A review by iancarpenter
Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq

2.0

This for me is the beginning of burnout by Houellebecq, a writer I love so much that I've held off on reading books of his so that I have one to turn to when I desperately want him. But here, there was so much that verged on a parody of his obsessions. What felt shockingly, refreshingly frank about his take on male sexuality and relationships and the possibility of happiness, ten years ago, was here so deeply predictable as to provoke eye rolls. You could feel every harsh, depressed, pornographic assessment of a former lover (always women) pages before it came and it feels deeply besides the point. And while the novel is about loneliness and depression and pointlessness the sexual diversions have a lifelessness that for me is starting to feel like its just ground he has trod in every book. The political angles, the mini-revolution in the book comes late enough that I found it hard to care about. And the ending, so very often the stunning part of his books (he's written some of my favourite endings ever), is here only fine and not something that saves or rewards the slog. Virginie Despentes feels like she's taking his oeuvre (sure, minus his on the pulse intellectualism and political focus) and giving it vitality and timely, in your face feminism and understanding of sexuality that for me means she's writing about men better than him in this book. I don't know why he'd write this after her book. It feels maudlin. Ready for something new by a master.