Atomised

APPALLING TRANSLATION, full stop.I speak fluent French and English as native.Houellebecq is also a poet and his writing has fantastic prosody, his use of languageis quite like a music piece, sharp short turning into long or irrelevant to previous lines etc.This translation truncates whole sentences, literally at places fabricates words whichauthor didn't even use in the sentence at all (or, worse, what even an A-level student couldsee in his dictionary that a translated word is entirely wrong - a wrong fact, like translatingfor example plane tree as chestnut tree). This translation is more of a summary ofauthor's intentions in a sentence through Mr.Translator rather than an effort to render author's literaryintentions as accurately as possible - it feels as if the Frank Wynne couldn't be bothered at some lines.And this I wrote after comparing only first thirty pages with the original... it felt like lickingice cream from behind a glass, the plain inaccuracies and errors are way too many.Vintage publisher can do far better - as its past publications show. It's interesting to know that thetranslator claims lots of ''awards'' to his name for some other works - this book, he destroyed, its art.Sadly, English reader has no other choice... Google Translate App will soon do better work.

I remember a teacher of Psychology telling us teens to never approach psychoanalysis without a full medical check-up beforehand. The risks were too great. Likewise, if life isn't firing on all cylinders, if you are not plucking cherries from the bowl of existence, your face a perpetual display of unruffled joy, think thrice before opening this book.I came to Hool-a-hoop's breakthrough novel, Atomised, after reading Platform, and where the latter at least offers the prospect of a good time and a happy ending (in the euphemistic sense, the end of the book is bleak), then Atomised is a scream from the soul that seems to be brought on by prolonged nihilism and apathy, and other unfortunate existential conditions. You will need a double-dose of Disney merriness and plenty of ice-cream to get past this savage parade.Bruno and Michel are brothers. Everything is horrible. Love is either ignored or cherished too late.To be fair, Houellebecq has his moments. His descriptions of orgasmic ecstacy, his proustian reflection on the loss of actionable time. But the overall tone is despairing. The stuff about physics and genetics left me cold.One ought to be suspicious of a paperback that comes peppered with encomia, all kinds of intellectual approval from the Sunday papers. Envy and contempt.Don't read it. Read Platform. Or better still, get a massage and an ice cream.

If you think you'll like this book, as in you've heard about it and are here considering whether to pay your £2.81 for a yellowing used copy from Marketplace, I implore you to take the plunge and read it. It's outrageously funny, right up until the point where it isn't, and then it may just make you think about concepts like the social structure of the West in the late 20th/early 21st century, the character of the sexual revolution of the 70s and the dehumanising effects of pornography. The last line of the epilogue is, in my opinion, the very finest closing line of 20th century literature.

I consider myself an avid reader who enjoys many genres and authors. But this is my favourite. I think Houellebecq is a genius. He takes an idea and makes it into something so deep and meaningful. I was so gripped by the every aspect of the book from the characters to the plot.The novel reflects deeply on western society as a whole. I found it hard not to relate to some of the aspects of the main protagonists. I was so overwhelmed by the end of the book that I nearly shed a tear which I've never done with any book, so that's why it's my number 1. I hope MH gets compared to the likes of Dickens in the future.

If you've come this far then you should read this book. I genuinely laughed out loud reading this more than anything I've read in a long time. The narrator's rant about a woman who confesses an appreciation for Brazilian dance is one of the most bizarre and hilarious things I've ever read in a book