New Bret Easton Ellis Novel "Imperial Bedrooms"

[Honky Kong 64]

Yeah I loved Lunar Park but I heard this wasn't very good.

[Lord Beguile]

Well, fuck. I was looking forward to this too. I just started 'The Passage' by Justin Cronin, great read thus far. He doesn't waste words, that's for sure.

[spacehamster]

Well, that's worrying to hear, but I'll withhold judgment until I've read it myself... most people apparently didn't like Lunar Park either, and I thought it was excellent.

[spacehamster]

Anyway, read it anyway. If you're a fan of an artist, you have to check out everything they do, good or bad, for yourself.

Yeah, it's pretty much a done deal anyway. But if you liked LP and hate this, that doesn't bode well for me.

[spacehamster]

Order'd. Should have it next week, and I'm on vacation.

[spacehamster]

I have to warn you, though - for all my huffin' and puffin' about how much I like Ellis, I've only actually read American Psycho and Lunar Park. I keep telling myself I'm gonna pick up the pre-American Psycho novels, but I never seem to get around to it. I actually wrote a paper on Lunar Park, though, so at least I can say I've analyzed that one (and American Psycho, obviously, because you kind of have to) to death. *cough*

[spacehamster]

Less Than Zero isn't long and it's a really quick read-- basically just little vignettes that are connected mostly because they happen with one main character and within a 4 week period. But it's really wandering. I think it's great, though some people might think it's boring. But then again, if you liked American Psycho's style of writing, you'll probably like Less Than Zero too.

Sounds like my kind of thing, yeah... come to think of it, I should probably read all this shit for research purposes at this point anyway, I will have to write my master's thesis at some point in the next two years or I'm totally fucked, and I can't think of anything else to do it on.

[spacehamster]

I think he'd make a really interesting thesis. It's very self-aware pop references but also, of course, satirical. But he rides a fine line. I'd also be really interested to hear an analysis of his work from a non-American's point of view because his satirical points really have everything to do with being in this country-- especially in something like Lunar Park.

PM'd.

And yeah, I can't say I approached it specifically as an American novel, although you can't read Lunar Park and ignore that it's very consciously post-9/11. But I've always thought that 9/11 wasn't anywhere near as much of an attack on the US specifically as the Bush doctrine made it out to be, and it had a clear effect on the rest of the Western world too.

[spacehamster]

I think there is some American "liberal guilt" in America over making it a world-wide tragedy (something the right had no problem doing) because they like to think "This stuff happens all over the world and we shouldn't pretend it's worse or has a greater world impact when it happens to US". But of course, it DID have a world impact.

The rest of the world saw it as an attack on Western culture. One of the more pathetic failures of the Bush administration is that they didn't seem to understand that. The reason everyone empathized so much with the US immediately after 9/11 was because Europe basically felt like it had been attacked too - plus of course it scared the shit out of everyone that something like this could happen on American soil, and sure enough it happened a couple more times in Europe afterward.

Something that struck me as "American" in Lunar Park is the deconstruction of the celebrity life-style (both "Bret"'s and his equally fictional wife's) and of course the children growing up in an adult's world of medication and materialism. Of course, my seeing these things as inherently American might not be accurate. I really don't know if other countries are putting their children on Prozac and the like.

Well, the obsession with celebrities is pretty common here too, but we're not quite there yet with the drugs. But my impression is that's just one of those things where we're a few years behind the US and will eventually get caught up. I already see kids getting Ritalin prescriptions pretty damn easily these days, and in psychiatry the first step of any treatment always seems to be to pump people full of drugs. It's not as commonplace as in the US yet, but... yeah, give us a few years.

[IFryKids]

Slightly off-topic: How is Glamorama? I picked it up used on a whim a few years ago, but never got around to reading it. It'll probably be awhile before I can read it still, but I want to make sure I don't waste my time.

[Honky Kong 64]

Slightly off-topic: How is Glamorama? I picked it up used on a whim a few years ago, but never got around to reading it. It'll probably be awhile before I can read it still, but I want to make sure I don't waste my time.

There are some unforgettable scenes in Glamorama and I like a lot of what he did with that book but there's something (I just can't put my finger on it) that didn't click for me. Definitely read it though.

[Alfonso]

Glamorama is a complete piece of shit. Found a hardcover copy of it for about 3 dollars a few years ago and I didn't make it through the entire monstrosity.

[Alfonso]

LOVED American Psycho and Lunar Park. Less than Zero I also found really good/solid. Haven't read his other books. I don't read him expecting revelations on human nature or anything like that, but Glamorama just seemed way too shallow for me. And it had nothing to do with the book being about the fashion world, but rather the story being just ostensibly forced/pointless if you ask me.

[Alfonso]

Yeah, your book doesn't necessarily have to be shallow if the subject matter is. Still, will check this new thing out as soon as it's available here!

[spacehamster]

Finished this today. I put it down for over a week when I was about two thirds in (not because I hated it, it just happened that way), and towards the end I wondered if that was why certain things seemed a bit confusing or if it was intentionally constructed that way.

Anyway, I think I need to read Less Than Zero and then take another look at this. I'm kind of having the same problem as Geoff in that I don't know what to make of this. There's something interesting going on here about how the total loss of privacy in our society and the resulting paranoia result in everyone's life just being a fake narrative, and that vaguely picks up on a few of the more interesting ideas from Lunar Park. Also:

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

I thought it was kind of amusing how Clay is sort of a reverse Patrick Bateman in that he's in denial of the violent things he does whereas Bateman seems to have made up most of it.

As far as the writing style goes, though, I'm honestly getting a little sick of it. Every single one of these characters is a detached, rich, cynical alcoholic, it's always the same voice. It's semi-justified by the fact that Lunar Park basically says Patrick Bateman, Clay and Ellis are all the same person, but it's also tiresome to read. Yakka-yakka, I had to down a bottle of [insert expensive liquor brand] to stop my hand from shaking and [insert random inexplicable action, preferably namedropping another expensive brand name], blah-blah.

I dunno, it's hard to believe that such a short novel would be anything but incredibly densely structured and purposeful given that Ellis has pulled that off in books twice as long, but I can't say I really see it just yet.

[Dr Yail Bloor]

I'll have to get this, last thing I read by Ellis was the informers (which I liked a lot).

[AskForRaffo]

Would you recommend me this new one?

Last one I liked was The Informer, I think Glamorama was boring and Lunar Park ...well, I dont know how I managed to read the whole thing.

[Scumfucker]

Lunar Park is easily his best. I didn't know he had a new one out.

I don't understand the Glamorama hate. I love that book. I've read it multiple times.

[cxwx]

I noticed “The Shards” is out. I’ll eventually read it once it’s in a paper back as I’ve read everything else he’s published except “White”

(I vaguely remember him claiming he won’t write any more novels because ‘the novel is dead’ but he was probably being a coy asshole like he is with everything else.)

[THE KILL]

“The Shards”

[spacehamster]

I just realized I posted in this thread before I decided to write my master's thesis about Bret Easton Ellis. I did eventually come to like Imperial Bedrooms and it sort of turns all of Ellis' novels that came before it into a neat cycle that's bookended by Less than Zero and itself, but this new one sounds like it's just more of the same and Ellis has really lost me in the meantime with his constant whining about young people and their political correctness (has he discovered "wokeness" yet? Not that it's really a different idea or anything), so... I'm kind of required to read this now what with the thesis about Ellis, but I also don't really want to because I'm scared I'll hate it.

[cxwx]

I just realized I posted in this thread before I decided to write my master's thesis about Bret Easton Ellis. I did eventually come to like Imperial Bedrooms and it sort of turns all of Ellis' novels that came before it into a neat cycle that's bookended by Less than Zero and itself, but this new one sounds like it's just more of the same and Ellis has really lost me in the meantime with his constant whining about young people and their political correctness (has he discovered "wokeness" yet? Not that it's really a different idea or anything), so... I'm kind of required to read this now what with the thesis about Ellis, but I also don't really want to because I'm scared I'll hate it.

I’m scared I’ll love it like all his other shit I’ve read but I’d probably hate “White” even though I already know he’s a gigantic asshole.