Which part of the human body is featured on the front cover?
One of the best books I've read in a while. The writing style is impeccable - full of interesting scientific insight applied to everyday social occurances. It's not the kind of story you can rush through, but it leads you on the painfully slow process of human decay with a subtle twist of irony so artfully drawn out by this talented French writer/poet.
I'm no book critic, but as a fellow avid reader, I found that though it was slow paced, it was such a facinating tale, I actually read it to the very end. Perhaps it was just morbid curiosity that kept me going because the characters were not loveable or even relatable, they were perverse, a little evil, and mostly pathetic, but I wanted to know if there would be a point. And there was! There really really was! And WHAT a point! I'm still reeling from the balls on this guy... the kind of prophetic stuff dreams are made of.
Now that I'm finished it though, I need something else to read. Any suggestions?
posted by min_o at
8:47 AM
4 Comments:
min_o, my guess at the moment is that the body part is an armpit. I wondered the same thing when I read the book a couple of years ago. I enjoyed it roughly the same as you, though sometimes the themes of socio-biological mating trends and the strange growing pains of French sexual mores got garbled together. I did feel something sympathetic when Bruno (?) experiences a tragic love late in life, and I like the trivia about Krause's corpuscles.
A friend who read the original French hated the book.
I might suggest reading Middlesex by the guy who wrote The Virgin Suicides. Kind of a distant descendant of Orlando. Like Particles it has similarly mixed themes of sexual awakenings/deviance/biology inside a generational epic. A much more well-rounded book I think, with a more involved plot.
I cried when Christian died - and I don't really cry while reading novels anymore.
Thanks for the suggestion! I'll check it out at the book shop next time. I wonder why Particles wasn't more enjoyable en français?
The book was a massive millennial hit in France, but I guess got a lot of polarized reactions too... perhaps it resonates on cynical or pessimistic levels in some folks.
i can definately see how that would happen. i personally felt that the ending was strangely optimistic, but i guess i'm still young enough to be open to the idea of controlled human reproduction. the whole "idea" of right and wrong has always been very blurry for me. heh heh heh! >=) perhaps i'm a sociopath???
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