SOURCE: Madar, Chase. Review of Atomised, by Michel Houellebecq. Times Literary Supplement, no. 5513 (23 June 2000): 33.

In the following review, Madar commends the disturbing realism, dark humor, and occasional tenderness of Atomised.

Published in France two years ago as Les Particules élémentaires, [Atomised] won the Prix Novembre, and has sold hundreds of thousands of copies throughout Europe; it has also provoked charges of nearly every prejudice imaginable and fervid denunciations from readers across several generations.

Atomised tells the story of two half-brothers, each an exemplary loser: Bruno, a high school teacher, is an undersexed hedonist, while Michel is a brilliant but emotionally desiccated biochemist. Abandoned by their hippie mother when they were small, neither has ever properly recovered; all their attempts at the pursuit of happiness, whether through marriage, the study of philosophy or the consumption of pornography, merely lead to loneliness and frustration. This despair is meant to...