Les particules élémentaires (2014)

Michel Houellebecq's anti-heroes, Michel and Bruno, were both born in the first third of the glorious thirties. Adolescents before May 68, they enter into adulthood as the crisis occurs. Half-brothers of the same mother, are they like the two halves of a humanity that fails to reconcile its contradictory aspirations? Michael is a researcher in genetics. Bruno, after having passed an aggregation of modern letters, teaches in the secondary, tries vaguely to write, gives it up quickly enough. Both have a serious problem with love, but for strictly opposite reasons: Bruno incarnates his side "I love you", Michel his side "me neither". One never ceases to ask for it, the other does not know how to answer it. For the desire according to Houellebecq has only two sides equally solitary, that ties the link of the misunderstanding.