Reader Score
80%
80% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Mixed
Based on 8 reviews on
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.
host @gtaa_show columnist @jacobin adjunct philosophy prof TMBS crew for life "Philosophy for the People" Substack every Sunday: https://t.co/sAfLaJr1Dp
The best throwaway line in Michel Houellebecq's "The Elementary Particles": https://t.co/pDOweGDM7N
lost the fakecel allegations
i’m just like michel from the elementary particles by michel houellebecq but a midwit
I’m lost in your mind. It takes a huge load for someone like me to stay in your mind. Hats off to you!
Before he started writing, French author Michel Houellebecq studied to become a farmer. Shortly after earning his agronomy degree, he worked on computers for the French government. He only began to earn a living as a writer once The Elementary Particles was published in 1998!
"[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