More on Houellebecq: “Whether by design or default, Houellebecq is an ideal
media-adapted writer for America: he is obnoxious, a
one-man circus of existential confusion, trafficking in sex,
anomie, death and crucially, contradiction – he is the very
embodiement of what he rages against. He even propositions
the Times’ writer visiting him in Dublin. She demurs, but how
– how French. (And how appropriate that his home is in the
most vulgar, over-hyped yuppie capital of Europe.)

…

The good news is that The Elementary Particles is, in one
sense, already old news. It was published two years ago in
France, and France has apparently moved on. Newswatch