Reading 1001 discussion

Rating: 3.5 Stars
Read: April 2017

I went into this book with the mindset that I was going to dislike it, based upon what others had told me about the book. On the contrary, I found it amusing. The book tells the story of a young man who comes home to LA on his college break and meets up with his friends. The characters were all unlikable and very shallow and vacuous. They were rich white kids who were all impossibly good-looking. None of them had any redeeming qualities. Most of them engaged in reckless behaviors without considering the consequences. Still, despite the characters extreme lack of likability (or perhaps because of it) I found the book entertaining. My favorite part of the book is the numerous references to 80s pop culture. It really gave the book a sense of time and place. I also think it is very impressive that the author wrote the first draft of this book at age 19.

Read Aug. 2018

This is the first book by Ellis I’ve read. I’m glad I waited until now to read it. If I had read this book when it first came out, I would have been completely intolerant of the characters and their lifestyle.

The characters in this novel are all supremely privileged (underage) teen-agers, in material wealth at least. Parents are peripheral in the novel which is a reflection of the role they play in their children’s lives. Within the four month period that the novel takes place there are no limits – sex, drugs, fast cars, etc. Those are just the things I can mention without spoiling your read. These people have no direction or moral compass (parents and teens alike).

The novel is told in episodes by Clay. I was about ¾ through the book when it struck me that the dead pan delivery is exactly how a bored teenager would deliver the story. This lifestyle is ‘old hat’ to him. There are a few situations that make him uncomfortable but he is either so stoned or hoping for something that will make him feel something (anything) that he generally sees them through.

Given the ‘celebrity news’ we seen now about people who are famous for absolutely nothing, this novel is powerfully prescient. The teenagers in this novel are these people’s parents, continuing the cycle. Given that this novel is considered roman à clef this statement isn’t really a stretch.

I’m glad I read this, and rate it 3.5* (rounded up to 4 for GR). However, I’m not sure I could recommend it due to some graphic situations that are disturbing.

Less Than Zero
Less Than Zero
2 stars or less.
Actually, I hated this book. It was truly vacuous and it was clear the author was capable of having his characters at least voice a touch of insight or empathy but they do not. There is not one dialogue in the book about the movies they see, the music they listen to, the drugs they take, the multiple sexual partners of any and all genders that they have, their parents or their siblings that would give the reader any insight into their minds or emotions. They simply do not have any way of expressing themselves in his (the author's) world. This leaves me feeling so empty and sad but not in a moving powerful way but in a "why did I waste my time way". I did appreciate a bit about driving around LA and LA's relationship to the ocean and the desert. I actually love LA although I could never live there. Clearly, this could be a moving and meaningful book if you lived in LA in the 80's and saw yourself reflected in these rich, vacuous characters but I did not.
Diane and Valerie found it very much worth the read so don't let me steer you clear but really, I truly hated this book.

****

On the back of the book, the review from USA Today read: "The Catcher in the Rye for the MTV generation." This is quite accurate, but Clay, the 18-year old college student back in LA from college in New Hampshire for the Christmas holidays, is definitely an amplified version of Holden Caulfield. He drifts through the holidays, catching up with his friends, old and new, through a series of parties, drug taking, movie watching, sexual encounters with either gender (whatever comes), music name dropping, etc. All the characters are devoid of emotions, feelings and care, not only the kids, but also their ultra-rich parents, who are generally absent, whereabouts usually unknown. Everything is possible for these kids, even highly illegal and criminal stuff (there are a couple of incidents towards the end of this novel that would revolt most readers); yet, probably like the dandies of the French decadent era, it still doesn't bring them happiness or satisfaction, and they push the boundary further and further as they "don't have anything to lose", as his friend Rip says. True, there are moments where Clay seems to awaken to the fact that his own boundaries have been crossed, yet he readies himself to go back to New Hampshire by the end of the novel with rather the same state of unfeeling. This first novel by Bret Easton Ellis firmly sowed the seeds for American Psycho where the vacuousness and depravity of the young rich privileged people reach their maximum. As a satire on rich young kids, I loved it.

The ennui of the characters in this novel affected me and I found that I could not read too much at any one time. As a satire of rich kids unmoored in an ethical vacuum I can appreciate the story and the fact that a nineteen year old wrote is it astounding, nevertheless it was confronting, especially towards the end.

Not for me I’m afraid. This is the soulless, increasingly depraved, account of life among the rich young people of 1980s LA. Our protagonist, Clay, goes to parties, takes drugs, and has sex. This repeats for page after page until Clay begins to tire of the lifestyle. I tired of it long before Clay.

There is a fierce clarity of purpose in the writing which is impressive for a debut novel, and occasional glimpses of a more interesting and aware Clay that are never allowed to develop further. Ultimately though this just is not the type of novel I enjoy or appreciate. 2.5*