Michel Houellebecq interviewed in the Paris Review; http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6040/the-art-of-fiction-no-206-michel-houellebecq
INTERVIEWER;
What is your concept of the possibility of love between a man and a woman?
HOUELLEBECQ;
I’d say that the question whether love still exists plays the same role in my novels as the question of God’s existence in Dostoyevsky.
INTERVIEWER;
Love may no longer exist?
HOUELLEBECQ;
That’s the question of the moment.
INTERVIEWER;
And what is causing its disappearance?
HOUELLEBECQ;
The materialist idea that we are alone, we live alone and we die alone. That’s not very compatible with love.