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THE ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
Michel Houellebecq
Knopf, Nov 2000, $25.00, 264 pp.
ISBN: 0375407707
The major aftermath of the free love movement in 1960s France is the
abandoned children that parents failed to raise. Two products of the
flighty unions of the hippies are half-brothers Bruno Clement and Michel
Djerinski. Their mother had no time to raise either child and their
different fathers shared the commonality of never being around them.
The two are separated as youths. However, in spite of some limited
success by Bruno as a writer and Michel as a near Nobel Prize level
scientist, both share common perversions as adults. Bruno and Michel
worship navels and incessantly masturbate. They also flunk out in life
as Bruno is institutionalized and Michel commits suicide.
Readers will either recognize author Michel Houellebecq as the modern
day Camus or just another biased individual blaming the world's woes on
the extreme left. This reviewer remains divided about this work. At
times the tale read like a powerful eulogy to mankind, but almost as
often I felt like quitting without finishing the novel. The story line
centers on a look back at the lives of the two siblings, especially that
of Michel, throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Mr.
Houellebecq takes aim at the hedonist side of the left swinging sixties,
but fails to balance the picture with shots at the right me-first
excessive eighties. This book is not intended for everyone as the novel
is sexually depressingly descriptive and the lead characters even more
disheartening. However, those readers who believe that death is the
final leveler of humanity will want to read this well-written
philosophically morbid maelstrom.
Harriet Klausner
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