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Book Cover for: The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq

The Elementary Particles

Michel Houellebecq

Reader Score

80%

80% of readers

recommend this book

Critic Reviews

Mixed

Based on 8 reviews on

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Winner:International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award -Fiction (2002)
An international literary phenomenon, The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel-part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence.

Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale.

Translated from the French by Frank Wynne.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Vintage
  • Publish Date: Nov 13rd, 2001
  • Pages: 272
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.03in - 5.19in - 0.65in - 0.49lb
  • EAN: 9780375727016
  • Categories: LiteraryVisionary & MetaphysicalPsychological

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Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

"An original work of art-ironic, intelligent and as airtight and elegant as a geometry proof."
--The New York Times Magazine

"[A] brilliant novel of ideas... [A] riveting novel by a deft, observant writer."
--The Wall Street Journal

"Fearless, vivid and astringently honest...surprisingly funny... [C]an permanently change how we view things that happened in our own lives. Not many novels can do that."
--Los Angeles Times