Easton Ellis…

by circletide

Posted to Utterances on 2003-05-08 05:42:00

Parent message is 445636
I think I’m right in thinking he wrote Less Than Zero when he was 19/20 years old (my age), which I find kind of humbling. Although both that and American Psycho were kinda one-trick ponies (although Psycho was perhaps deliberately so) I would urge you to read Glamorama if you haven’t already, it shows a maturity and progression that is highly impressive…

Easton Ellis was very much part of the scene he describes in both LTZ and AP, hence the realism, but can hardly be said to be condoning it. He rejected that lifestyle whilst experiencing it, and this is massively apparant in Psycho where the irony simply screams from the page. Perhaps, from my far-removed viewpoint of England this is easier to see…

Selfishness, hedonism and self-gratification are all things that come across in much of the Beat literature (esp. Kerouac and Burroughs) without condemnation. These, essentially good (in a personal expansion way), values that arose from hippy movements etc. gradually became warped with the introduction of money. Hippy -> Yuppy in one sweet move! When looking at the books in this light, the ironies and motivations become a lot more apparant.

In this way Bret Easton Ellis does seem to be some kind of ideological successor. My main reservations are that he is essentially a chronicler of the times he portrays, and less of a ‘trendsetter’ or literary revolutionary (horrible words – apologies!) . But then I suppose this is my reservation with all people at the moment.
circletide

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