Atomised [UK ed.] 0099283360, 9780099283362

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MicherHou^llebe

K

*Very moving,

I

gloriously, extravagantly 'tfMthy

^'

and very

ftipny'

Independent

*Makes you re-examine your the

Icind

beliefs, wliicli

of cliaflenge literature

is

for. This

is

is

a

brave and rather magnificent book' 'Bullying

and

brilliant...4fo/77/5edis also very,

the kind of literature so lacking on the British literary scene, literature with a sure and unapologetic confidence in its own ability...to make a difference. Atomised \s nothing less than a

very

funny... precisely

road-rage *This

map

of our times'

remarkable bestseller

is

France's biggest

literary sensation since Frangoise Sagan,

people are saying, since Albert Camus even. It was not so much published as detonated in Paris and the rows it provoked burst at once out of the review sections on to front pages'

'An unexpected, unsettling

triumph...mesmerising'

'Finishing this book,

one

genuinely excited by its author's daring and conviction. ..extraordinary.. .One hesitates to say Houellebecq is the Next Big Thing, but he may be the best we see for a long time' is

Atomised A poet and novelist, Michel Houellebecq is the author of one previous novel, Whatever.

Grand

He

is

a past winner of the

prix national des lettres and, for Atomised, the Prix novembre.

He

lives in Ireland.

ALSO BY MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ \(/hatever

Michel Houellebecq

Atomised TRANSLATED BY Frank Wynne

f

VINTAGE

Published by Vintage 2001

109

8

Copyright

© Flammarion, 1999 © Frank Wynne 2000

Translation copyright

Michel Houellebecq to be identified as the author of

The

right of

this

work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser Translated from the French, Les Particules elementaires First

published in Great Britain in 2000 by

William Heinemann Vintage

Random House, 20 Vauxhall London

Bridge Road,

SW1V2SA

Random House Australia (Pty) Limited 20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney New South Wales 2061, Australia Random House New Zealand

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New

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(Pty)

Zealand

Limited

Parktown 2193, South Africa

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009 www.randomhouse.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record is

available

from the

ISBN

for this

book

British Library

09 928336

Papers used by Random House are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin

bound in Great Britain by Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey

Printed and

Prologue

Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in

2010

littp://www.archive.org/details/atomisedOOhoue

This book

is

principally the story of a

the greater part of his

life

in

Western Europe,

half of the twentieth century. his life,

man who Hved

Though

out

in the latter

alone for

much of

he was nonetheless closely in touch with other

men. He troubled.

lived through an age that

The country

into

was miserable and

which he was born was

sliding

slowly, ineluctably, into the ranks of the less developed countries;

often

haunted by misery, the

men

generation lived out their lonely, bitter lives.

such

as love,

most

part,

tenderness and disappeared;

contemporaries were

human

the

of

his

Feelings

fellowship had, for the

relationships

at best indifferent

ber^veen

his

and more often

cruel.

At the time of his disappearance, Michel Djerzinski was unanimously considered to be serious candidate for the

Nobel

a first-rate biologist

and

a

prize; his true significance,

however, would not become apparent for some time.

4

Michel Houellebecq

««orld order,

The web which weaves

together all things envelops our bodies,

Bathes our limbs, In a halo ofjoy.

A

men of old

which

state to

acceded only through music,

Greets us each morning as a commonplace.

What men

We

considered a dream: perfect but remote,

take for granted as the simplest of things.

But we

are not

contemptuous of these men;

We know how much we owe to their dreaming. We know that without the web of suffering and joy their history,

We know little

by

We know

and little,

which was

be nothing,

that they kept witliin

their fear

As

we would

them an image of us, through

in their pain, as they hurtled into darkness,

they wrote their history.

that they

would not have survived,

that they could

not have survived, without that hope somewhere deep within.

They could not have survived without

their

dream.

Now that we who live in the light, We who live in the presence of the light, Wliich bathes our bodies,

Erwelops our bodies, In a halo ofjoy

Now And

Now Now

that

we have

settled

by the water's edge.

here live in perpetual afternoon

that the light which surrounds our bodies

that

we have come

is

at last to our destination

palpable,

7

8

"^

Michel Houellebecq

Leaving behind a world of division,

way of thinking which

Tlte

Immersed

Of

a

divided us,

in a serene, fertile delight

new Law

Now, For

the first time.

We

can retrace the end of the old order.

Part

One

The Lost Kingdom

The

first

little

ofJuly

fell

on

a

Wednesday,

so although

it

was

a

unusual, Djerzinski organised his leaving drinks for

Tuesday evening. Bottles of champagne nestled among

embryos

of frozen

containers

refrigerator usually filled

Four the

in

up and send

a

large

Brandt

with chemicals.

was

bottles for fifteen people

whole party was

the

sham.

One

a little miserly,

careless

but

word would

his colleagues scurrying for their cars.

break

it

They

stood around drinking in the white-tiled basement

decorated only by

Nobody had

who

a

poster of the Lakes of

offered to take photos.

had arrived

beard and

a

earlier that year

vapid expression

-

—

a

A

Gemiany.

research student

young man with

left after a

a

few minutes

explaining that he had to pick up his car from the garage.

A

palpable sense of unease spread through the group.

Term would be over soon. Some of them were going home to visit family, others were going on hoHday. The

^

12

Michel Houellebecq

sound of their voices snapped

like t?wigs in the air. Shortly

afterwards, the party broke up.

By

seven-thirty

it

was

all

over. Djerzinski walked across

the car park with one of his colleagues. She had long black hair,

he,

very white skin and large

and would inevitably take

She was older than

breasts.

his position as

head of the

department. Most of her published papers were on the

DAF3 gene in When they

the fruit

fly.

She was unmarried.

reached

his

Toyota he offered

hand,

his

smiling (he had been preparing himself mentally for this for several seconds,

remembering

to smile). Their palms

brushed and they shook hands gently. Later, he decided a

handshake lacked warmth; under the circumstances, they could have kissed each other on both cheeks like visiting dignitaries or

people in show business.

After they had said their goodbyes, he

what seemed

to

him an

had she not driven

sat in his

car for

unusually long five minutes.

off?

Was

Why

she masturbating while

listening to

Brahms? Perhaps she was thinking about her

career, her

new

last,

responsibilities: if so,

was she happy? At

her Golf pulled out of the car park, leaving

The weather had been magnificent all day; wami now. In the early weeks of summer seemed

fixed, motionless, radiant,

were getting

He

felt

him it

alone.

was

still

everything

though already the days

shorter.

privileged to have

he pulled out into the

worked

street.

When

here, he thought as

asked 'Do

you

feel

privileged to Uve in an area like Palaiseau?', 63 per cent of

^

Atomised

respondents answered 'Yes'.

were on

buildings

human

a

There were

green lawns.

was hardly

It

several

The

seemed

to

had seen

felt like a

into

supermarkets

con-

phrase 'quality of life'

have been coined for such

The motorway back Djerzinski

surprising: the

surrounded by lush

scale,

veniently nearby for shopping.

13

a place.

Paris

was deserted and

character in a science-fiction film he

the

at university:

last

man on

other living thing had been wiped out.

earth after every

A post-apocalyptic

wasteland. Djerzinski had lived years,

on the rue Fremicourt

for ten

during which he had grown accustomed

to the

the need for a companion,

some-

quiet. In

thing to

1993 he

felt

welcome him home

a white canary.

It

mornings though

was it

He settled on

in the evening.

a fearful

animal,

which sang

never seemed happy. Could

be happy? Happiness

is

a

first

canary

an intense, all-consuming feeling

ofjoyous fulfilment akin to inebriation, rapture or

The

in the

time he took the canary out of

its

ecstasy.

cage, the

frightened creature shat on the sofa before flying back to

way back

the bars, desperate to find the a

month

later.

in.

He

This time, the poor bird managed to

from an open window. Barely remembering wings,

it

tried again

landed on a balcony five floors

fall

to flutter

down on

its

the

building opposite. All that Michel could do was wait for the

woman who

lived there to

she didn't have a

worked

late.

cat.

come home, and hope

She was an editor

She didn't have

Michel recovered the bird

at Vingt Aiis

that

and

a cat.

after dark;

it

was trembling

"^

14

Michel Houellebecq

with cold and sill.

He

fear,

huddled against the concrete window-

sometimes saw the

woman

would nod

the rubbish out. She

again as he was taking

in greeting

and he would

nod back. Something good had come of the accident - he had met one of his neighbours.

From some

window he

his

three

could see

hundred apartments.

a

When

the evening, the canary

would

or ten minutes. Michel

would feed

the gravel in

He

him. dead,

its

its

dozen buildings he came

home

in

whistle and chirp for five the bird and change

cage. Tonight, however, silence greeted

crossed the

room

The

to the cage.

canary was

cold white body lying on the gravel.

Monoprix ready-meal - monkfish in parsley sauce, from their Gourmet range - washed down with a mediocre Valdepenas. After some thought, he put the

He

ate a

bird's

body

into a plastic bag and

dumped

it

in the rubbish

What was he supposed to do? Say mass? He didn't know what was at the end of the chute. The

chute.

opening was narrow (though large enough canary).

He dreamed

rubbish bins

filled

the canary,

with old coffee

anned with

body. Tear off eyeballs.

He

its

He woke

opened onto

that the chute

sauce and mangled genitalia.

feet,

filters,

out

up, trembUng;

its it

would

as

big

as

attack the

intestines,

burst

its

was only one o'clock.

swallowed three Xanax. So ended

of freedom.

vast

ravioH in tomato

Huge worms,

terrible beaks, rip

to take the

his

first

night

On

14

December

Academy

Theorie des Geseztes der Energieverteilung

entitled 'Zur

in

1900, in a paper to the Berlin

Normalspektrum',

quantum energy.

It

Max

was

a

Planck introduced the idea of

concept that would play a deci-

sive role in the evolution

of physics. Between 1900 and

Bohr and their contemporaries developed number of ingenious models which attempted to recon-

1920, Einstein, a

cile this

idea with previous theories.

1920s that

it

It

was not

until the

became apparent that such attempts were

futile.

Niels Bohr's claim to be the founder of

mechanics

rests less

on

his

own

quantum

discoveries than

on the

extraordinary atmosphere of creativity and intellectual

openness he fostered around him.

The

Institute

of Physics,

which Bohr founded in Copenhagen in 1919, welcomed the cream of young European physicists. Heisenberg, Pauli

and

Bom

served

their

apprenticeships

there.

1

6

'^

Michel Houellebecq

Though some talking

years their senior,

through

perceptive and

However,

in

rigorous.

no

students'

tolerated

laxity in

experiments, he did not think any

no concept was

priori;

challenged.

He

and

ranged

from

his

idea foolish a

could not be

it

liked to invite his students to his country

scientists

also

from other

welcomed

fields.

poHticians,

Their conversations

from philosophy to physics, history to

easily

religion to everyday

happened

new

so established that

house in Tisvilde, where he artists

He was

detail.

good humoured but extremely

Bohr

if

Bohr would spend hours

hypotheses

their

life.

since the days of the

art,

Nothing comparable had

Greek philosophers.

It

was

in this extraordinary environment, between 1925 and

1927, that the basic premises of the pretation

- which

and

causality

had singularly

was

like

an

office,

no

failed

to

foster

better,

with

microscopes,

thinkers,

scientists

but simple technicians

Ohservateur

and

dreamed

who

of going

an

Rimbauds great

read Le Nouvel

on It

holiday

to

required no

no imagination and only the most basic second-

rate intellect. Phl])s

as

were not

Greenland. Molecular biology was routine. creativity,

such

his research

no worse. Far from

the popular image of molecular biologists research

con-

- were developed.

environment around him. The atmosphere in faciHty

Inter-

called into question established

cepts of space, time

Djerzinski

Copenhagen

when

a

Researchers wrote theses and studied for baccalaureat and a couple of years in college

would have been more than enough for them to handle the equipment. 'There's no mystery to decoding the

Atomised

^

17

genome,' Desplechin, the director of the biology department, liked to

say,

takes real talent.

'.

It's

.

how

person to discover

first

DNA,

decoding

pfff

now that Gamow, the

synthesising proteins,

.

hardly surprising that

.

.

.

was

to,

a

physicist.

But

you decode one gene, then

another and another, feed the

results into a

computer and

work out the sub-sequences. You send a fax to Colorado — they're w^orking on gene B27, w^e're working on C33. It's like following a recipe. From time to time

let

it

someone comes up with

better

him

the

a joke.'

The

first

storm

Nobel

prize.

It's

equipment and they give

of July was oppressively hot. In the afternoon

threatened

a

which would send the sunbathers

scattering. Desplechin's office

looked out onto the

river.

on the Quai Anatole France

Opposite, on the Quai des

many of them wearing thongs, sunshine. They chatted in pairs and

Tuileries, homosexuals,

walked around

in the

groups, and shared towels. Suntan lotion glistened biceps,

their

While they nylon

their

talked,

briefs,

on

buttocks were glabrous and sleek.

some massaged

or slipped

a finger

their genitals

under

through

their waistbands,

revealing pubic hair or the root of the penis. Desplechin

had had

set it

up

a telescope beside the

that he was homosexual; in

he was simply

On

a

common

bay window. reality, in

Rumour

recent years,

or garden alcoholic.

one such afternoon he had twice

tried to mastur-

bate, his eye glued to the eyepiece, staring at an adolescent

who

had taken off his thong and whose cock had begun

18

'=«