Many people like to pick up a book to forget themselves and escape the day-to-day struggles of life. Michel Houellebecq offers no such refuge for those brave enough to tackle his fiercely criticized and highly acclaimed commentary on the decline of Western civilization, ” Elementary Particles.”

Houellebecq?s characters epitomize the most despicable and mundane aspects of humanity. He offers the reader no hero to grasp on to for support in the turmoil of lives cast adrift on the sea of uncertainty in the post-modern age. We are forced to navigate the dark waters alone, as are his characters, as elementary particles colliding with one another amidst an ocean of delusion and desire.

Houellebecq uses the lives of two half-brothers, Bruno, the perpetual masturbator and Michel, the asexual molecular biologist, to characterize the dismal nature of the male psyche in society as a result of the sexual revolution.

Though some may believe that the sexual revolution liberated many from the agony of repression, Houellebecq argues that it was nothing more than the progression of society caught up in the cult of individuality within the age of materialism. Pleasure has an ever-increasing threshold. Therefore, the individual is forced to seek out more intense stimulation to attain the same level of satisfaction. Houellebecq?s characters find they are no longer capable of adequate stimulation through traditional sex and must search out more graphic and in some cases violent variations of sexuality to reach a satisfactory level of sexual fulfillment.

Despite Houellebecq?s bold assertions that the need to derive meaning from life is simply a defect of the human mind, that sex and death are inextricably intertwined and that humans are defined by their sexual desires, he manages to never quite abandon the belief that despite all of life?s problems, love still exists. Through the innately nurturing qualities of the female of the species, society might be able to reconnect with itself.

This complex novel is highly recommended for the daring literary explorer who is unafraid to have the most disturbing aspects of humanity magnified in the lives of the characters who are unfortunate enough to have to live out their eternal existence as pawns in Houellebecq?s tirade on societal decay. Clearly preoccupied with his own sexual frustrations, Houellebecq manages to draw such a convincing picture of human obsession and preoccupation that it seems almost necessary to give his assertions a chance to battle it out amongst other social theorists of this age. So put on your boxing gloves and pick up “Elementary Particles”, and don?t be afraid of what you might find out about yourself.