinic at Verrières-le-Buisson “probably for good.” Obviously they had let him out for the occasion.

People weren’t doing any harm, they were just having a nice orgy, but apparently they were disturbing the terns. Terns are a type of sparrow. Well, fuck the terns!” Bruno shouted. “They’re trying to stop us fucking, and now they want to stop us eating sheep’s cheese, the fucking Nazis. The Socialists are in on it too. They hate sheep because sheep are conservative, whereas everyone knows wolves are left-wing—which is kind of strange, because wolves look like German shepherds and they’re clearly on the extreme right. Who’re you gonna trust?” He shook his head solemnly.

Promenade des Anglais

dark complexion

“Did you hear that clown? Going on about nature—that’s all they talk about. Now that she’s sick, they can’t wait for her to snuff it, like she’s an animal in its hole. That’s my mother you’re talking about, Twat!” he said haughtily. “Look at his get-up!” he went on. “The rest of them are the same—worse, probably. They’re total jerk-offs.”

Did she recognize him? Probably not. Maybe she was confusing him with his father, it was possible;

“meet” was the wrong word; they hadn’t met, as such, simply had run into each other, procreated and gone their separate ways.

“You’re just an old whore,” he said in a pedantic tone. “You deserve to croak.”

“Do you want to be cremated?” Bruno went on jovially. “Well, when the time comes, I’ll make sure they incinerate you. I’ll put what’s left of you in a little pot and every morning when I get up, I’ll piss on your ashes.”

If we wanted to contest the will, we’d win hands down.”

Lucie

There was a marked silence. In the next room, no one said a word either; they could hear the weak but raucous breathing of the dying.

I want to go now. Do you think she’ll die soon?”

it’s a purely social activity about rites and rituals, ceremonies and rules.

Actually, man has always been terrified by death—he’s never been able to face the idea of his own disappearance, or even physical decline, without horror.

island entirely populated by naked women and small dogs.

The only sign that men have ever existed is a video of speeches by Édouard Balladur, which has a soothing effect on the dogs and some of the women. There’s also a video of The Animal Kingdom, presented by Claude Darget; no one ever watches it, but it is there as a testimony to the barbarism of previous eras.”

Most psychiatrists were particularly interested in their patients’ scribblings. Not that they ascribe particular therapeutic value to them, but it’s something to do and anything is better than slashing your wrists with a razor.

Still seated at the end of the bed, Bruno was singing at the top of his voice: They’ve all come the boy and his brother the screams have brought them running To see their dying mother . . . Inconsequential; inconsequential, shallow and ridiculous: such is man. Bruno stood up and belted out the next verse: They’ve all come The wop and the bum Bringing gifts To their dear old mum

The silence which followed this vocal performance was broken only by the buzzing of a fly as it crossed the room, before it landed on Jane’s face. Diptera can be recognized by its single pair of membranous wings attached at the second thoracic ring, a pair of balancing antennae (to stabilize flight) on the third thoracic ring and a proboscis which pierces or sucks. When the fly began to move across Jane’s eye, Michel knew something was wrong. He leaned over Jane without touching her. “I think she’s dead,” he said after a brief examination.

“Fuck,” Bruno said to himself, “I’m dead,” as the GameBoy played a cheerful little tune.