Atomised
Cult
Random House
2001
379
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 in their very different ways archetypes of an 'atomised' society, where religion has given way to shallow 'new age' philosophies and love to meaningless sexual connections. The plot traces the stories of the two brothers, but the real subject of the novel is in its dismantling of contemporary society and its assumptions, its political incorrectness, and its bilious, brilliant asides on everything from anthropology to the problem pages of girls' magazines. By turns funny, acid, infuriating, didactic, touching, visceral, it is an extraordinary and unique novel.
I got slagged for picking another book with a naked (well almost) woman on the cover (see The PowerBook) and have learnt my lesson – the next will be fully clothed, I promise.
I picked this not because of the cover but because it won the 2002 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (incidentally – the world’s richest prize for fiction at a staggering ?100,000) AND because it is a book about men. We have read so many about women.
And so I should not have been surprised to discover that not only is this a book about men, it is a man’s book – there are those in the bookclub who disagree with me. It tells the story of two half-brothers, Michel and Bruno – both sides of the author himself? Michel is a molecular biologist who seems unable to form proper relationships; Bruno is a man for whom the most important thing in life is sex. Both lead emotionally empty lives.
Well written and far-reaching, it sometimes reads like a page-turner but has been posited as an ‘important book about mankind’, and perhaps it is. The one- dimensional female ‘characters’ are mostly only there to have sex with – if Houellebecq is trying to say that a future without some kind of proper communication between the sexes will be a bleak one then he may well be right, but I wouldn’t like to live in his head. 
2/5
Score awarded by Bibliofemme: 2.5 out of 5
Awards
Impac Literary Prize
What the other femmes had to say
“Atomised is not a book to be tackled lightly. Will definitely stimulate interesting conversation though.” 3/5
“A tale of two brothers on different tracks, this is an in-your-face, well-written tale of how we define ourselves and our achievements. Mixed reviews from the Femmes, but I really liked it.” 4/5
“Didn’t like this one bit, two very different brothers, the book has us following their stories, one is into cow DNA and the other is a sex fiend!” 1/5
“Like dysfunctional electronics receiving only one frequency two half-brothers, Michel and Bruno, make their way through life. A read that leaves you with thoughts; whether that be on genics, porn or the willingness to live life to the full.” 3/5
