Bret Easton Ellis

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I just watched American Psycho, and really liked it, and looked up the author, who seems to be pretty well recieved for his literature. Just curious if anyone has any recommendations on some of his work, as I would like to check it out. Also, is American Psycho worth reading after having seen the movie?

[ktr]

how about you read something that is like, good?

[qimissung]

"Less Than Zero" was pretty good.

[Bastable]

I second Less than Zero and confirm American Psycho. I found it so easy to just immerse myself in the novel. I remember i found a copy of it at my mates place a few years back and was able to read it in an evening.

[Babak Movahed]

how about you read something that is like, good?

hey genius, I don't know if you knew this but taste is subjective or is it that you're so brilliant that what you think is "good" should be considered that way by everyone.


and to answer your question I agree with what the other people said.

[JuniperWoolf]

I don't get it when people say that they liked Amercan Psycho better in book-form than film-form... I thought the book was pretty blah whereas the film was brilliant.

[ktr]

hey genius, I don't know if you knew this but taste is subjective or is it that you're so brilliant that what you think is "good" should be considered that way by everyone.


and to answer your question I agree with what the other people said.

taste is subjective? i think that's a cop out silly people make in order to justify their own (bad) opinions. obviously, if everyone was a genius like me, we'd all agree on everything.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Thanks for the suggestions.

And, I'll bite, ktr. How about instead of just being a troll and bashing the topic, maybe you could suggest some works that are "good."

[ktr]

Thanks for the suggestions.

And, I'll bite, ktr. How about instead of just being a troll and bashing the topic, maybe you could suggest some works that are "good."

there is a huge difference between "good writing" and "good entertainment" - everyone is entitled to their own guilty pleasures, i was drunk when i posted that, but still. ****, i enjoyed the hell out of the harry potter series - would i ever call any of them good books? of course not.

One can write highly enjoyable stories without being a good writer, and a good writer can write horribly boring stories, like say - ford maddox ford, phenomenal talent as a writer, but at the same time, an incredibly boring story teller.

-----------

A good book is one that is intellectually stimulating every time you read it. Can you read ellis, or for that matter rowling or king AGAIN? i don't believe so, once the mystery, the unknown is all cleared up there is nothing left. if you know the story there is nothing to get out of it. the ending ruins those books upon revisit to them.

good books do not suffer the same fate, they are as good, no - better upon re-reading. there is always more to get out of them upon getting deeper into them.

i think for me, a true test of an authors gift is - if their shortest novels leave you feeling like you had just read a thousand or more pages (not as in being tired, but as in feeling like you went on a real journey and know the characters inside and out, etc etc) - it's like the book itself defies some law, it should not fit into such small a place.

when you read king/rand/rowling etc, it's almost like they have to cheat, they HAVE to write that much in order to create their semblance of reality, their world, their drama.

heart of darkness for instance, how thin is it... yet how big...

[blp]

A good book is one that is intellectually stimulating every time you read it. Can you read ellis, or for that matter rowling or king AGAIN? i don't believe so, once the mystery, the unknown is all cleared up there is nothing left. if you know the story there is nothing to get out of it. the ending ruins those books upon revisit to them.


Are you sure you've read Ellis? There's nothing resembling a mystery in American Psycho. We know who the killer is from the start and there's no denouement, though there are, perhaps, several teasing false ones. The story doesn't take us somewhere, it's just a series of events from a life in a strange state of stasis. That's a large part of the book's point, from what I can gather.

Coincidentally, I was looking through it last night, trying to find the bit where a cornflake is interviewed on the Patty Winters show. I went nearly mad trying to find it. Don't suppose anyone can tell me where it is. I'd be hugely grateful.

I was also looking for passages that might go in the flawless prose thread. I thought I remembered it having some. Actually, it doesn't really, even when it ventures into sort of poetic territory. What it does have is a sustained and very intelligently designed tone of voice, one that perfectly delineates the emotionally flat, vacant attitude that encourages high-end consumerist excess while remaining blind and/or numbed to atrocity. The chapters are variations on this basic satirical theme, as are virtually all of the jokes, which are often superb. It's a brilliant piece of work, much better, funnier and more interesting than the movie.

And yes, Less Than Zero is very good too. I've also read Lunar Park, which I think was Ellis desperately trying to move into new territory and largely failing.

[Hank Stamper]

I really liked American Psycho.. is a good bit of contemporary lit.. I've not watched the film though, dunno how the ambiguity works, but in the book you are left questioning how much is real and how much is just in Bateman's head.. I'm not sure how some of the scenes would translate onto film either - some are pretty graphic (ie. sick).. is the rat scene in the movie?!
AP is clearly Ellis's best work, I've read Less Than Zero, Glamorama and Lunar Park which are all decent enough to varying degrees.. but none left quite the same impression as AP

[blp]

is the rat scene in the movie?!


No it's not!

[Hank Stamper]

No it's not!

probably for the best eh!

[blp]

probably for the best eh!

Well... I want an emoticon for comme si - comme ça. The violence in the film is sort of too palatable, too cartoonish. There are a ton of things I would have done differently about that movie.

Apparently Ellis wrote a screenplay for it that was rejected. Also, at one point, Oliver Stone wanted to make it with Leonardo di Caprio in the lead. I kind of see it more as a role for Tom Cruise, even though he appears as a minor character in the book, but clearly, there were a lot of other ways it could have gone.

[ktr]

Are you sure you've read Ellis? There's nothing resembling a mystery in American Psycho. We know who the killer is from the start and there's no denouement, though there are, perhaps, several teasing false ones.

I may not have been as clear as i thought i was being, for that i apologize. I was merely referring to the inherent mystery of any story which has a beginning, middle, and end. It's not a mystery in a mystery novel sense, it's only a mystery because you don't know what's going to happen on the next page - all novels have some element of mystery to them, regardless of their classification.


What it does have is a sustained and very intelligently designed tone of voice, one that perfectly delineates the emotionally flat, vacant attitude that encourages high-end consumerist excess while remaining blind and/or numbed to atrocity.

interesting point and consideration. i merely think that it has been done better and more skillfully, however, maybe by less contemporary authors with less focus on consumerist excess.

[blp]

I may not have been as clear as i thought i was being, for that i apologize. I was merely referring to the inherent mystery of any story which has a beginning, middle, and end. It's not a mystery in a mystery novel sense, it's only a mystery because you don't know what's going to happen on the next page - all novels have some element of mystery to them, regardless of their classification.

I can't deny there's an element of surprise about the book, though I'd dispute its really having a beginning, middle and end. A lot of the surprise is realising there isn't going to be a denouement – and I've rather given that away, for which I apologise.



interesting point and consideration. i merely think that it has been done better and more skillfully, however, maybe by less contemporary authors with less focus on consumerist excess.

I think it's pretty historically specific. You couldn't have had a book like that before because what it describes hadn't really existed before. I've certainly never seen that flat lack of affect in any other description of wealthy people, not in Vanity Fair, nor in Fitzgerald. There's also an almost schizo tangling of sense going on in a lot of Ellis' dialogue in AP that strikes me as incredibly true, something I frequently encounter, and that I've never seen depicted anywhere else, not even in the obvious contenders such as De Lillo or Mamet.

It's also interesting to go back to the book now. It caught the beginning of a tendency that is still very much with us and showed us its insane extravagance better than any of the other works from the same territory, better than Wall Street, much better than Bonfire of the Vanities. It's not as if, just because we stopped using the word, yuppies actually went away. Bateman and his friends work for the same Wall St. firms that have been so much in the news lately: Lehmans, Goldman Sachs etc. Reading through it last night, I was reminded of a recent quote from a story on why, in the face of failure, huge bonuses continued to be paid (I'll write it extempore): 'These people don't function well without their spa treatments, designer mineral water and Bahamian holidays.'

[ktr]

Good points blp, it has been over 10 years since i read the novel. Incidentally it was my father, a wall street exec at the time, who gave me a copy. It could be quite interesting to read it given the current economic situation.

[blp]

Interesting about your dad, ktr. I'd love to know what he thought of it. I must say, it sounds as if it's pretty inaccurate on the subject of the work Wall St. people do. Most people I've met who work in finance say they work so hard it actually accelerates the aging process. Bateman seems to spend most of his time in the office just noodling around.

[bouquin]

Coincidentally, I was looking through it last night, trying to find the bit where a cornflake is interviewed on the Patty Winters show. I went nearly mad trying to find it. Don't suppose anyone can tell me where it is. I'd be hugely grateful.








This could be what you're looking for . . .
In the chapter Bum on Fifth towards the end of the book, the last paragraph relates that On The Patty Winters Show this morning a Cheerio sat in a very small chair and was interviewed for close to an hour.