Les Particules Elementaires

by Michel Houellebecq
Flammarion, Paris, France. 392 pp ISB1998N: 2 08 067472-2

Reviewed by Roger Malina


This french novel is stirring a raging debate among french intellectuals this fall, most recently in the pages of Le Monde newspaper. The novel tells the story of two half brothers, baby-boomers, and traces their family, amorous and professional stories . One of the brothers, the lead protagonist, is a molecular biologist the other seeks resolution through sexual pleasure. The novel is a fast read, and through the vignettes and embedded philosophical musings provides a biting critique of contemporary society. It attacks the 1968 generation both in those now in positions of power and authority, as well as the New Age outgrowths of Californian Esalen and the Summer of Love; it attacks the new humanists, the french intellectuals of post modern and decontruction schools ( Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Deleuze and gang), and well as the neo-socialists. Indicative of the cynical view of the book is that most of the lead characters end their lives as suicides or in insane asylums.

The sometimes purple prose is laced with scientifically accurate descriptions of human biology, psychology and anatomy, with a particular relish in describing the effects of aging, and the emptyness and alienation of much of contemporary life. It is merciless on the fragmentation of society (40% of french children are born out of marriage). The protagonists fail to develop any meaningful long term relationships with their spouses, children, relatives or friends (hence the book's title--"elementary particles").

The novel may be of interest to Leonardo readers for two reasons related to the current Leonardo "Art and Biology 30th anniversary theme. First the lead protagonist is a molecular biologist and the book present a convincing and realistic, if sarcastic and depressing, view of the life and work of scientists. The discussions of the impact of einsteinian relativity, quantum mechanics, chaos theory and molecular biology are well thought out and interesting. There are perceptive anecdotes for instance about the Huxley brothers, Julian and Aldhous, and about Neils Bohr and the Copenhagen School. The underlying thrust is that the advance of scientific knowledge has been steadily removing the various underpinings of philosophical and ethical systems, with the resulting materialist impasse. The book however provides a rather suprising and provocative denouement. The molecular biologist, Michel Djerzinski, develops a theory (published in the journal Nature)--that is based on thermodynamic principles that demonstrates that all evolution based on chromosomic separation, sexual reproduction, is inherently unstable (and hence imperfectible). In a second paper he demonstrates, and confirms through numerical simulations, that any genetic code, whatever its complexity, can be re-written through a formal mathematical procedure so that it is structurally stable, resistant to alteration through mutations, and infinitely extensible through asexual cloning. True ethical humanism he demonstrates can only be achieved through genetically based brotherhood, or rather sisterhood. UNESCO funds the development of the creation of the new beings using the Djerzinski algorithm, an event that is televised live like the moon landing, or Sojourner on Mars.

The novel ends optimistically through the eyes of the new race of ethical beings that have been created and is dedicated to the human race that had the courage to end their own flawed existence, through rational and scientific means. The premise of the book, familiar to the science fiction audience, is developed in a thorough and effective way--a foretaste of the profound ways that molecular biology and genetic engineering will dominate the philosphical and ethical discourse of the next century.