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Serotonina
Serotonina | Michel Houellebecq
14 posts | 14 read | 5 to read
Florent-Claude Labrouste tiene cuarenta y seis aos, detesta su nombre y se medica con Captorix, un antidepresivo que libera serotonina y que tiene tres efectos adversos: nuseas, desaparicin de la libido e impotencia. Su periplo arranca en Almera con un encuentro en una gasolinera con dos chicas que hubiera acabado de otra manera si protagonizasen una pelcula romntica, o una pornogrfica, sigue por las calles de Pars y despus por Normanda, donde los agricultores estn en pie de guerra. Francia se hunde, la Unin Europea se hunde, la vida sin rumbo de Florent-Claude se hunde. El amor es una entelequia. El sexo es una catstrofe. La cultura ni siquiera Proust o Thomas Mann no es una tabla de salvacin. Florent-Claude descubre unos escabrosos vdeos pornogrficos en los que aparece su novia japonesa, deja el trabajo y se va a vivir a un hotel. Deambula por la ciudad, visita bares, restaurantes y supermercados. Filosofa y despotrica. Tambin repasa sus relaciones amorosas, marcadas siempre por el desastre, en ocasiones cmico y en otras pattico (con una danesa que trabajaba en Londres en un bufete de abogados, con una aspirante a actriz que no lleg a triunfar y acab leyendo textos de Blanchot por la radio...). Se reencuentra con un viejo amigo aristcrata, cuya vida pareca perfecta pero ya no lo es porque su mujer le ha abandonado por un pianista ingls y se ha llevado a sus dos hijas. Y ese amigo le ensea a manejar un fusil... Nihilista lcido, Michel Houellebecq construye un personaje y narrador desarraigado, obsesivo y autodestructivo, que escruta su propia vida y el mundo que le rodea con un humor spero y una virulencia desgarradora. Serotonina demuestra que sigue siendo un cronista despiadado de la decadencia de la sociedad occidental del siglo XXI, un escritor indmito, incmodo y totalmente imprescindible.
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quote
IuliaC
Serotonin | Michel Houellebecq
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"Was I capable of being happy in solitude? I didn‘t think so. Was I capable of being happy in general? That‘s the kind of question, I think, that is best not asked."

review
IuliaC
Serotonin | Michel Houellebecq
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Pickpick

I enjoyed this one far more than I initially thought I would... such a fine sarcastic tone on contemporary society, such a realistic depiction of mid-life crisis with its swings between feeling hopelessly useless and the illusion of a new challenge, the harsh loneliness devouring those who realize they had experienced true happiness only after they lost it for the most stupid of reasons...

Sparklemn Beautiful vase 🌺 1y
IuliaC @Sparklemn thank you 😊 1y
62 likes2 comments
blurb
IuliaC
Serotonin | Michel Houellebecq
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Vacation stack ready 📚

quote
Alis
Serotonina | Michel Houellebecq
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L'amore restava l'unica cosa in cui si potesse ancora, forse, avere fiducia❣

quote
Alis
Serotonina | Michel Houellebecq
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Ero capace di essere felice in generale?🙃

review
mirnas
Serotonin | Michel Houellebecq
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Pickpick

Maybe not the best Houellebecq's novel, but definitely worth reading!
Peut-être pas son meilleur roman, mais vaut vraiment la peine d'être lu.
Iako nije Houellbecqov najbolji roman, definitivno vrijedan čitanja.

7 likes1 stack add
review
rockpools
Serotonin | Michel Houellebecq
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Mehso-so

On the pan/so-so border. I disliked it less at the end than at the beginning, so there is that... A cynical mind may wonder if it made the #bookerinternational2020 longlist just to rustle up a little press coverage.

It‘s very difficult to get past the ‘shocking to be shocking‘ scenes and main character‘s attitude. When you do, it‘s the story of a depressed man, who doesn‘t like himself, slowly withdrawing from the world. Not one to linger over.

rockpools The author seems to be going out of his way to shock, so trigger warnings for pretty much everything. 5y
51 likes1 comment
blurb
rockpools
Serotonin | Michel Houellebecq
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I‘ve made it to the half-way point 🎉. Same amount again to read 🥺

It started with something like a Benny Hill sketch, a middle-aged man helping two young hippies to pump up their tyres & fantasising. Of course he lived by a naturist beach.

I thought maybe we‘d be heading into Satire or Black Comedy? If we are it‘s passing me by. Miserable people living miserable lives, and obsessing over the failings of previous ‘partners‘ 👇

rockpools (not partners. Just women he lived with).

Mainly I‘m finding it tiresome. Kind of hoping he ramps up the agricultural theory for the rest of the book... 😕

#bookerinternational2020
5y
Velvetfur That comparison with a Benny Hill sketch made me chuckle! 5y
BookwormM I have just started this one 5y
rockpools @BookwormM It‘s probably not the perfect follow-on to Discomfort 😕. Good luck! 5y
rockpools @Velvetfur It‘d help a lot if there were actual chuckles in the book... 5y
55 likes5 comments
review
Emilymdxn
Serotonin | Michel Houellebecq
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Panpan

Mindblowingly bad. There wasn‘t any aspect that wasn‘t the worst thing I‘ve ever read. A pretentious, crude agricultural theorist (he LOVES agricultural theory nearly as much as listing his views about vaginas) drives round France thinking about how clever he is, correcting sections of Proust to include more ‘pussy‘ references and once describing a paedophile attacking a girl in so much detail I had to skip it. Somehow both shocking and boring.

Riveted_Reader_Melissa Ugh! That‘s dreadful! 5y
Mrs_B Geez that sounds truly dreadful. 5y
TrishB Definitely took one for the team! 5y
GHABI4ROSES I am laughing so hard, what a wonderfully candid review😆 5y
BarbaraBB I did actually like some of his books (I didn‘t read this one) but I can‘t stand his shocking-just-to-be-shocking attitude. 5y
68 likes5 comments
blurb
Emilymdxn
Serotonin | Michel Houellebecq
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It‘s kinda incredible to be half way through something and know for sure it‘s the worst book I‘ve read in my whole life. I‘ve said that before but this is The One. The MC hates every woman he‘s slept with but wants to list the features of their genitals to us while he drives round France wishing other ppl understood agricultural policy as much as him.

I‘d bail but there‘s just under 1hr to go and I‘m curious to see how bad it can actually get?

Lynnsoprano There must be some award for finishing, because , based on your description , I‘d have written it off long before this 😂 5y
Suet624 Wow! When was the book published? 5y
Emilymdxn @Lynnsoprano it‘s very short or I‘d have bailed too! I listened while I got my shoes on and walked to the supermarket and by the time I got home I was over half way through and I thought ‘I need to complain about this book to anyone who‘ll listen so I have to finish it in order for my opinion to count!‘ 5y
See All 10 Comments
Emilymdxn @Suet624 2019 😬 5y
Suet624 Wow! That‘s crazy. 5y
keithmalek I read his novel, Submission, and found it terribly disappointing. 5y
keithmalek Despite your less than ringing endorsement, I just read the description, and I stacked it. 5y
Anna40 Houllebecq... 😝 read two of his books to understand the hype but all I read was misogyny and sex... could not see the brilliant political or socio economic commentary that other readers love him for... not for me 5y
annamatopoetry Yup, sounds like Houellebecq. 5y
56 likes10 comments
review
LTOC
Serotonina | Michel Houellebecq
Pickpick

Pretty repulsive (I read this in English, ignore the fact that the blurb is in Spanish)

review
Twocougs
Serotonin | Michel Houellebecq
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Bailedbailed

So I always think it‘s interesting & important to read Houellebecq, he‘s thought provoking though I tend to not like his characters. This time I just can‘t take the misogyny, the arrogance and then be expected to have empathy for this male protagonist. Much of the plot had potential but his flashbacks to the women in his past are awful & filled with sex more than almost anything very deep about the women.