Hi, gang. Monday is here and I'm feeling motivated from a weekend of rest
and relaxation. Husband had a work outing on Saturday from am to late pm so
I had time to work out, shop a bit, cook, and READ. I haven't read a book in
a long while but had the time so committed to one I was jumping out of my
skin to read. I was beyond excited to read Bret Easton Ellis's sequel to "Less Than Zero",
"Imperial Bedrooms" (the title once again taken from an Elvis Costello
album). As you know, my love for LTZ and Ellis in general knows no bounds-
the alienation and conspicuous consumption and knock you in the head pop
culture references he excels at have always had me craving more. Until this
book.
so much more than zero. "Less Than" was a perfect book for the time in which
it was written- and reading it in my teens was a powerful experience as I
went through my own period of isolation, loneliness, and slight nihilism.
The alienation of LA, the often unglamorous portrayal of glamorous lives,
and the music references made this book my generation's "Catcher in the Rye"
in many ways. But times have changed and here's why the sequel didn't cut it
for me, although I did enjoy Ellis indulging us in a bit of the noir. The book begins with a classic Ellisian line: "They made a movie about us."
Boom, I'm in. We're in on the joke- and Ellis is taking a jab at the movie
of the book, which was a brat packy wet dream- Jami Gertz, Andrew McCarthy,
James Spader, an awesomely awesome Robert Downey Jr. playing his fucked up
self. We are now back in LA with Clay, where he is now in his 40s and a
successful screenwriter. I will admit that Ellis's visual references are
spot on- one can picture Clay's bachelor lair in Hollywood, the details are
fantastic as is his always beautiful prose on LA and its incredible scenery-
still serves as an amazing backdrop to this work. But in terms of
characters, we get to see where Trent, Blair, Rip, and Julian all are now-
and it ain't pretty. Ellis's characters have always been vapid, shallow, and
empty, but in this book they almost don't exist in any kind of humanity. At
least there's a plot to follow. I realize we're not supposed to like these characters, but I was rooting for
Clay in the original book, and this time he's a simply vial human being. I
don't know if Ellis's point is that LA and the "business" is so toxic as to
turn people into human devils, but I had a hard time feeling at all
sympathetic for anyone's plight in this book, but maybe that's the point. In typical Ellis "American Psycho" form, we get brutality- over the top
violence and sexual deviance. When "Psycho" was written, the book was beyond
shocking and very troubling. Or maybe again I was much younger when I read
it and its graphic depiction of violence was disturbing, yet I still found
it to be an amazing tour de force of indifference, greed, and the corruption
of the MTV generation. So as I write this, I'm wondering if "Imperial Bedrooms" really sucks, or if
it's just me that is older and wiser reading it. The characters in the book
are as empty as ever- they have not grown at all but just get more money and
more arrogant. I would have liked to see somebody turn out ok, and tackling
middle age with themes that we all encounter- wrinkles, having children and
being parents, marriage. There is no deep investigation of any of these
themes, rather the characters seem to be in some sort of arrested
development. And then I realize why reading it is such a drag. Because I've
changed so much and grown so much as I approach that age, it's hard to
imagine that these people have not grown up at all, not even a little. It
just doesn't ring true to me. I also missed some of the musical references
he almost always employed in other books, for instance I found it hard to
believe that Clay, as "cool as he is, would not listen to Arcade Fire or
even the Killers- he could have reeled in some new readers with some updated
references. (And I couldn't stop thinking of the Talking Heads classic 'Once
in a Lifetime' while I read this...'same as it ever was...same as it ever
was'} To me, the book just felt lazy. Like an afterthought. But most of all, it
felt like Ellis wrote the sequel as a way to cash in on a celluloid sequel
to the original. I almost feel like the book would be more interesting as a
movie, especially with the now hyper successful Downey as Julian. Recasting
all the original players would be genius- and I think Ellis is very aware of
how marketable this book is as a screenplay, so why try so hard with the
book when a huge payout awaits? I wanted so much to love this short little tome (about 160 pages), but
couldn't. As someone who is very Generation X, I could not at all identify
with these sleazy characters at all, as I did back in the day with the
original. Maybe it's Ellis who needs to get out of his insular LA microcosm
and explore some other themes, so that his characters can develop too, and
he too, can develop as the brilliant writer I know he is. Or maybe I should
just except that the things I loved as a teen may not hold the same weight
now, and I can no longer relate to this level of apathy. I say skip this
book and go see the movie, which will surely come out. No doubt in my mind.
Looking forward to it, as I bet Ellis is, even though he takes more than a
few jabs at the original film. And that's what's up this bookish and sequeled Monday in the MIA. Enjoy your
day. XO