The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq
In 1998, the novel Les Particules elementaires (The Elementary Particles in the US; Atomised in
Britain) by Michel Houellebecq
became an unexpected literary bestseller and cultural phenomenon in France. Before that, Houellebecq was
an obscure writer who had published one novel and scattered poetry and who worked as a low-level computer
programmer. The novel's blend of sociological detachment, explicit sex, cultural desolation, nihilistic
irony, weird science and ideological screed struck a chord with French readers and became a touchstone for angry
public debates. Some embraced its attack on the moral relativism of the 1960s generation; others
found it pointlessly repugnant, misogynistic and reactionary. Some compared Houellebecq to Balzac, Nietzsche,
Sartre and Camus; others branded him
a shallow, overhyped hack. Le Monde noted, "Suddenly it's a question of agreeing or disagreeing with
The Elementary Particles the same way one had to agree or disagree with Picasso's Guernica."
An English translation was published in the United States in November, 2000, and reviews have been overwhelmingly negative
so far. Adrienne Miller says, "The novel The Elementary Particles is (how to say?) a total bad-writing party."
Michiko Kakutani writes that the book "feels like a bad, self-conscious pastiche of Camus, Foucault and Bret Easton Ellis.
And as a philosophical tract, it evinces a fiercely nihilistic, anti-humanistic vision built upon gross generalizations
and ridiculously phony logic."
ARTICLES
Emily Eakin profiles
Michel Houellebecq,
author of The Elementary Particles, which became a much-praised and much-despised literary phenomenon in France.
Eakin finds the writer leading a reclusive,
sedentary, hard-drinking, chain-smoking existence in suburban Dublin, far away from the controversies he aroused back
in France. From the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
Jack Murnighan reads the source of the latest French literary scandal, The Elementary Particles
by Michel Houellebecq, and finds it unworthy of the notoriety. What the
French really crave is another
Jean Genet, argues Murnighan, but Houellebecq isn't it. From Nerve (October 2000).
Jonathan Bing analyzes Michel Houellebecq's
attitude toward American culture
in The Elementary Particles, his bestselling fictional screed decrying the moral decay of modern French culture.
"It's hardly unusual for French writers to decry American cultural influence, but Houellebecq may well be the first
person in France to suggest that Americans are too sexually liberated."
Feed
Ty Wenzel enters the surly moral world of Michel Houellebecq for an interview at the Algonquin. Several photos of Houellebecq looking all existential.
Privy
French-Culture.org's Houellebecq page
features quotes culled from rave reviews and a schedule of the author's US appearances.
REVIEWS
Brendan Bernhard, LA Weekly
Paul Berman, The New Republic
Anthony Quinn, New York
Times
Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Lorin Stein, Salon
Adrienne Miller, Esquire
Merle Rubin, Christian
Science Monitor
J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Alex Clark, The Guardian
Andrew Marr, The Observer
James Harkin, The New Statesman
PLATEFORME
With his second novel, Plateforme, Houellebecq managed to piss everyone off and top the French bestseller charts all over again.
Michel Houellebecq has sparked a new literary controversy in France with his novel Plateforme, published this week. His previous novel, Les Particules elementaires (Elementary Particles in the US; Atomised in Britain), polarized French critics, who either compared him to Sartre and Camus or dismissed him as a reactionary hack. (See our full coverage page on Houllebecq.) Where the earlier book trashed the permissive, amoral cultural legacy of the 60s generation, the new book "features a semi-autobiographical hero called Michel as a sex tourist wandering Thailand in search of fresh experiences to stimulate his demanding sexual appetite." Some critics have already criticized Plateforme for celebrating sex tourism, based, it appears, on the fallacy that views held by characters can be considered direct expressions of the author's own views. Meanwhile, Le Monde says the new novel "underlines in Houellebecq's cold and distanced style the moral cynicism which serves to enrich people without scruples."
The Guardian (Aug 2001)
Alan Riding looks at the French literary scandal surrounding Michel Houellebecq's latest novel, Plateforme, released last month. Riding writes, "the issue is less the sexual content than the novel's endorsement of sexual tourism. Not Mr. Houellebecq's endorsement, one should add, but that of his first-person storyteller, also called Michel, who concludes that Western men visiting, say, Thailand for sex with young women (not children) represent a perfect exchange between those who have money and no longer find satisfaction with Western women and those without money who can offer pleasure."
New York Times (Sep 2001)
Brendan Berhnard discusses two recent provocations by French writer Michel Houellebecq: his novel Plateforme, which "has been attacked for its apparent celebration of sex tourism," and his comments in interviews that (in Berhnard's paraphrase) "although all monotheistic religions are stupid, Islam is the most stupid of all."
LA Weekly
Suzie Mackenzie interviews Michel Houellebecq and tries to pin down the author's politics. (Aug 2002)
Michel Houellebecq's latest novel, Platform, is now available in English translation. It generated intellectual controversy in France (which isn't really that hard to do) for the main character's endorsement of sex tourism and hostility toward Islam. Jason Cowley in the Observer gives it a rave review. "[Houellebecq's novels] are also full of provocative, often comic attacks against left-liberal orthodoxies, against Islam, against capitalism and against any idea of progress. Reading Houellebecq (pronounced Wellbeck) is like being caught up in a tropical storm: you are blown away by the ferocity of his imagination. Like the great Louis-Ferdinand Céline, whom he closely resembles, Houellebecq is a grand, scabrous renunciator." (Aug 2002)
Boyd Tonkin reviews Platform by Michel Houellebecq, and he's not as impressed as some other critics. "His fans routinely hail Houellebecq as a fearless, and fearsome, Sade or Céline for the age of dial-up porn, designer fetishism and long-haul package tours. For me, he can sometimes look more like the Ozzy Osbourne of modern French letters." Not that being "the Ozzy Osbourne of X" should be considered an insult, but you get the idea. (Sep 2002)
MISCELLANEOUS
Michel Houellebecq recorded a CD for the Tricatel label entitled
Présence Humaine.
NetBeat found the CD surprisingly effective: "Not since Gainsbourg’s Melody Nelson has the blend
of dry commentary and schmaltzy music been so potent." This page includes three RealAudio clips.
NetBeat
