Book Summary: Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq
The book in three sentences
Life is short. Western society has become less happy, less erotic and more alienating. Without sex or love, (although there’s a heavy emphasis on sex), there is not much left of a man.
Selected Quotes
Redundant Men
- “Men in general don’t know how to live : they have no true familiarity with life , and never feel entirely at ease in it.”
- “It’s amazing how quickly men let themselves go.”
- “since his divorce two years previously he had lost a lot of his motivation with regard to property , and lots of other things too.”
Solitude
- “My reality had become untenable , no human being could survive in such strict solitude.”
- “It was just a bit of a shame to be alone.”
- “If you’re going to a country - house hotel on your own you might as well blow your brains out.”
The fall of the West
- “No one in the West will ever be happy again.”
- “Paris was made to generate loneliness”
- “society was a machine for destroying love”
- “the disappearance of the Western libido.”
Sex
- “I needed love, and love in a very precise form”
- “with sex everything can be resolved , and without sex nothing can.” Work
- “a career is a more considerable whore and one that doesn’t give you any pleasure.”
- “the more I try to do things correctly, the harder it gets to make ends meet.”
Food & Drink (extremely French voice)
- “a double espresso with some bread and jam , and perhaps even a ham omelette.”
- “potato omelette and three glasses of Leffe”
- “large draught beers and rillette sandwiches.”