A Quote from Elementary Particles

That same evening he came across a photo taken of him at his old primary school, in Charny, and he began to weep. Seated at his desk, the child held a school book open in his hands. He was looking straight at the camera and smiling, spirited and full of joy, and what seemed incomprehensible was that this child was him. This child did his homework, learned his lessons earnestly, confidently. He was entering the world, discovering the world, and the world did not make him afraid. He was all ready to take his place in the society of men. All that, you could see it all in the child’s eyes... Time is a banal mystery, he tried to tell himself, and it was only natural. The light in his eyes went out, the joy and the confidence faded away.
Les particules elementaires (The Elementary Particles)

I have read most of Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq (pronounced Wellbeck), and I highly recommend this book to everyone. I am such a fan of this guy, it was a happy discovery. I have read a review of one of his other novels, Platform, and thought it was extraordinary. The review was remarkable and truthful. Here’s an excerpt:

For Michel is an emblematic figure. True, he is neither what Houellebecq, in his previous novel The Elementary Particles, calls a precursor nor is he a prophet, the two more advanced (though not necessarily amicable) classes of human being, but a partial symptomatic, that is, one whose drab iconicity says less about himself than about the society which he models and evokes. I specify “partial” because Michel is neither happy-except briefly-nor determined to be a part of history, subfeatures, according to the author, of the category of the symptomatic. Thus we might define him as a catoptric, one who in his rooted habits and behaviours reflects the world of which he is a disaffected part. The differences we may detect between Michel and ourselves are only cosmetic. Michel is an accurate and unflattering mirror. Additionally, many of his observations about the social and political dynamics of our world, unpalatable as they may be to us, are absolutely spot on. (For example, his hilarious send-up of the contemporary “notion of rights” and its abuses, a question examined at length and rather more drily by Michael Ignatieff in The Rights Revolution.) And this is why Michel is someone with whom the reader must come to terms.
David Solway (Books in Canada)

Michel Houellebecq paints a picture of his world as stilted and fractious, and yet has the talent to support his attitude.