When I was younger and going through some particularly unhappy break-up or other, I’d relieve my tumultuous feelings by rewatching The World At War on telly. Sometimes it feels good to have confirmation that things really are as bad as they seem. Michel Houellebecq’s breakthrough novel Atomised, published 25 years ago this week, has provided a similarly cathartic service for a generation of disaffected men.
Originally entitled Les Particules Élementaires, the book’s first appearance sent the French literary scene into a frenzy; selling thousands of copies, sparking many an op-ed, and causing the owner of a literary prize awarded to the book to withdraw his patronage. International publishers scented a transferable succès de scandale. The designer of the UK translation put a skeletal nymphet on the cover, insolently facing the camera dressed only in her knickers.
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