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Review [published November 2002]
Michel Houllebecq: Atomised
Kevin Walsh
Michel Houellebecq is one of those authors who
inspire hugely conflicting reactions. Some hail him
as a literary giant in the European tradition, deftly
weaving philosophy, history, and science into his
bleak, challenging narratives, asking those questions
that other more commercially-minded authors shy
away from. Others think him hollow, pretentious,
showily didactic and deeply disturbed – not to mention
highly overrated.
And controversial. Very controversial. In 2001, he
gave an interview to the French literary magazine, Lire,
in which he said “Islam is a dangerous religion, as has
been since its beginnings […] I totally reject all monotheistic
religions.” In September 2002 he appeared before
a tribunal in Paris on charges of inciting religious
hatred, and was asked to explain himself. “All I said
is that their religion is stupid,” he said in his defence.
“And that’s what you call promoting a book?” said the
president of the tribunal. “Yes, that’s right,” answered
Houellebecq, with his customary insouciance.
Atomised (published in the US as The Elementary
Particles) is the story of two half-brothers, Michel and
Bruno (Houellebecq denies that his namesake is based
on himself, but the parallels are striking). Sharing the
same mother, they have both been abandoned by different
fathers and brought up by relatives. Michel is a
scientific researcher at the CNRS in Paris, a cold, unsympathetic
and unhappy character. Bruno is equally
unappealing, a misfit former teacher and part-time
writer, divorced and sex-obsessed.
Houellebecq has a rather disquieting habit of including
large chunks of economic and social history as we
plough through the decades of their childhood: the
événements of 1968, the legalisation of abortion, the
succès de scandale in the 70s of the film Emmanuelle
and so on.
But he doesn’t stop there: we are also treated to long
disquisitions on science and philosophy, not to mention
particle physics and DNA. Many chapters begin with
long – and sometimes mystifyingly irrelevant – quotes.
Houellebecq is undoubtedly very widely read. The
trouble is, he wants us to know that he is. In an effort to
demonstrate just what a polymath he is, he crosses the line
into what the French call étalage – literally, a spreading
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