fahye | less than zero

I remember now why I try to get through Bret Easton Ellis books as fast as possible: I find myself narrating my own life in a monotone, and getting depressed at the mundanity of the minutae.

I had health psychology and then cell physiology and then a meeting and then did some psych research participation*. And then I got on the bus and got off at the shops and I wanted to get a quiche from the bakery for lunch but I'd spent money on a muffin for breakfast so instead I went home and made cheese on toast and my head was pounding because my ibuprofen was wearing off so I crawled into bed and slept for most of the afternoon.

Of course, if my life was a BEE book then we would substitute 'coke' for 'ibuprofen', but whatever, I'm sick, I'm sticking to the nice harmless anti-inflammatory drugs.

(Knock on door. OOH. NATIONAL CENSUS LADY. Lots and lots of questions about myself and TICKYBOXES! Well, there goes my evening.)

*It was a study on empathy. Empathy! Ha ha. Ha. I got bored and overcompensated by saying that the people were feeling morally superior or self-satisfied or uncomfortable when I think I was meant to be saying 'angry' or 'sad'. Sickness and Ellis are conspiring to make me crabby and cynical.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I was greatly disappointed in the census. It only took me about ten minutes. :(

I think that's more of a Valium situation. *wisely*

*seconds*

Also, I get the exact same way. If you look at my entries, you can totally tell at what points I was reading Ellis. It's sad.

You should totes read his other books. Psycho is psychologically fascinating. And Glamorama is just awesome. I mean, terrorists using the fashion industry as a cover? It's oss.

To give you another perspective, since Caleb and I have both read all his books but have different tastes, here's mine!

I would ... rank ... the books in this order:

1. American Psycho. There's no getting around it. It's the most famous. It's the most influential. It's the most definitive. It also stands at the crossways between Ellis' early minimalism and later taste for overloading his pages with mostly unimportant information. So that's ... a style benchmark. Obviously, it's also a less savory titan of American Dream literature a la The Great Gatsby or anything (ANYTHING) by Arthur Miller. So it's important in that sense as well. Basically, your impression of BEE will never be complete without this book, if only because everyone else has read it.

2. Rules of Attraction. You've already read this, so I don't need to say too much. I will mention that BEE seems to have mastered the mechanics of writing -- plot, style, balance -- at this point.

3. Less than Zero. You know, I really like Less than Zero? It's very bare and very good. It's also very debut-y, which isn't necessarily a bad thing; in fact, I find it inspires a certain affection. I also have a minor obsession with books/movies/etc which are about California (L.A., sadly, counts) and so that personal bias gives this an automatic boost for me. But I think that, even aside from that, it's just very . . . very well-done. Neat. Controlled. Those things.

4. TIE: Glamorama vs The Informers. The Informers is, I think, too early. Think of LTZ and take a running leap back. The stories are (mostly) . . . fine. Not mindblowing, not awful, not extraordinary in any way. They're fine. That's okay.

Now, C likes Glamorama. I . . . mostly . . . don't. I think it's a bloated, overcomplicated whalish piece of gluttony with its redeeming qualities heavily buried almost without exception. I think it may be complacent. I think that BEE's skill is wasted on this book. The mere fact that everyone in it is a model is not and should not be enough to pull it out of a full gutter. There's another problem here which I (personally) most associate with Ocean's 12. You know how thief movies, etc, are delightful and full of twists? But then there's Ocean's 12? Where they're just like, I'm going to twist . . . and twist . . . and twist . . . until it doesn't even make sense anymore and it's completely gratuituous unless you really, really want it to make sense and you construct sense for it in your own mind? Yeah. If you want to like anything, you can always find reasons. I want to like Glamorama, because I like BEE, but while I can focus on what's good about it (and there is good) I can't condone the sheer hacksmanship. Especially because it's obvious that he can do better. Has done better. There is no slack to cut. I believe that BEE also is not proud of this book.

BONUS: Lunar Park. Lunar Park is quite good but there's no point in reading it unless you have read -- I think -- at least two or three BEE books, one of which must (for comprehension's sake) be American Psycho.

I actually agree with Ji's assessment of Glamorama. It is by no means perfect, or anywhere near one of his best works, but there is just something about it, the way it.. is that makes me love it. It's somewhere between the witty conversations and the explosions and the kevlar lined Armani suits that appeals to the boy in me. It touches on that spy-espionage thing that I absolutely LOVE while at the same time keeping with utter shallowness and still commenting on the facades of people. I don't know, for it's (many) imperfections, I still love it.

And yes, Lunar Park is rather wonderful, but you really need to AT LEAST read Psycho before reading it.

I must say, I am not particularly liking Less Than Zero so far, and I'm about halfway through. It's less complex than Rules of Attraction - easier to keep track of how the characters are interconnected when there's a single narrator - but it seems far more directionless. There is no tension whatever, and the whole thing is just falling rather flat. Nothing is keeping me turning the pages except perhaps the hope that a plot will appear at some stage, and I don't think that's the mark of a successful work of fiction.

It doesn't have a lot of that. Think of it as a very long short story? I don't know. It's just so . . . small.

I find myself narrating my own life in a monotone, and getting depressed at the mundanity of the minutae.

Did you try narrating it in a Humphrey Bogart voice like in World of Chickens?

less than zero

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject