Judging a Book By Its Cover – Atomised by Michel Houellebecq
Written by Gillian Ramos
There is a little store in Greenwich Village called bookbook. It’s my dream bookstore, crowded to the point where the shelves sag in the middle and “floor” is short for “really, really big shelf.” There are also lots of tables with piles of strange and interesting books, so you know that my grabby little hands had the time of their lives.
At first, I was drawn to Atomised because it was the only book on the table that looked pretty. Most of the other book covers featured some gritty black and white photography, so the simple line drawing and pastel color scheme was a refreshing change. The featured back cover blurb promised a story that was “very moving, gloriously, extravagantly filthy and very funny.”
How could I say no?
To call the book “extravagantly filthy” is a conservative assessment. The first mention of masturbation occurs on the second page, and it’s pretty much more of the same throughout.
No, that’s not entirely accurate. There’s also a lot of sex with varying degrees of protection and affection, a bevy of blowjobs, and more handjobs than any one person should be allowed to have in a lifetime.
The strange thing is that although it is a completely lewd book, much of the dirty content serves a purpose. Bruno, described as an aging libertine (but really is much more of a sadsack pervert), tries to understand life through his history of sexual encounters. Successes and failures are extrapolated to explain larger phenomena in the world, from the inefficiencies and superficiality of spiritual exploration to the far-reaching decline of Western civilization. In short, he navigates the outside world with his penis as his compass.
As to be expected, Bruno is a perpetual masturbator, not just in the physical sense but also in the emotional sense. He goes on long, self-centered diatribes in which he justifies some horrifying behaviors and questionable social theories. Definitely the kind of guy who luxuriates in the sound of his own voice.
By contrast, Bruno’s half-brother Michel is virtually asexual. A well-respected biologist and all-around intellectual, Michel seems to exist outside of society. Since people are not so easily compartmentalized and explained, he has little interest in them outside of the occasional academic musing.
Where Bruno’s longwinded speeches are meant to showcase himself – his sexual prowess, his daring beliefs – Michel’s occasional moments of participation showcase his body of knowledge, strings of heady scientific information that he extrapolates to explain the outside world. Unlike his brother, Michel very much lives with his brain.
Since both men use tiny bits of information to piece together their worldviews, the title of the novel invites the reader to break each man down to his simplest parts. Each critical moment in their respective lives stands as one atom that makes up the whole adult. In trying to piece themselves together, to make sense of themselves, we’re busy picking them apart to figure out why they’ve done the things they’ve done.
This makes for a unique reading experience, since we’ve been taught to pick up clues throughout the story and piece them together ourselves before we reach the conclusion. Houellebecq presents us with two fully formed adults, people we expect to be completely explained and understandable, and then supplies us with snippets of information so that we continue reading with the expectation that we’ll be able to maintain these whole characters in our minds. Instead, these snippets entice us to pick apart the characters like literary monkey bread, sussing out each quirk and shocking anecdote in hopes of finding the true essence of their respective beings.
I still haven’t reached any real conclusions about the book. I don’t know if I would read any more of Houellebecq’s work. I felt the same icky sensation reading Atomised as when I read American Psycho – we’re clearly dealing with a good and interesting writer, but the reading experience leaves behind this film of emotional uncleanliness. As much as I liked the challenge of breaking down characters rather than building them up, I’m happy to be finished with it.
