Less Than Zero

"Nobody was saying anything at all." Elvis Costello, 'Waiting for the End of the World'.

When I suddenly became a massive fan of the novels of Bret Easton Ellis I don't know, but last month I read his first novel, "Less Than Zero". I started at "American Psycho" and then worked backwards with "The Rules of Attraction". Now I need to start working forwards onto "The Informers", "Glamorama" and "Lunar Park". His most recent novel released this year, "Imperial Bedrooms", is apparently a sequel to "Less Than Zero". I am picking up definitely themes in Ellis' novels, most notably heavy drug use, drinking, and moral apathy. Characters go out to parties, get drunk, have sex, then go to sleep and wake up and do it all over again. It makes you realise what a terrible world they live in and how absolutely nobody is satisfied or has any kind of real happiness. Wikipedia calls it "Postmodern dread", and I kind of like that. His first three novels certainly deal with very similar subject matter. In "Less Than Zero", our main character of Clay, who is perhaps the most reluctant character to engage in this excessive and pointless consumerism, nonetheless comes back from college to Los Angeles over the Christmas holiday and basically does nothing for two weeks but go to parties, hang out at his friends houses, drink and take drugs. In "The Rules of Attraction", more or less the same thing happens, but this time it takes place in Camden College; a liberal arts university on the west coast. And then in "American Psycho" the same thing happens again, but it is coloured by the fact that protagonist Patrick Bateman likes to rape, torture and murder people. But still, no one notices and nobody cares. I read Ellis for a good dose moral bankruptcy and societal apathy, because it reminds me how prevalent it has become in the world today. It's great satire.

Bret Easton Ellis as a man though, I cannot fathom. Have a look at his Twitter feed. I cannot tell if he is purposefully being bizarrely funny, melodramatic and weird, or if he is actually like that: His characters are just mirror images of his own personality. I'm wondering if he's actually writing as the character of Bret Easton Ellis (he stars in "Lunar Park"). The Tweet where he says "Not to sound too much like Bateman but the James Perse t-shirts and hoodies I bought a week ago are the best clothes I've worn in a year..." had me in stitches, because it is exactly the kind of think Patrick Bateman would say, always going on as he would about bespoke suits and the best kind of mineral water. Reviews for "Imperial Bedrooms" have been rather mixed if not to say polarised, but I'll probably read it eventually anyway. I actually looked up Ellis' various playlist songs from his website using Spotify, and it introduced me to the great song of X, a Los Angeles Punk band who never really got hugely big but were kind of big in the late 1970's and early 80's. Also got me into early Elvis Costello, so I have to thank him for that as well I guess. Just remembered and note to self: Must read, "The Outsider" (also known as "The Stranger") by Albert Camus. Cannot believe I didn't read such an important philosophical novel whilst I was studying.