Libidinal and Sickly: Notes On The Elementary Particles
Author: Jonathan Kočevar
Date: Thursday, April 21, 2022
I finally had a chance this summer to take a look into often controversial yet acclaimed French novelist Michel Houellebecq’s writings this summer, and have found him to be an extremely interesting writer, both in his prose and his underlying ideas. I have only read his first three novels as of this writing but could not stop myself from expressing some of my notes after my second reading of his breakout 1998 novel, Atomised/The Elementary Particles.
The novel is the logical extension of his short yet concise debut novel, Whatever/Extension of the domain of struggle, which began building on the critiques of the political revolution’s extension to the sexual realm. The aftermath which he describes as a pessimistic “sexual liberalism” is a main focal point for many of his critiques of modern society. The Elementary Particles continues his thoughts on the subject, and paints the origins and history of the new age movement and the sexual revolution to draw a larger image of the current liberalized landscape. In addition, he also expands the critique to his struggles with the ruling-class ontology, secularism, and materialism, which also factor into his pessimistic view of modernity.
The novel follows two half-brothers, Michel and Bruno. Without spoiling the details of the book, the plot essentially revolves around the two brothers estranged upbringings from childhood through their day-to-day lives, which are filled with dread and monotony both in opposite ways. Bruno represents Houellebecq’s continued criticism of sexual-liberalism, and Michel represents Houellebecq’s critique of materialist metaphysics and ontology, which has nominally replaced Christendom in the West in favour of troubled secularism.
As I read further into the novel, I quickly became clear of the pessimism in Houellebecq’s views toward the perceived perverted culture of the 21st century. He paints it bluntly through the muse of his characters, and intends on making a strong point for the mistakes of the sexual liberal movement. To me, it quickly echoed similar formulations by Frankfurt school writers such as Herbert Marcuse, especially his book One Dimensional Man, which covers much of the same ground when it comes to faults of the sexual revolution. Generally, the idea being that pursuit of liberal sexual freedom was constructed by the superstructure of their time, a larger distraction from true emancipation of sex. While I do not entirely agree with every premise Houellebecq pushes within the book, many are hard to argue. Notably, his lambasting of hippie subculture and new age religious movements are entertaining and shine many truths on its hypocrisy, and help to grow a pillar into the larger idea of the text.
He writes one of the protagonists, Bruno, as dirty, a slave to libidinal desires, and deeply cynical. In much ways Bruno serves as a generalization of the post-revolutionary societal mood around sex and metaphysics. Much of the western world today is insistently serialized, and it cannot really be escaped, so it becomes naturalized as I also believe he serves as an insert for Houellbecq’s personal views on metaphysics, as he has in the past showed his spiteful compliance with materialist agnosticism as a hegemonic evil which is without contenders. Both his debut Whatever and Elementary Particles echo the materialist horror in which he must believe, leading to corrupt movements like the new left’s sexual revolution. Additionally, I think one can connect Houellbecq’s hate for the ruling materialist ontology through an economic critique. Many of the lines of revolution he mentions within the novel, such as the plastic surgery industry or the new age spiritual movement were quickly co-opted by streams of capital as another sector of industry which to sell to. The case can be made that capital uproots the neat lines of culture, notably in the novel as sexual culture, and controls their use for monetary gain. Capital is a corrupting and perverting force, one which mirrors the inherently sexual themes in the novel.
In contrast, Bruno’s half-brother Michel is portrayed as a deeply introverted, Intelligent man of science, one which takes very little pleasure in human intimacy, dedicating his life to the pursuit of nullifying the need for sexual reproduction and the possibility of reinventing humanity. Houellebecq paints Michel as an extremely emotionally troubled man, one which has the incapability to love, and is in many ways disconnected from the world which he inhabits. Michel is a boy who argues restlessly with the consequences of materialist metaphysics, and the consequences of beings made of “elementary particles” in absence of Gods. Michel is used in many ways to tackle much of the existential questions a materialist ontology still has yet to answer in a world where the conventional metaphysical thought of Christianity has been dethroned by secularism, which reminds me of similar ideas by writers such as Fernando Passoa or Friedrich Nietzsche.
To summarize, I believe the book is a great analysis of some of the lesions which plague the current materialist ontology which is universally accepted in modern liberal states, especially in the realm of sex and the human condition. It is one of my favorite novels currently, and I seem to get more out of it coming back to many passages, hopefully which are only expanded on in further readings of his catalogue. I recommend the book to anyone who may be interested by the topics described, but I will give the warning that Houellebecq’s novels are not for everyone, and the books are filled with excessive amounts of suggestive and uncomfortable content. Below I have linked information on finding the book for download or physical purchase.
