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Bret Easton Ellis

I heard that he is planning on transforming into a giant robot, but that might just be a rumour or nasty lies spread by some midgets and clowns.
 
Great review! I was hoping that Lunar Park wouldn't have been written in the same style of The Rules of Attraction or American Pyscho. I can't say I hated those books as much as you did, but Ellis' stream-of-consciousness style got on my nerves at times.
 
You've basically confirmed every suspicion of Ellis that I've ever had. I may get around to him eventually, but I feel absolutely no pressing need to do so anytime soon.
 
I completely agree. I tried to read American Psycho a couple of years ago, and it is one of the very few books that I didn't bother to finish. I just couldn't; the excessive stream-of-consciousness may have been fitting for the character, but I came to a point where I just couldn't sit through it anymore. I read Lunar Park recently (it was on sale), and I managed to make it through, but it was a chore.

I won't read anything of his again; and frankly, I don't understand why he is so critically acclaimed. I think, to be highly technical about it, that he just sucks.
 
The only Bret Easton Ellis I've read so far has been Less Than Zero, which I loved. Ellis, while I don't know much about him, seems to run with a crowed that I really enjoy (i.e. Donna Tartt)
 
I like Ellis books until i started Lunar park and realize that what i like in is writing was in fact very limitated and artificial.The use of utra -precise -brand description has a social way of indentity was interesting but Ellis does seen too be ablle to diversify his theme or writing.
Maybe is best book is a gathering of Short stories called informer,very good and American psycho,but glamorama was a bit of a repetition(terrorist instead of serial killer) and Lunar Park was, for me, the end of my interest in the man.The inclusion of himself has a charactere was just a trick,and the "ho i take so much drug ,oh i live in such a glamorous hype circle "is very very booring.
Less than Zero was a good start but wasn't to bad,a pure 80's product.

Hubert Selby in the same line is someone with so much more deepth and diversity.Unfortunatly not praised enough.
 
saliotthomas said:
I like Ellis books until i started Lunar park and realize that what i like in is writing was in fact very limitated and artificial.The use of utra -precise -brand description has a social way of indentity was interesting but Ellis does seen too be ablle to diversify his theme or writing.
Maybe is best book is a gathering of Short stories called informer,very good and American psycho,but glamorama was a bit of a repetition(terrorist instead of serial killer) and Lunar Park was, for me, the end of my interest in the man.The inclusion of himself has a charactere was just a trick,and the "ho i take so much drug ,oh i live in such a glamorous hype circle "is very very booring.
Less than Zero was a good start but wasn't to bad,a pure 80's product.

Hubert Selby in the same line is someone with so much more deepth and diversity.Unfortunatly not praised enough.
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Ugh, please dont compare Selby to the likes of Ellis!
 
paperapostle said:
The only Bret Easton Ellis I've read so far has been Less Than Zero, which I loved. Ellis, while I don't know much about him, seems to run with a crowed that I really enjoy (i.e. Donna Tartt)
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Tartt is a far better writer than Ellis. They are nothing alike, IMO.
 
I read The Informers and Less Than Zero recently and liked both a lot. He makes Los Angeles/Hollywood seem more like an emotionless hell rather than as the paradise it is often portrayed to be.
 
joderu95 said:
I read The Informers and Less Than Zero recently and liked both a lot. He makes Los Angeles/Hollywood seem more like an emotionless hell rather than as the paradise it is often portrayed to be.
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I liked The Informer(less,less than zero ).
Specialy the story fo the vampyre who hate drug in the blood he sucks(a very bad thing in LA).
I though it was the best of Ellis,it actually show he could write different things if he wishes.
But Unfortunatly he does not,or lost it.
 
for me his best book that I have read having read

less than zero
american psycho
lunar park

american psycho is by far the best I liked the way it was written in the madness of the psychopaths head the inane ramblings etc-cleverly done
 
Plan on reading American Psycho soon.

I heard Patrick matches up to Hannibal Lecter,and Dexter Morgan.So, I have to read it.
 
B.E.E. is not a fan of David Foster Wallace, apparently.

Ellis, no stranger to provoking controversy with his comments, laid into Foster Wallace on Twitter this morning, calling him "a fraud", and "the best example of a contemporary male writer lusting for a kind of awful greatness that he simply wasn't able to achieve".
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And...

But "Saint David Foster Wallace", according to Ellis, is read by "fools": "a generation trying to read him feels smart about themselves which is part of the whole bullshit package".
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Also,

"Anyone who finds David Foster Wallace a literary genius has got to be included in the, Literary Doucebag-Fools Pantheon [sic]," said Ellis. "David Foster Wallace carried around a literary pretentiousness that made me embarrassed to have any kind of ties to the publishing scene … I continue to find David Foster Wallace the most tedious, overrated, tortured, pretentious writer of my generation."
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As one who has never read anything by either author, I can't really comment. I wonder if bashing a fellow writer, deceased or not, is starting to be a fad.
 
Polly, I saw that article and thought that BEE was way over the edge. Also, I recently read Good People, a short story by David Foster Wallace, and thought it was an incredible work of genius. It was a beautiful example of literary art, such as I have seldom seen.
So, not only do I think Ellis' comments are savagery such as I can't recall ever seeing before (not even for 50 Shades of Grey), I also think he is just plain wrong in his accusations and is suffering from an immense fit of personal jealousy.
I intend to post a more detailed review of Good People on the DFW thread here on BAR.
 
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