Having just completed Houellebecq's "Whatever" I'm a bit uncertain what to make of it. To read the blurbs and quotes on the back-cover, one might expect something a bit more comical than what this actually is. The tone of this book, however, is dark, dark, dark...

Houellebecq's narrator/central character is an unhappy man who feels contempt for women, love, society, technology, his job, himself, etc. He has an acerbic wit that, at times, is amusing, but it's a bitter sort of humor. There's nothing light-hearted about it.

As the book progresses, the main character becomes increasingly alienated and miserable, ultimately scheming to convert his co-worker (a loveless, ugly man) to murder. The plan fails, but things continue to get darker and darker until the main character finally enters a mental hospital.

There is a bitter contempt for life/love/humanity that runs through this book and, while it is cleverly written at times, it's not really all that enjoyable experience and I'm not sure what the book really has to say other than "Life sucks." Frankly, I think the same sorts of themes are handled far more eloquently and with far greater insight by Camus' "The Stranger."

Houellebecq is a talented writer but this book just didn't do much for me overall.

Written in a dry, ascerbic tone, WHATEVER follows one man's downward spiral as he feels increasingly less conected with the world and society that surrounds him. The book deals with many questions regarding modern times, picking up the ball, as it were, where writers like Kafka left off. The paradox presented in this book is that with the increase in speed and circulation of information and communication tools, people seem to be overloaded and more isolated. At times the book meanders and one never gets really close to the other characters but it seems appropriate in a novel about the solipsistic nature of our times. A true pessimist, Michel Houellebecq does not allow his character to surrmount his seperation from other (or as Hawthorn would have said his "black veil"). The novel is well worth reading and I'll be interested to to read other works by Houellebecq.

Reminiscent of Miller (Henry) and "the Catcher in the Rye" a bit. Not a timeless book by any means but a very decent period piece. Like Emerson (?) said, every generation must rewrite same books after their own fashion -- and that's just it, a cleverly and imaginatively done relevant, honest, and philosophical tale of "fear and loathing" for our times, a bit like the "Fight Club" only by an order of magnitude more intelligent and subtle. I've read it in one sitting: it's small and strangely bewitching, though like I've said, not perfect, or, to be precise, it's uneven.

I see other reviewers complaining about the translation, well, I thought the English version was OK, though I haven't compared specifically. Except perhaps the title, which perfectly translates into English as "Extension of the Domain of Struggle"--which linkes up with something in the text--but became "Whatever" (which doesn't, and is meaningless). Anyway, who cares about the title.

I also got another Houellebecq book (Elementary Particles), in English too, read just a bit so far, and it's not bad either. Now, here (it's a different translator though) the translation does seem a bit lacking, sort of choppy, awkward, so that tells you why you need to read stuff in the original. Meaning if you can read French, go for the original, don't be lazy, it's worth the effort in this case. Houellebecq's latest book, Plateforme, seems untranslated yet ... so here's a good justification to try the real thing if you can--if you put them side by side you'll see that a translation is always off, even if only in the overall feel... if it's close, it's awkward English, if it's more graceful, then it's not true to the source. Anyway, I'm deviating; what I wanted to say was that "Whatever" is an uncommonly honest and psychological book from a relatively unknown author and is well worth reading: thus my very strict evaluation is go get it.

I read this six months ago, and over this period I've kept thinking about this book. One reviewer suggests that you read not Camus but Cordwainer Smith instead--an apt comparison perhaps lost on the existentialist coffeehouse denizens. Like pseudonymous Smith, MH provides stimulating critiques of the status quo via rather overly complicated stories. While in science fiction, where Smith's relegated, such an exchange of thought for sometimes less assured fictional skill is an expected tradeoff for readers, it seems many who bristle at MH's rants against the "new boss same as the old boss" fall into an easy trap set up by an author all too eager to goad and provoke.

I liked the novel of ideas underneath the posturing surface of sex, drugs, rock n'roll. I barely noticed any explicitness in the content--but as I'm the same age as MH, maybe we're unshockable--part of the author's point, no? Again, the distance of translation must be acknowledged--in French perhaps his prose slaps you harder? (3 1/2 stars in English, therefore...)

What leaves an impression with me months later is the longing for transcendence that the novel conveys. In fact, the conclusion moved me greatly, and I'm about as sentimental as MH (or at least as he claims to be in his press kit). MH captures a contemporary yearning for fulfillment that many readers might flinch from--the lonely keyboardist being a figure all too familiar to online bibliophiles. I would have liked 90% of the novel to have focused upon the reformation of the world rather than only in the end chapter within which such interesting visions are locked. (Parts of the conclusion reminded me of the Fritjof Capra talkathon film "Mindwalk"--for all the pluses and minuses that brings--the philospohical dia/trialogue borrowed from Galileo for our New Age, and another French setting!) True, there'd be less lucrative raunch, but more nourishing content. The manifesto quality of this chapter shows in fact that MH's true skill might lie more in social criticism than fiction, but that's a genre that sells even worse, and is less likely to grab profiles in the NY Times Magazine--which is how I first heard of MH, after all!

MH has lamented the effort put into his first novel, Whatever, when it failed to arouse the lumpenintellectualariat against the consumer cyber age all we amazonians admittedly enjoy. But I'd counter that the debates raised on this website show how much his critique rouses exactly the debate he'd earlier hoped for...

I agree with the reviewer who said that reading this book was sort of like taking a particularly bitter pill. I sacrificed any chances of a good mood for the week I spent reading this book. I was haunted by the images of physical decay, moral corruption, and sexual perversity that Houellebecq so starkly portrays. The more I read, the clearer it became to me that most writers publishing in America don't dare to tackle big ideas. However flawed The Elementary Particles might be, the fact that Houellebecq confronts not only scientific progress and philosophical schools of thought, but also death, sickness, gender and sex in the most universal sense, shows such courage and vision that I can't help thinking this novel is genius. The glimmer of hope offered by the cryptic last pages ("the future is feminine") actually does lift away some of the bleakness, without taking away from the overall seriousness. Houellebecq also has a grim sense of humor that I enjoyed. I'm not surprised this hasn't received more attention in the U.S. I wish that weren't true. Maybe then American writers (or more precisely, American publishers) might find the courage to compete with this guy. The bar has been raised.

This is the best book I've read all year (still, it's only May- and hope springs eter... well, no, actually, not after reading this book, hope does not spring. It just lies there, with a neat little hole in its forehead). At times hilarious, and at time devestatingly poignant, The Elementary Particles is an angry denunciation of, well, just about everything- from the degeneration of decadence and libertine sexual values, to the violence and cruelty innate in nature and humanity, to the cult of youth and physical beauty, to the hope of ever finding lasting love or underlying meaning in the world...

Beautifully written, with great twists and turns. The sex scenes are handled deftly, as are the myriad (and I mean myriad) analogies for the human condition taken from phyiscs, biology, quantum mechanics, chemistry...

I don't know. Language fails me. I wanted to provide some ballast for the more negative reviews here. People are entitled to their opinions, but how anyone could not be moved by this book- I could almost hear Barber's adagio for air (yes, the one from Platoon) luminously echoing through many of the scenes.

Like the book says, in its final lines, it is dedicated to mankind. I think it lives up to that ideal, and is a worthy monument and testament to humanity.