So are bret easton ellis books a good read?
Any deeper revelation to be had in them or
atleast a good time waster?
I dunno, but his podcast is great. My kinda guy.
Less Than Zero is complete fucking garbage, absolutely disgusting.
American Psycho is really good, haven't read anything other than those two though.
>>7535085
>X is bad
>X is good
I'm glad to see you really sparking the discussion in this thread.
>>7535179
man fuck you at least i put my 2 cents in
fuckin cunt
>>7535074
American Psycho is pretty goddamn genius.
I highly recommend it OP, it keeps me thinking to this day. Just be ready for some (deliberately) tedious dialogue about clothing and food and some extreme violence.
Bought Imperial Bedrooms yesterday, enjoying it more than I did Less than Zero, it's pretty funny.
Preferred Rules of Attraction to American Psycho.
Bret is fun to read even if you're not really invested in the characters
>>7535085
Actually I agree with this. Less than Zero was worthless.
American Psycho is decent and differed from my expectations.
American Psycho is the only worth reading
Glamorama is particularly terrible
I really liked his book of short stories called The Informers.
>>7535074
The thing about Bret Easton Ellis is his writing's got a very powerful voice. Totally commanding of the narration, reads really quickly (it has a lot of momentum, so to speak). Sometimes he's really lazy though. I think that, like a lot of writers, his earliest stuff was his best (Less Than Zero, Rules of Attraction, American Psycho). Among those, Less Than Zero was his that got the most positive attention, but Rules of Attraction is my favorite, and American Psycho is objectively the most structurally fascinating and accomplished. But even in something like Rules of Attraction, which I have to say I have a real soft spot for, the narration gets godawful, such as one section narrated by a a guy named Paul who's recently been dumped by his boyfriend (said boyfriend is hooking up with chicks now, further complicating the whole gay-bi dynamic), "And I sat there feeling like the hapless lover. But then I remembered, of course, that now I'm only hapless." So corny I want to puke. At the same damn time, there are incredible moments of absolutely aimless but masterfully crafted dialogue, such as one between another narrator Sean and his four other friends (all of whom are misogynists and general goodfornothings, and really really amusing to spend time with), where the characters are interrupting each other and dropping slang and engaging in wordplay in a way that's just fun to read. It's the type of dialogue that effortlessly pops into your ears.
And American Psycho... everybody has their own opinion about it. The cinematographic, false third-person opener is a total jaw-dropper, the neo-noir almost Blade-Runner-esque shootout scene towards the end is great. The reverse detective novel that emerges after he murders Paul Owen, the stream-of-consciousness chapter titled "A Glimpse Of A Thursday Afternoon," these are all so damn brilliant. On the other hand, the murder scenes are jacked up so ridiculously high that it dissolves into cartoon and it's totally non-affecting. Fun for some, maybe, but not particularly wholesome for everybody. Then again, who said anything unwholesome isn't worth reading anyway?
There's my two cents... It might not make much sense. I'm a little stoned and my head is meandering.
Great essay to check out for those interested: "Vacuity" in the book Seven Modes of Uncertainty by C. Namwalli Serpell. It's on American Psycho and deals with how the empty/flat tone of the narration + use of repetition achieves a very unique mode of unreliable narration.
