The Elementary Particles
Michel Houellebecq, Frank Wynne
Language: English
Pages: 272
ISBN: 0375727019
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
An international literary phenomenon, The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel–part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence.
Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale.
Translated from the French by Frank Wynne.
Antología de textos libertinos franceses del siglo XVII
Student who had arrived earlier that year—a young man with a beard and a vapid expression—left after a few minutes, explaining that he had to pick up his car from the garage. A palpable sense of unease spread through the group. Soon the term would be over; some of them were going home to visit family, others on vacation. The sound of their voices snapped like twigs in the air. Shortly afterward, the party broke up. By seven-thirty it was all over. Djerzinski walked across the parking lot.
Not jeer at her, they are not cruel to her, but it is as if she were invisible—no eyes follow her as she walks. People feel uncomfortable when they are with her. They find it easier to ignore her. A girl who is exceptionally beautiful, on the other hand, who has something which too far surpasses the customary seductive freshness of adolescence, appears somehow unreal. Great beauty seems invariably to portend some tragic fate. At fifteen, Annabelle was one of those rare beauties who can turn.
To stick to my ‘liberal humanist’ position; I knew in my heart it was my only chance of getting laid. I sat on the terrace at the Escurial. My penis was hot, swollen and aching. I had a couple of beers and then walked back to the apartment. As I was crossing the river, I remembered Adjila. She was a pretty little Arab girl in the seconde. Good student, serious, a class ahead of her age. She had an intelligent, sensitive face, not at all cynical. She really wanted to make something of herself—you.
Could tell. A lot of girls like that live with thugs and murderers, so all you have to do is show them a little kindness. Again, I started to believe it was possible. For the next two weeks, I talked to her often and called her up to the blackboard. She responded to my glances, she didn’t seem to think anything was up. I didn’t have much time, it was June already. When she walked back to her desk, I could see her little ass in her tight jeans. I liked her so much I stopped visiting prostitutes.
Of the book: The book is a concordance of the four Gospels according to the text of Saint Jerome, with almost as many drawings as there are pages, each decorated in wondrous colors. Here one can contemplate the visage of divine majesty miraculously rendered; there, the mystical representations of the Evangelists, some having six wings, some four, some two. Here we see the eagle, there the bull, here the face of a man, there that of a lion, and innumerable other drawings. In looking at them.