Rating: 
Summary: Well written, but unconvincing
Review: Mr. Houellebecq is a skilled writer and his books raises interesting points about the future. However, the beliefs and experiences of two eccentrics may just be the the beliefs and experiences of two eccentrics. Vulgarity, cruelty and existential doubt are not new phenomena.
Rating: 
Summary: Strange, but I liked it less than "Whatever". Still good tho
Review: The book continues where "Whatever" left off, it's another tale of "fear and loathing" of our times; a bigger, better written, definitely worthy book. However, having just finished it, I feel that the author has improved his mastery of the literary craft at the expense of originality/worthiness/truthfulness of what he's writing about. While the first book ("Whatever") was somewhat imperfect, dragging at times, with narrative "shoals", where the tension and drive would subside and you'd start wondering if you shouldn't skip ahead a few pages to see if it gets less dragging and predictable, it contained no pretense whatsoever. The Elementary Particles is much better written, the narrative holds your attention from beginning to end, but the originality is way down, in my opinion. The book is as macabre as anyone, familiar with the author, would expect, but here it seems excessive, the gloom and doom thickens at such a pace and to such a degree that at one point it produces the opposite effect -- it becomes laughable, pathetic, too much, too much you think, let's see if I can guess what will happen, they'll all die soon, a few pages more, yeah, see, I knew she'll perish in some ghastly way. That's one. Another thing, also having to do with the author's appearing having nothing much to say, is the long-drawn erotic descriptions--those quickly become boring and, moreover, from your own experience you KNOW they're untruthful -- meaning, first, it can't be this way, and second, even if it can, then it doesn't produce the same intellectual/emotional/etc., result. Which means, it's simply all made up for volume, and thus these long descriptions of masturbation/oral sex (even "satanism"! was that annoying or what), etc. add nothing to the book, and probably are there purely for the controversy's sake -- which they fail to achieve, while well succeeding at instilling boredom and a sense of affectedness. ... It is simply excessivly macabre... And finally, the main philosophical line--"suicide of the West"--seems overblown, though I'm sure it is something everyone can relate to -- to a degree. The question is in this degree and weak, unconvincing loss-of-morals argumentation (sometimes formulaic) that Houellebecq offers in the EP. All of which makes me wonder if the author is not a one-shot genius who's used up his insights before his writing skills reached maturity... that would be a shame. Anyway, it's still a very curious and original book, though, imo, a bit affected compared to his first work. It's better written though; all told, I enjoyed it. I'll try one more book of his, to see if I'm too quick with my suspicions of Houellebecq's tending up skillwise at the expense of originality.
Rating:
Summary: Lost a little in translation.
Review: Read this on the plane and it's a pretty good airplane read however he makes some compelling points about where humanity is headed akin to the movie A.I. and at the end I couldn't help but feel that it was much ado about nothing, however how much of that was lost in the translation from the original French is hard to tell. Translated in the UK as ' Atomised' for some reason. Good for planes, trains etc.
Rating: 
Summary: Even misanthropy can be meretricious--
Review: and boy is it a tiresome slog through a bunch of familiar Euro-middlebrow posturing. Tons of depressing sex, which may have embarrassed some reviewers into pretending there's something important going on.
Rating:
Summary: disturbing, extremely provocative but intelligent
Review: "The Elementary Particules" describes some of the same sick (and sickening) individuals and lifestyles that have been previously described by such authors as Bret Easton Ellis in 'Less than Zero'or 'American Psycho'. New generations are increasingly producing individuals that live in moral void, are incapable of relating to other humans, and base their lives on immediate pleasure based on sex and then eventually violence. What makes this book more provocative is the fact that Houellebecq goes beyond the description of such a phenomenon and writes a merciless indictment of western civilization taking at times a clearly philosophical stance. There are, he says, absolute principles of good and evil and by ignoring them, humans are commiting collective suicide. He choses the Kantian prevalence of morals over a Nietzschean human relativism. By turning to science and rationality in modern times, western civilization has eliminated religion which was the previous base of morality. Unable to replace religion with another system of values , Western civilization is sinking into individualism, materialism and spiritual destruction. New Age is presented as a desperate and vain attempt to regain spirituality. Previous to that, the Hippies are presented as a narcissistic and particularly destructive generation, that ultimately turned their offspring into psychos. Houellebecq does not advocate for a return of religion but blames human nature for not being capable of naturally behaving according to absolute principles of good and non-selfish love. But after so much deprecation and contempt, it turns out that Houellebecq loves people and in the end finishes the book with foregiveness (but not salvation) conceding that no matter how low humans can fall, they are also those same creatures who never cease to dream and imagine the good. The book is provocative, crude, very disturbing at times but more intelligent than most.
Rating:
Summary: Destined to Fade Quickly?
Review: About two-thirds of the way through "The Elementary Particles" the author describes in revolting detail a so-called snuff film involving the torture of a grandmother and her granddaughter. Duly (i.e., as the author must have intended) disgusted by the content but unimpressed by such an obvious and needless attempt to shock, I thought "enough" and skipped ahead to the epilogue, which amounted to unconvincing science fiction. Yet Michel Houellebecq writes well. The manner in which he interweaves aspects of modern cultural and scientific history with the (respectively) tormented and tedious lives of the two misfits who are his main characters, Bruno and Michel, is interesting. Moreover, the plot is not entirely nihilistic and cynical--at least one individual is capable of affection. Still, I suspect that like the movie "Last Tango in Paris," which was also a trendy exploration of sexual perversity, "The Elementary Particles" is doomed to become quickly dated. Although "Last Tango in Paris" is inane through and through, it caused a sensation in certain quarters of the intelligentsia on its release in 1972. And it probably did so in part because of some people's perceptions that it ventured toward new sexual frontiers. Alas, how quickly times changed, and how quickly "Last Tango" became quaint and its pretentiousness evident, like a sea anemone exposed to low tide. A similar fate may await "The Elementary Particles." The dry pages of the appellate legal reports routinely yield details of sexual crimes whose cruelty and depravity beggar the imagination. By contrast, Houellebecq's wallowings in sexual perversity, though sometimes grotesque, come across as contrived and not particularly vivid. Still, because "The Elementary Particles" is well written, I give it three stars. (These comments apply to the French text. Those who read French might want to peruse the reviews of "The Elementary Particles" on Amazon's French website. They provide an interesting perspective.)
Rating: 
Summary: Time to discuss certain things!
Review: Houellebecq is a brave person to delve into issues that most authors do not dare to address. Elementary Particles is a book that critically investigates the realities that followed as a result of the social "developments" of the late 20th century, in particular the 60s and 70s. While these developments were advertised as "liberations" of various kinds, according to Houellebecq they were really just continuations/extensions of the consumer culture, and for many they brought hardships in the form of excessive individualism and the destruction of community (marriage, family, etc.). In short; for many the changes brought the suffering that was customarily experienced at the work-place (originating from "free-market" competition) into almost every other (perhaps more fundamental) area of life. At one point the book ironically describes that rock stars were (and still are) regarded as revolutionaries, even though their salaries were/are higher than the salaries of most CEOs and bankers. Page after page, the hypocrisy behind the ideals and icons of the 60s and 70s is unveiled, criticized, and often mocked. It is definitely time to think about these things in a critical way, which is what Houellebecq attempts and (I think) achieves (quite well). The overall idea is very original, since not many books have written from this particular point of view. The poetry that now and then interrupts the prose is also quite amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Very worth your time
Review: It is one of the saddest novels I have ever read, also one of the most thought provoking novels of ideas. As social commentary, it is astute and an indictment of our sorry human species. As science fiction, it is a footnote to Huxley, who is credited in the novel as one of the key figures in New Age thought. It is also somewhat of a thesis novel. It presents the logical consequences of rampant individualism, both in the essay sections and in the lives of the main characters, the half-brothers, abandoned by their mother who went off in pursuit of personal growth and promiscuity to Esalin and to its European off-shoots. There are parts of the novel that are as creepy and obscene as sections of Houellebecq's recent novel, Platforme. In the end with all the disease, suicides and madness, we are left with a deep sense of sadness.
Rating:
Summary: Shallow, Cynical, Anti-Human . . . Need I Say Pretentious?
Review: Michel Houellebecq is no stranger to literary controversy. As I sit here writing a review of "The Elementary Particles" (published in the UK under the title "Atomised"), I am looking at a headline in The Guardian newspaper's web site captioned "Muslim Anger Denies Prize to Sex Trade Novel." The article, dated October 14, 2001, relates that Houellebecq's novel, "Platforme", has been removed from the short list for the Prix Goncourt because, in light of the events of September 11, it is "too controversial." The book has been criticized, among other reasons, as being "a thinly veiled apology for sex tourism in Thailand" and for the apparently vitriolic hatred which its main character, Michel, has for Muslims. I mention The Guardian article because, while I have not read "Platforme", it sounds as if the themes of Houellebecq's most recent novel (described as "France's most critically acclaimed and popular novel of the year") represent a continuation of the misogynistic and puerile intellectual pretensions adumbrated in "The Elementary Particles". "The Elementary Particles" narrates the story of half-brothers Michel Djerzinski and Bruno Clement. They share the same mother-Janine-a woman who was "extraordinarily intelligent" according to the novel's third-person narrator, apparently because, "she lost her virginity at the age of 13-a remarkable achievement given the time and place." Thus, from the very beginning, Hoellebecq's narrator conflates promiscuity with a form of intelligence, an abiding theme of "The Elementary Particles." Michel and Bruno are born in the 1950s, grow up in very different circumstances and, ultimately, lead very different lives. Michel becomes a molecular biologist, a deep thinker whose life is devoid of the ability to love or even any interest in the erotic. Bruno, brutally abused as a youth in boarding school, lives the mundane life of a civil servant whose only interest is where he can find the next woman to satisfy his sexual desires. He is a misogynist pure and simple, someone who views women merely as the instrument of his pleasure. Michel and Bruno are, in short, one-dimensional, pathological characters who become the vehicle for the narrator's retrospective commentary on the development of French (and world-wide) society during the period from the end of World War II until today. While bearing the momentum of a pretension to profound social analysis and scientific insight, "The Elementary Particles" is shallow, cynical and anti-human. It is a book that fails as literature, as social analysis and as scientific prognostication; indeed, it even falls short of the mark in its graphic depictions of Bruno's sexual escapades, whether judged by the standards of literature or those of pornography. Read "The Elementary Particles" if you want to find out what's apparently popular in the French literary world. Or read it if you want to be ineptly titillated. Or read it if you want to see what literature is like when it has lost all feeling for human character and emotion. But remember: read it quickly, because it's not worth your time!
Rating:
Summary: French Literature in Decline
Review: In the UK this book was published as "Atomised" and this title gives a better indication of the psychological state of its two characters, half-brothers who are both dysfunctional, dyspeptic, and disagreeable. One is all brain; the other all gland. And it is the glandular brother's sordid search to awaken or rediscover some sense of wellbeing through sex in his otherwise vegetable existence that is the book's main focus. M. Houellebecq likes to write dirty but it reads like puerile pornography, which no doubt is how our "hero" -- Bruno -- experiences it as well. Even when Bruno does finds a partner who feeds him the sex he seems to require just to respirate, not only is there no human being left to resurrect, all of the author's pretense of plot and character have long departed the scene. The French are famous for their novels of ideas but there are only anemic attempts to explore the interrelationship between the natural world of facts and categorization and the interior world of his character's emotional bankruptcy and ennui. The author's attempts to make atomic theory and the history of physics literary reveals only how little he understands about the former and how seriously he has failed in the latter. Few novels in my experience are so shallow and written with such self-importance, as to make this reader wish he could recapture the time wasted turning its pages, longing for a redemptive sentence.
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