Bret Easton Ellis

Meet Clay. He's bummed. No, "bummed" is too passionate a descriptive for Clay. Clay is emotionally neutral nonstop in this flatlining naught-plot narrative; he's pathologically emotively neutral to his empty core; he'd score a big fat zero on an Emoto-Meter, if such said device existed.

Living in Beverly Hills his whole life has gotten Clay feeling blah, blase. Never having had to work for anything at all at anytime in one's life might do that to a fella. Clay's eighteen, but unlike that show more classic Alice Cooper song, he's eighteen and doesn't like it, even no matter now much cocaine he consumes or Valium he pops (to bring himself down from the coke), he's simply not content being so young and good looking, with a Mediterranean mansion for a pad (albeit his parent's posh pad), and driving a Mercedes Benz to all the Sunset Strip hot spots nightly, because, ultimately, doin' the same 'ol-same 'ol's a real drag man. It's a hard life being Clay, being wealthy, educated, possessing every perk money can buy, and yet...yet...he's so bored. He's so bored it's depressing. Ennui, Dude; ennui. Who wouldn't be inevitably bored by -- as Ellis' much loved Eagles once sang -- "everything, all the time".

Malaise. Such malaise. Malaise of the sort made famous by that fictional Russian slacker, Oblomov, way back when; only Clay's emotional/spiritual malaise is much more pharmaceutically induced, I think, than Ivan Goncharov's classic character. One can't help feeling sorry for him, for Clay (ahem, 'scuse me), especially when he sees his psychiatrist and lies to him about his bizarre sexual fantasies, because nothing, nothing really matters, just like in that classic "Bohemian Rhapsody" song. Nothing really matters except for MTV with the sound turned off and dope and Elvis Costello posters and the brand name of every pricey piece of hipster attire -- as seen in GQ and Vogue -- imaginable, and of every high end boutique and trendy dive in town. Dupar's, Privilege, Jerry Magnin, La Scala, etc., et.al.

What's Clay's family life like? His mother drinks a lot of red wine, his father, at the moment estranged from his wife, listens to Bob Seger in his convertible (sad sad) and Clay's 15 year old sister, a Galaga fanatic, can get her "own cocaine," she protests to her older brother, since Clay had just accused her of stealing a gram out of his room. Clay's 13 year old sister, confronted by the reality that Galaga is too expensive for mother to purchase and that she already, after all, owns Atari, whines mournfully that "Atari's cheap!". Sweet girls. Lovely family.

Clay's girlfriend, Blair, we learn, has been cheating on Clay while he was away at college with his best friend, Julian, an aspiring male prostitute working to pay off his heroin debt to Rip, he & Clay's drug dealer. Clay doesn't really mind though, Blair and Julian hooking-up and gettin' free-kay, since he soon sleeps with Blair anyway fresh upon his return from college, and sleeps, as well, with many other beautiful young offspring (both male and female) of Beverly Hill's finest. Clay, Blair, and Julian, in fact, sleep with literally dozens of people during a relatively short (Christmas Break) duration of time, sleeping with so many people that sometimes Clay can't recollect if he's slept with so-and-so or another. Could Clay's memory loss be associated with the early onset of Alzheimer's, or perhaps a negative consequence of his excessive marijuana consumption? I'd posit the latter.

Clay, also, I'm sure the potential reader would be delighted knowing, engages in some rather explicit, uh, mutual masturbation with this girl he's met somewhere (who knows where? an uber-cool club presumably, read the book to find out where, I mean, no, don't read the book) and since slathered lotion was involved during the mutually and doubly self satisfying process -- a pleasurable process in which Clay had to slow his own stroking-motion down some so that the two undoubtedly ohhing-and-ahhing self-lovers could climax (beautiful) simultaneously -- we learn the experience wasn't without its drawbacks, as Clay laments, "it stings when I come".

Later on, Rip, the sporty drug dealer, throws a rip-roaring coke-fest extravaganza at his plush highrise Century Blvd. condo, and shows everybody, proudly, a "snuff" movie. Grainy images, but clear enough for all in attendance to witness a "big black dude" with "this huge member" sodomize a boy and girl, then the big black dude procures an ice-pick out of nowhere (yeah! entertaining stuff, er, snuff!, go Ellis go!) and surgically inserts it deep down their ear canals. Instant (except for the victimized children's autonomous body-spasms) entertaining death. Immediate gorey gratification. That'll shock the shit out of these nihilistic cokefiends, right? Uh, no. What was the name of that Jane's Addiction album at the close of the 80s -- "Nothing's Shocking"? Exactly. Rip might as well have given his party zombies more Valium rather than a snuff flick based on their minimalist emotings of moral outrage.

Yawn.
Shrug.
Don sunglasses.
Light a cigarette.
Exhale.
Snort another line.
Another.
Pause.
Talk about that new XTC album.
Watch the exhaled smoke disappear.

"Disappear here." Disappear here's a recurring motif in Less Than Zero (gee, wonder what that could possibly signify? Bash us over the head with the not-so-subtle symbolism Bret!).

Other obvious and less than artful motifs: Asphalt, freeways, palm trees, warm Santa Ana winds (courtesy of Joan Didion), "dead end streets" as bluntly crafted metaphors for dead end lives. Dude. You were only a teenager when you wrote this? Wow, I never would have guessed! Like, totally.

Less Than Zero, iconic mid '80s teenage melodrugdrama helped pave the way for such future iconic works of Americana like "Beverly Hills 90210" and MTVs "The Real World". Thanks, Bret!

Less Than Zero is Less Than Literature, but who cares? And there's great jokes about Jews and "Orientals" in the novel too! But I'd be lying, indeed I'd be, if I said I'm not still -- STILL -- mysteriously, perversely, shamefully, sweet-sickishly, attracted to Less Than Zero like I'm a fly jonesing for some good human decomp, and Less Than Zero's the rotting husk of a maggot-laden corpse oozing amoral stench and nihilistic stink and plethora of icky sticky creepy-crawlies spreading depravity and disease upon all like me foolishly buzzing 'round the fetid carcass. So swat me somebody swat me!

Happy Birthday Bret! :-D show less

Patrick and I are done. My daily dose of crazy is over. This book remains in the top ten of my all time favorite books. It's brilliant satire that stomps all over your precious fuzzy bunny happy feelings. Because shit happens, the world is a cold and lonely place and we are all alone scratching at the surface desperately looking for someone to understand us. God, I love this book.

I was amazed at how much of it I remembered clearly - Usually I'm surprised at how much I've forgotten of books I show more reread years later. The Genesis ramble. I remembered all of his Genesis ramble. (Oddly, not the Whitney Houston ramble. So funny!) Once (okay, a couple of times) I skipped over a passage that disturbed me - I knew what was coming and didn't need to read it again. I got it once and didn't need Patrick to fill me in again.

I remain on the "no" side of the big controversy. Reading all of Ellis' books (especially Lunar Park) before this one landed me more firmly within that opinion. I've seen Bateman through other eyes now and it is enough to make me even more skeptical. I still have absolutely no desire to see the movie. I don't want to picture Christian Bale when I think of Patrick Bateman.

My summer of BEE is finished and I am moving on to something else. I'm sure it will have mergers and acquisitions. Wait. I mean murders and executions. show less

Less Than Zero is a terribly chilling book about the woe-is-me white upper class college-aged kids, spending their time partying, snorting coke and whoring themselves out. And the way Bret Easton Ellis tells it, well, it's damn right poetic.

Clay returns home for Christmas break. After spending the last four months in New Hampshire, Los Angeles seems foreign to him. Even worse, the people he knew are less friends than they are strangers. Oblivious ex-girlfriend picks up where their show more relationship left off. His friends are degenerate junkies. And Clay, while no different himself, begins to see himself for the first time. And the thought depresses him.

The book holds every vice in this ugly world that is glamoured up. Clay friends find it no big deal gang raping a twelve-year-old girl. Pimp Finn finds nothing wrong with subduing Julian into prostituting himself in order to pay back a debt. In fact, Finn even uses heroin to keep him in line. In the world Ellis created, there is no right or wrong. There's just action without consequences.

The reader feels no sympathy for Clay or the people who make up his L.A. life. Even the flashbacks of Clay's childhood bring no connection to him. Bret Easton Ellis created a masterpiece of repugnant people that readers will enjoy hating for years go come. At least for me, anyway. show less

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5423923408

Perhaps the most violent book I've ever read, certainly one of the most disturbing. It is dark, depraved, disgusting, and funny enough to feel bad about. Passages make you want to put the book down and stare, others make you laugh ruefully - others are just outright funny. I walked away from this book, not really knowing what to make out of it.

Bateman is a vapid nitwit, knowing essentially nothing except for fashion, audio/visual equipment, and show more how to misuse power tools. He clearly does not know himself or those around him. There is a recurring bit throughout the book that no one recognizes anyone else, and this relates to one of the core themes of the book: it simply doesn't matter. Vanity, surface, status - the image of status - that's all Bateman understands, and all anyone in the book is interested in (except for Jean, and a few characters that Bateman totally dismisses).

I feel compelled to share: I am wearing a "Slaughterhouse Five" shirt from the Writer's Museum in Chicago, white khaki pants from Old Navy, the socks and briefs are from Bombas, the watch is from Apple, the glasses Warby Parker (prescription, to Bateman's chagrin). The last haircut was... perhaps five months ago. My shoes are perhaps four years old and from Shoe Carnival. show less