dzengota's review against another edition
3.0
Considering its subject matter it feels weird to call Serotonin a fun read, but it was. It is a 300 page dive into the depressive years of a failed-everything misogynist, ending up with implied end of suicide. It is that but it is done with such an aloof and snarky tone which keeps the story moving and readable. I imagine a book of this subject matter with a slow and depressive tone would become basically unreadably sad.
notmckinzie's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
3.75
A book about a milquetoast guy for milquetoast guys. I enjoyed it though, as much as something like this can be enjoyed. Made me want to learn more about French dairy farming.
sebastianmihail's review against another edition
3.0
Stilul de scris i-a rămas inconfundabil, dar parcă acest volum a mai pierdut din forța celorlalte de pînă acum. Privind prin filtrul ăsta, Labrouste (personajul principal și naratorul acestui volum) devine avatarul perfect al lui Houellebecq, un om care a obosit să mai trăiască, pe care-l apasă greutatea singurătății și a eșecurilor din planul sentimental la doar 46 de ani, un om dependent de pastile pe care îl vezi, pagină cu pagină, cum renunță la tot.
“Aș fi putut să fac o femeie fericită. Mă rog, două; am spus care. Totul era limpede, nespus de limpede, încă de la început; dar n-am ținut seama de asta. Ne-am lăsat oare ispitiți de mirajul libertății individuale, al unei vieți deschise, cu posibilități infinite? Tot ce se poate; astfel de idei erau în armonie cu spiritul vremii; nu le-am formalizat, nu aveam chef de așa ceva; ne-am mulțumit să ne supunem și să ne lăsăm distruși de ele; și apoi, vreme îndelungată, să suferim de pe urma lor.”
“Aș fi putut să fac o femeie fericită. Mă rog, două; am spus care. Totul era limpede, nespus de limpede, încă de la început; dar n-am ținut seama de asta. Ne-am lăsat oare ispitiți de mirajul libertății individuale, al unei vieți deschise, cu posibilități infinite? Tot ce se poate; astfel de idei erau în armonie cu spiritul vremii; nu le-am formalizat, nu aveam chef de așa ceva; ne-am mulțumit să ne supunem și să ne lăsăm distruși de ele; și apoi, vreme îndelungată, să suferim de pe urma lor.”
bundy23's review against another edition
1.0
DNF.
Have you ever wanted to go on a road trip with a French Jeremy Clarkson listening to him tell you how amazing he is, how big his cock is, how much horsepower his car has, all the things he likes to do to women?
This is just about the saddest, most pathetic attempt to shock I've ever read. Just read some of this shit -
"it’s crazy how many pussies there are when you think about it, it makes you feel dizzy – and on the other hand pussies needed cocks"
"what she needed was ordinary conjugal affection and more immediately a cock in her cunt"
"I had been led to stick my nose into a dead woman’s cunt"
"my partner was at the centre of a classic gang-bang; she was masturbating, fellating and being penetrated by about fifteen men, who were unhurriedly waiting their turn, and using condoms for vaginal and anal penetrations; no one uttered a word. At one point she tried to take two cocks in her mouth, but couldn’t quite do it. Another time the participants ejaculated on her face, which was gradually covered with sperm, and later she closed her eyes."
"Then the camera switched direction, and while the Dobermann went on fucking her (dogs in fact ejaculate very quickly under natural conditions, but a woman’s vagina must differ in notable respects from that of a bitch, and he couldn’t find his bearings), while Yuzu tugged on the dick of a bull terrier before taking it in her mouth. The bull terrier, which was probably younger, ejaculated in less than a minute before his place was taken by a boxer."
Have you ever wanted to go on a road trip with a French Jeremy Clarkson listening to him tell you how amazing he is, how big his cock is, how much horsepower his car has, all the things he likes to do to women?
This is just about the saddest, most pathetic attempt to shock I've ever read. Just read some of this shit -
"it’s crazy how many pussies there are when you think about it, it makes you feel dizzy – and on the other hand pussies needed cocks"
"what she needed was ordinary conjugal affection and more immediately a cock in her cunt"
"I had been led to stick my nose into a dead woman’s cunt"
"my partner was at the centre of a classic gang-bang; she was masturbating, fellating and being penetrated by about fifteen men, who were unhurriedly waiting their turn, and using condoms for vaginal and anal penetrations; no one uttered a word. At one point she tried to take two cocks in her mouth, but couldn’t quite do it. Another time the participants ejaculated on her face, which was gradually covered with sperm, and later she closed her eyes."
"Then the camera switched direction, and while the Dobermann went on fucking her (dogs in fact ejaculate very quickly under natural conditions, but a woman’s vagina must differ in notable respects from that of a bitch, and he couldn’t find his bearings), while Yuzu tugged on the dick of a bull terrier before taking it in her mouth. The bull terrier, which was probably younger, ejaculated in less than a minute before his place was taken by a boxer."
pharmdad2007's review against another edition
2.0
Really intense book, definitely not for the faint of heart. Kind of the polar opposite of uplifting. Not my favorite.
supreeth's review against another edition
4.0
A slow-burning suicidal internal monologue of a middle-aged European man along with occasional genitalia talk and paranoia over the decay of western civilization where nothing happens (if you're expecting) but still a good read considering that depression seethes off the pages.
frances_the_red's review against another edition
1.0
DNF.
Weißer Mann der SUV fährt hat Midlife-Crisis. Jeder Absatz ist langweilig, jeder zweite chauvinistisch. Dafür ist mir meine Lesezeit nun echt zu schade.
Weißer Mann der SUV fährt hat Midlife-Crisis. Jeder Absatz ist langweilig, jeder zweite chauvinistisch. Dafür ist mir meine Lesezeit nun echt zu schade.
dayface's review against another edition
1.0
In Gardner’s Grendel, the dragon – a manifestation of Sartre’s existentialism – is asked by the wondering Grendel:
“Why shouldn’t one change one’s ways, improve one’s character?” To which the dragon says:
“Fiddlesticks […] You improve them, my boy! Can’t you see that yourself? You stimulate them! [..] You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves. The exile, captivity, death they shrink from – the blunt facts of their morality their abandonment – that’s what you make them recognise, embrace!”
In some respects, I see myself in the protagonist of Houellebecq’s Serotonin. In most ways, I do not. I did not like this book. I appreciate this book. Here is why:
Aspects of this book mirror the Japanese I-novel, or the Dangerous Writing precedent of sharp imagery to convey a declining state. Particularly Notes From Underground, Ningen Shikkaku, and The Bell Jar. But, unfortunately, he’s near-entirely unsympathetic, pushing away the reader at every opportunity like one with an avoidant personality or attachment style. Is this design? Is this the Hedgehog’s Dilemma; come winter, he might want warmth – but is incapable of huddling, for fear of harming another? Does he push us away? Did I want to be? Yes.
This creature is xenophobic, furthering the inborn and excused nature of stereotyping into a realm of wanton solipsistic prejudice. He leaps from activity to activity with little precognition or algorithm; no heuristic. His libido at maximum, he requires a constant rush of stimulation. Excess.
“I mightn’t have done much good in my life, but at least I contributed to the destruction of the planet,” he says, appealing to Nietzsche’s ‘eternal return’ through a hedonistic nihilism. He refuses to intellectualise beyond what serves him – a trait more common. He compares himself to Raskolnikov in a fragrant display of misplaced ego, though the inference feels moreso reflective of Houllebecq than the character, rarely balancing the frequent alpha-male vapidity of his rhetoric.
For every point of misinformation, we have a moment of beauty or imagination. For instance, the telemancy – divining one’s future through a random show on a screen. What a wonderful metaphor for commercialism, for anti-intellectual stubbornness. What a fantastic representation of Claude’s locus of control. External, internal?
He’s right though. Porn does push technology forward.
And, my thought: technology pushes the military forward.
Huh.
Claude’s parents’ double suicide mirrors Ningen Shikkaku with a beautiful passage:
“It was easy to tell by their positions on the bed that they had wanted to hold hands until the end, but they had suffered from convulsion in their death throes, and their hands had parted.”
There’s a typo on page 115. It’s embolic of the book.
Go find the typo. It might explain everything.
(Note: could be translation error, instead; will need to investigate.)
Is Houllebecq edgy? Yes.
Is he insightful? Yes.
Is Claude wallowing in pity; engaging in misery masturbation; nihilistic without objective? Is it deep and sexy to be addicted to porn enough to think THAT’S what sex is? Does he care?
He is Grendel, challenging the Conan Doyle sentiment that “each page had to vibrate with the protestations of a sincere and good heart.”
It’s just a shame that plenty got there before him and had something more constructive to say. Epicureanism paired with alternative forms of stoic, solipsistic, and nihilistic philosophy. Claude is a man on fire.
“Why shouldn’t one change one’s ways, improve one’s character?” To which the dragon says:
“Fiddlesticks […] You improve them, my boy! Can’t you see that yourself? You stimulate them! [..] You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves. The exile, captivity, death they shrink from – the blunt facts of their morality their abandonment – that’s what you make them recognise, embrace!”
In some respects, I see myself in the protagonist of Houellebecq’s Serotonin. In most ways, I do not. I did not like this book. I appreciate this book. Here is why:
Aspects of this book mirror the Japanese I-novel, or the Dangerous Writing precedent of sharp imagery to convey a declining state. Particularly Notes From Underground, Ningen Shikkaku, and The Bell Jar. But, unfortunately, he’s near-entirely unsympathetic, pushing away the reader at every opportunity like one with an avoidant personality or attachment style. Is this design? Is this the Hedgehog’s Dilemma; come winter, he might want warmth – but is incapable of huddling, for fear of harming another? Does he push us away? Did I want to be? Yes.
This creature is xenophobic, furthering the inborn and excused nature of stereotyping into a realm of wanton solipsistic prejudice. He leaps from activity to activity with little precognition or algorithm; no heuristic. His libido at maximum, he requires a constant rush of stimulation. Excess.
“I mightn’t have done much good in my life, but at least I contributed to the destruction of the planet,” he says, appealing to Nietzsche’s ‘eternal return’ through a hedonistic nihilism. He refuses to intellectualise beyond what serves him – a trait more common. He compares himself to Raskolnikov in a fragrant display of misplaced ego, though the inference feels moreso reflective of Houllebecq than the character, rarely balancing the frequent alpha-male vapidity of his rhetoric.
For every point of misinformation, we have a moment of beauty or imagination. For instance, the telemancy – divining one’s future through a random show on a screen. What a wonderful metaphor for commercialism, for anti-intellectual stubbornness. What a fantastic representation of Claude’s locus of control. External, internal?
He’s right though. Porn does push technology forward.
And, my thought: technology pushes the military forward.
Huh.
Claude’s parents’ double suicide mirrors Ningen Shikkaku with a beautiful passage:
“It was easy to tell by their positions on the bed that they had wanted to hold hands until the end, but they had suffered from convulsion in their death throes, and their hands had parted.”
There’s a typo on page 115. It’s embolic of the book.
Go find the typo. It might explain everything.
(Note: could be translation error, instead; will need to investigate.)
Is Houllebecq edgy? Yes.
Is he insightful? Yes.
Is Claude wallowing in pity; engaging in misery masturbation; nihilistic without objective? Is it deep and sexy to be addicted to porn enough to think THAT’S what sex is? Does he care?
He is Grendel, challenging the Conan Doyle sentiment that “each page had to vibrate with the protestations of a sincere and good heart.”
It’s just a shame that plenty got there before him and had something more constructive to say. Epicureanism paired with alternative forms of stoic, solipsistic, and nihilistic philosophy. Claude is a man on fire.
outofthegates's review against another edition
4.0
It's a good thing I was reading this concurrently with a self help book because woo boy is it bleak. It is also bitingly funny. Not for the faint of heart, but regular Houellebecq readers will enjoy it.