By: Bret Easton Ellis Publisher: Vintage Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Vintage Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 208 Publication Date: June 30, 1998 Release Date: June 30, 1998
Product Description: Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980's, this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age, in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money a place devoid of feeling or hope.
Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs and also into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.
Catcher in the Rye in 1985 L.A. On the back of my book, USA Today quips, "Catcher in the Rye for the MTV generation." I couldn't agree with that statement more (although I really didn't care for Catcher). Less Than Zero's Clay has the cynicism and adolescent boredom of Holden Caulfield, only on a more depraved level. He surrounds himself with degenerates who lead decadent, shallow lives full of drugs, booze, sex, and money. When one character is asked, "...What don't you have," he replies, "I don't have anything to lose." That sums up this narrative of aimless wanderings and deep unhappiness, which defines Ellis as the voice of his generation.
This book was a little too graphic for my tastes Um, this is pretty much like every other Bret Easton Ellis book, except it was the first, so I guess they are all like this one. It's about a bunch of rich kids who became jaded about life too early on. They do a bunch of drugs. Have a bunch of sex and commit crimes that don't really disturb them, including raping a 12-year-old girl. It's pretty good up until the end, where the 12-year-old girl came in. That was a bit too much for me.
The thing I found interesting about this book is that it's based in L.A. and the people in it are exactly what I expect of the rich L.A. brats, even though the book was written in 1985. It's Laguna Beach, before Reality TV was invented. I seriously would have thought the book was written today, except for the references to playing the atari and putting movies in the betamax. That kind of dated the book a bit.
Ignore the movie version, read the book, it's (unfortunately) pitch-perfect Ellis is an expert at chronicling the callow consumerism and nihilism of a particular breed of American wealth. He hits it here. These characters aren't at all overblown. They are incredibly shallow. They are exactly as shallow as they would be if they were actually alive. If you don't know people who are exactly like this then you've never known anyone from Sherman Oaks or Beverly Hills.
And then, as he always does, once he's created these completely plausible characters, Ellis starts dragging things more and more extreme. Do I "believe" the section about the snuff film? It's irrelevant, because I do believe that if these characters were alive this is how they would react and (as I said) characters just like these are actually alive.
One note on the film version: I'm a fan of Ellis' works, but had left this one aside because of the film. Now that I've read it I can't see how they got that film from this book. Or maybe I can: if the film was like the book it would have cut a bit too close for the people making it. One thought though: it's said that after playing Jeanne d'Arc, Falconetti never worked again, the role changed her so much. In the film the role of Julian is played by Robert Downey Jr...
Disturbing on a couple of levels. This book is a disturbing look at the overpowering negative aspects of life in L.A. All the drug use and the emptiness that comes with a privileged life devoid of meaning are narrated by a protagonist from that environment, a kid who has left for school in New England and is back visiting for the holidays walking his old beaten paths with friends and reflecting on his life. What I found most depressing about this story is that this is the sort of life to which our consumerist culture, thanks to "reality" shows like The Hills", has conditioned kids everywhere to aspire. I have met kids in small-town Macon, Georgia for whom this sort of life is the type they happily strive to emulate.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
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