Michel Houellebecq

Half-brothers Michel and Bruno have a mother in common but little else. Michel is a molecular biologist, a thinker and idealist, a man with no erotic life to speak of and little in the way of human society. Bruno, by contrast, is a libertine, though more in theory than in practice, his endless lust is all too rarely reciprocated. Both are symptomatic members of our atomised society, where religion has given way to shallow 'new age' philosophies and love to meaningless sexual connections. Atomised tells the stories of the two brothers, but the real subject of the novel is the dismantling of contemporary society and its assumptions, its political incorrectness, and its caustic and penetrating asides on everything from anthropology to the problem pages of girls' magazines. A dissection of modern lives and loves. By turns funny, acid, infuriating, didactic, touching and visceral.

Winner of the International Dublin Literary Award 2002

Atomised

Nathan Johnson

But, as he watched, the unshakeable conviction grew that, taken as a whole, nature was not only savage, it was a repulsive cesspit. All in all, nature deserved to be wiped out in a holocaust — and man’s mission on earth was probably to do just that.

Tenderness is a deeper instinct than seduction which is why it is so difficult to give up hope.

For society to function, for competition to continue, people have to want more and more until it fills their lives and finally devours them.

In earlier times, masculinity served a particular function, but for centuries now, men clearly served no useful purpose. For the most part, they assuaged their boredom playing squash, which was a lesser evil; but from time to time they felt the need when bears common, perhaps were more to 

 — which expressed itself in leading a revolution or starting a war somewhere.

Atomised quotes

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