The Elementary Particles, by Michel Houellebecq

[Jamie]

If you liked The Swimming Pool Library, you might like this book. This novel is about a pair of men who had rough childhoods and lousy parents. One is a genius and not really interested in sex, maybe an approximation of a guy with Aspergers, but the character is not very realistic. The other is a thuggish sex-addicted jerk who started out obsessed with sex even as a younger boy. These brothers hang out and rant about how they, and by extension all men, are obsolete and doomed to the empty or sex-obsessed lives they lead. No doubt there are lots of real men like this, but thankfully not all men are this awful.
Bruno's world is much like that of The Swimming Pool Library, with sex around every corner, or at least excuses and opportunities to masturbate, and the point of life is reduced to this highly sexualized existence. There is still plot, just as in Hollinghurst's novels, but the plot seems just tacked on to keep the reader engaged between sex scenes and unconvincing, melodramatic philosophizing. Bits of science and math are mixed in to make the story seem more meaningful, but the effect is more pedantic than convincing. Houellebecq's argument pops up throughout this novel about people who are 'symptomatic', 'catalysts', or revolutionaries, and I suppose Bruno is a catalyst by this model, while his brother Michel is maybe a revolutionary. But Bruno is such an ugly person that I had a hard time caring about his character enough to be all that interested in how he might fit into the author's model.
I did not like this book, but it was better than the Hollinghurst books I've read so far, and it did have some interesting ideas, even if they were not very convincingly developed. I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads.

[Diane]

Rating: 1.75 stars

I am not a fan of Houellebecq's. I am happy that this is the last of his novels I have to read from the list. Way too sexually graphic for me. It was difficult for me to get past this and focus on the plot of the novel.

[Amanda]

Yeah I was also not into this one, and also glad this marks the end of my trials of Houellebecq. He's an unremarkable writer and half of all his books that I've read are just the least erotic porn ever ham-fisted in there (excuse the phrasing). He isn't really that famous in the literary canon, and his books aren't particularly unique or innovative - they're mostly the horny ramblings of a lame middle aged edgelord- so if I were writing the list I would have left him off of it.

1 star.