Hurray! The new Houellebecq is translated!

Of course, in the spirit of your post it doesn't matter whether BE or AE to translate H. with, it's just a little disorienting for me to read the first book in BE: for me lots of the Britishisms drew me out of the book a bit and made me realize that I was reading a translation, while the next book in AE was more sympatico for me (the style) because I wasn't constantly being reminded that this was a translation--which of course it was.

I am sort of curious about why he or they decided to go with one then the other and then back to the original.

I

I don't know what I think about Atomised anymore, other than that the characterisation is rub, as others have said.

Then get thee to the bookstore oh lucky children of Anglia for Platform--sure to resolve any doubts as to H's merits...

Does no one read Houellebecq's poetry? Why doesn't some nice bilingualist translate for us?

Does no one want to fight about BE vs. AE? When I was in Japan my fellow teachers of British origin were quite upset to see that the students' textbooks were in AE--shockah!

" When Michel finished he was silent for a while, then lit and stubbed out another cigarette and said: 'I'm not Irish myself. I was born in Cambridge. I'm still very English, they tell me. People often say that the English are very cold fish, very reserved, that they have a way of looking at things - even tragedy - with a sense of irony. There's some truth in it; it's pretty stupid of them, though. Humour doesn't save you, it doesn't really do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades, there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn't matter how brave you are, or how reserved, or how much you've developed a sense of humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That's when you stop laughing. In the end there's just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end there's only death.'"

We're deep into Ayn Rand territory here. For the last hundred pages or so I was having trouble differentiating between narrator and dialogue.

"You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades, there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart."

I do like that. Though Houellebecq is an asshat, obv.

the similarities basically revolve around: 1) detailed exploration of the ramifications of human sex drive, 2) politics of genetic engineering, 3) applied to immortality, 4) the two main characters are worldly sex addict/otherworldly scientist.

This bit was a paragraph I enjoyed from Submission:

We feel nostalgia for a place simply because we've lived there, whether we lived well or badly scarcely matters. The past is always beautiful. So, for that matter, is the future. Only the the present hurts, and we carry it around like an abscess of suffering, our companion between two infinities of happiness and peace.

well not technically a paragraph..