SOURCE: Feehily, Gerry. “A World on the Brink of Collapse.” New Statesman 130, no. 4542 (18 June 2001): 56-8.

In the following essay, Feehily discusses Houellebecq's literary celebrity, personal life, and controversy surrounding Atomised.

In the tunnels of the Parisian metro, the poster seems innocuous at first: “Stop talking about it. Read it.” However, the talking point in question, a well-known novel entitled Les Particules élémentaires, is already three years old, and has been read by almost a million people. This is a remarkable figure for a literary novel that is not without difficulty; but its French publishers are clearly expecting an even greater yield, and have chosen a front cover depicting its author, Michel Houellebecq, in relaxed mode, a plastic shopping bag about his wrist. It is difficult to imagine anything quite like this happening to a British author. But Houellebecq's book—translated into English as Atomised—is a cultural...