The criticism of current Western values Houellebecq develops throughtout the book, with his characters as demonstrators of the decay of the West, rings true and precise to this day. Yet, the splash the book provoked when it came out nearly thirty years ago feels far away - isn't all of this a bit outdated ? Don't we already know all of this ? The repetitive and nauseating focus on sex - do I really need to read all that ? The book never feels quaint or falsely transgressive though, and I might have simply read it too old, or have been from a generation where we only half-heartedly believe in the values that are put on blast, because we haven't found a replacement yet. Like physicists for almost a full century today, we're filling the technical blanks while we await the next revolution.