History in the Making: Michel Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles

The Elementary Particles, by Michel Houellebecq, Translated from the French by Frank Wynne. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2000.

Michel Houellebecq is a wildly controversial author, known as much for his distasteful (to put it mildly) remarks about Islam as for his bestselling novels. The novels—Platform, The Elementary Particles, The Possibility of an Island, Whatever—are considered brilliant by many, but are also in many ways so extreme as to inspire a fair amount of disgust. It is widely agreed, however, that amongst the scenes of sex tourism, racism and misogyny lie profound insights into human nature. The Elementary Particles seems somewhat toned down in contrast to the other novels: while it has its fair share of somewhat shocking sex scenes, it is less vitriolic than his other works, and so, perhaps, a good introduction to Houllebecq’s writing. The novel describes the lives of two half-brothers, Bruno and Michel, in the turbulent period of what is now known as the Sexual Revolution. What sets the novel apart from Houellebecq’s other works, however, is its scale. While all of his novels are interested in society and mass culture, The Elementary Particles uses the vantage point of a hypothetical future to look back on the past and trace its own genealogy through the lives of its characters, and as such, it serves as a fascinating example of the historical novel.

Though not often appreciated, there is a big difference between a proper historical novel and a period piece or costume drama. A costume drama takes a specific historical epoch as its setting, but the trials and tribulations of a given period merely serve as a backdrop for the events depicted. The milieu of the time often exerts some kind of formative influence, but ultimately, the characters are at the forefront of the work. The point is to tell a story, and history is the setting. It’s an effective setting: what love affair doesn’t seem more exciting and profound and profound amidst cannon fire? Any story seems more interesting if it happened on the day J.F.K was assassinated.

A historical novel, on the other hand, is primarily interested in history itself. More particularly, it focuses on major shifts in history, where an entire generation comes to see the world in an entirely different way. Or, as the narrator of Michel Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles puts it, the “radical, global transformations in the values to which the majority subscribes.” The narrator gives two examples of such transformations: the rise of Christianity, and the rise of modern science. These are massive changes, where essential paradigms are turned on their heads and life as people know it is irreversibly altered. Beyond the passing fads of modern life—“carbohydrates are fattening!” “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction!”—these shifts are more substantial, as when entire societies decide there’s only one God, completely reformulating their sense of ethics and morality.

The characters in such texts serve a particularly instrumental role: they are of interest only insofar as they illuminate and represent their historical milieu. The author’s goal is to understand how and why a given change happened, and what life looked like before and after. Unfortunately, this means that the people in the story are generally nothing more than pawns in the massive game of history.

One of the early theorists of the historical novel, Georg Lukacs, argued that the main hero of the historical novel should have as little personality as possible, so that the forces of his age could be clearly imprinted upon him. He should be typical, bordering on dull, a largely passive creature that manages to be on location when important things are happening without having an overly intrusive individuality. Perhaps. But there’s one problem with this kind of book, which is, unfortunately, that it’s not much fun to read.

Michel Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles, on the other hand, is utterly absorbing. The genius of the novel is that it its characters are not at all typical, and yet manage to transmit the values and philosophical currents of their era in a highly representative fashion. Historical change in this book isn’t the result of anonymous sweeping forces, but rather of the collective actions of hundreds of people, some of whom play a larger role than others. Each of the characters is strongly shaped by individual experiences, and in turn impacts the decisions of others. But while the book seems to be steadily focused on the lives of its main characters, it simultaneously keeps one eye on the big picture. Hence, the novel’s prologue: “This book is principally the story of a man who lived out the greater part of his life in Western Europe, in the latter half of the twentieth century. Though alone for much of his life, he was nonetheless occasionally in touch with other men. He lived through an age that was miserable and troubled.” From the perspective of its protagonist the novel opens out onto broader reflections of his time, and then onto even more abstract thoughts about “metaphysical mutations” in history, before returning to its hero with this irresistible hook: “Michel Djerzinski was not the first nor even the principal architect of the third – and in many respects the most radical – paradigm shift, which opened up a new era in world history. But, as a result of certain extraordinary circumstances in his life, he was one of its most clear-sighted and deliberate engineers.”

We don’t learn exactly what this third shift is until the final pages of the book, which makes the experience of reading the novel akin to a dawning sense of recognition – if you’ve already read some reviews that give away the ending, I extend my sympathies, because you have been cheated out of the book’s greatest pleasure. Remember, the story is framed as a retrospective account, meaning that the narrator has already undergone this massive societal change, and therefore, cannot avoid being conditioned by an altered worldview. As a result, there’s a kind of foreshadowing in the choice of metaphors and the description of a given set of interactions.

For the reader, there’s a pleasure in seeing contemporary insights applied retrospectively. It’s like an adult describing a parent’s childhood: there’s both a sense that what is being described has helped to create the perspective that now views it, and a simultaneous appreciation for the particular wisdom that hindsight offers. One reads about the sexual revolution of the 1960s, perhaps amused by the sincere passions of its participants, and with a sense of awe at the changes they brought about; but also with an awareness of their selfishness and naivete. The book is thus an elegant reflection, on both our contemporary moment and our not-so-distant past.

But it’s also a poignant coming of age story about two siblings. Michel and his half-brother Bruno, with their hippy parents and boarding school adolescence, are hardly typical. Nor are they always the most likeable of characters. Many readers may find it difficult to empathize with Bruno, given his desperate perversions and bitter outlook. But his aberrations, initially off-putting, gradually become sympathetic; his psychic discord is so skillfully drawn that as the text progresses, one is even compelled to identify with him. All history aside, the pair’s stories are painfully resonant and deeply moving.

The genius of the work, however, is to bring the two together; to make the brothers both emblematic of and instrumental in their historical moment, which is also our own. It’s an elegant negotiation of the lines between the specific and the universal, one rendered all the more brilliant by the novel’s dazzling conclusion. A work that somehow both elevates and transcends the individual, The Elementary Particles is a remarkable exploration of the resonances between story and history.

Born in Poland, raised by vagabond mathematicians, Katarzyna Kunicka is currently working on a PhD in Comparative Literature. She loves books, movies, language, food, and hiphop. More of her inner monologue can be found at http://www.kasiapontificates.blogspot.com/