'Serotonin'

      Well, I've finally finished reading 'Serotonin' by the French novelist Michel Houellebecq - that's one I was reading concurrently with Joseph Conrad's 'Lord Jim'.  Not a thing I would recommend, reading two novels simultaneously, for like having two masters 'either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other'.  Indeed, 'Serotonin' seemed a bit vapid compared to Conrad. It just doesn't have the heft.  Vapid too, compared to Houellebecq's earlier work.  As I wrote in an earlier post on these two book 'Serotonin' doesn't really stand up to say 'Atomised' of 'Platform'.  An opinion that, as you can see, hasn't changed.  At only one point did the novel hold my attention and that was when its focus shifted from navel-gazing to a putative insurrection by a group of well armed farmers.  It was both engaging and, finally, rather moving.  Alas, in a manner that echoed the half-hearted 'evenements' in 'Submission', neither the insurrection or Houellebecq's interest lasted that long, and the novel limped off to its conclusion.