“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is a proof that humans are capable of magic”
-Carl Sagan
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Review: Less Than Zero
Author: Bret Easton Ellis
Genre: Coming-of-age, contemporary, young adult
My Rating: ★★★★ (3.5/5 stars)
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Whenever I feel the need to visit literature’s moral badlands, get a hefty dose of realistic grit, or just watch in-your-face messages bleeding through un-sugarcoated storylines, I always crack open a Chuck Palahniuk book. Spinning tales with all these ingredients is his specialty. However, even if I do like his works, I’m averse to not sprinkling a little spice onto my reading list. I sought for other authors who play with the same elements in a completely different way, and luckily, I stumbled upon Bret Easton Ellis and his first work, Less Than Zero.
To a complete tenderfoot in Ellis’ works (like me), Less Than Zero does seem to emit a little vibe similar to Palahniuk’s themes… but that ends at the period of the book’s blurb. The first page would instantly give you the feeling that you’re in for a different kind of read. The narration, characters, and dialogues weave together a tale with a gloomy overall ambiance that I haven’t seen in the fictional works I’ve encountered before.
Considered by many as a cult classic, Less Than Zero is Ellis’ unflinching dark portrait of the MTV generation—rich kids of Los Angeles caught in a string of drug-driven bashes, big C’s buy-and-sell sessions, casual sex, prostitution, and practically everything that falls under the category of self-destructive hedonism. It zeroes in on the story of Clay, an eighteen-year-old boy who comes back to LA for a four-week Christmas vacation. Instead of rest, what he finds himself facing is the inner demon of apathy that resides in all his friends—and in himself as well.
Having a penchant for characters with four-dimensional complexity, I found myself on the brink of disappointment when my attempts to connect with Clay became more and more exhausting to establish. I always believe that in order for a book to be more enjoyable, its main character must have the ability to “click” with the reader. The narrator feels more alive to me that way. He/she must move on the borderlines of his/her world without exactly breaking a fourth wall, extending his/her reaches past the physical restrictions of the paper to latch onto the hearts of the readers using sympathy, relatable experiences, loneliness, love, or even rage. In short, I believe the speaker must make me feel things, regardless if these things were negative or not. For the most part, Clay failed in this department. He’s detached from the world, wallowing in cold cynicism, moving like a trembling marionette with strings that are all too tangled that it was no use to track where they originated. I tried to dismiss it as an effect of his drug addiction, but his coke-reliant friends appear to be more fleshed out than him sometimes. That’s saying something, since he’s already given the fact that no character in the novel has depth of a remarkable kind.
It was only near the end that Clay finally made me feel something, proving that he is not the drug-fueled automaton that I initially think he is. I was irritated for the slow responsiveness, but I found myself wanting to pat him on the back when he begins to become disillusioned with his friends’ extreme self-indulgences. Vivid episodes from his pasts, which include dysfunctional families and fractured relationships, stand in stark contrast with his bleak present. This explains a little about his behavior.
In almost every book, there is at least one character that you would want to wrap in a hug, cradle against you, and whisper that everything will be okay. I was almost surprised when someone like this popped out of the book’s vapid cast of characters: Julian. Clay’s relation does not give away too much about Julian’s situation, but it’s adequate to guess how the boy just got his life’s compass haywire. He is plunging headfirst into his own destruction and he knows it.
Plot-wise, there is nothing much to say about the novel. I must admit that the story’s lack of conventional structure comes off as a strength rather than a weakness, portraying a gritty world as it should be through the eyes of a rather unreliable narrator. No frills and no embellishments, raw and stripped of sweet euphemisms.
Despite the book just basically being a peek into the quotidian lives of well-off kids who pass around drug-filled Daffy Duck Pez dispensers, it gave me a queer feeling that I do not usually get from other books. It has a rough kind of charm that I found unexplainable; it left me a tad empty by the last page, but it also gave birth to a tiny voice in my head screaming, “I’m ready to feel a little emptier if it means I’ll be able to find out what happens to the characters in its sequel, Imperial Bedrooms.” And that, of course, hit me hard: I do care about the characters to a certain degree! I do not know what kind of magic Ellis posses that made him turn the tables on me without me noticing. Whatever it is, I like it.
I think Ellis is a master of minimalism, his narration containing little to zilch emotional tinges that perfectly complements the lethargic attitude of the characters. I find it amazingly ironic how the stream of consciousness style seems so cleanly penned when its contents are generally dirty patchworks of the protagonist’s thoughts and memories. Content-wise, what the novel really wants to show is the perils of stoicism, of how too much pleasure can rob you of your humanity little by little.
I’m excited for the sequel! :)
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Photo by: fanoussss
STACK. I need more closet place (and time, of course!). I’ve recently added to this stack my UK version of Black Heart by Holly Black, The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen, and Eat Your Peas by Cheryl Karpen. :)
(Source: neonheartsx33, via teachingliteracy)
“I was stupid, the official descriptive phrase for happy.” — Why We Broke Up (Daniel Handler)
Choke (by susurri)
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iron-knees said: Hi Miss Airiz! :) First of all, I love your blog. I back-read alot. Haha. I just can’t help it. Your drawings and reviews are so good and skillful. You’re are so awesome! I really look up to you :D Second, I see you got a copy of Rant, I love that book. At first it was utterly confusing and a bit senseless and the story seems to go nowhere but the story is something you might not be expecting :) And lastly, is Stardust a good read? I’m planning to buy it but I’m not that sure yet :) God bless :D
Thanks a lot, Iron-Knees! (And so sorry for the late response!) I appreciate it so much. :) I’ll keep in mind what you said about Rant! Stardust is a good read, I guess…it’s not my favorite Neil Gaiman book, but it’s up there in my top Victorian-themed fantasy/fairytale novels. God bless you, too!
lazyhazystar said: (a) Hi :) I just want to say that you are one of my favorite bloggers of all time and that I enjoy every thing you post, especially your book reviews. I absolutely adore them. They way you write a review is really- insightful. You don’t know this but I actually read all of your reviews in your wordpress blog. And that I’m actually jealous of you having read and acquired so many books. Hahaha. I’m one of your fans ^^
I’m really sorry for this late reply, I hope you’re still there! Thank you so much, appreciation of my fellow bookworms like you just keep me coming back to blog here (although, yeah, my updates have been seldom the past few weeks). And oh, my wordpress! What’s your account there? I only use it as a mirror site for my blogspot but I may as well connect with you there, too. :) *hugs*
(b) Hey ate Airiz :D Is it okay for me to add you on goodreads? ^^ thanks!
SURE (yay, and I have another little sister here haha!) Do add me!
(c) I miss your posts :((
I’m so sorry, I’ll make it a point to post more in the next few days. :((
thegirlwhocriedraindrops said: Can you post a recent picture of yourself, or send me one? I’m blogging about my favorite bloggers and you’re one of them. :)
Sure! Thank you! :) Here’s one from the Philippine Fashion Week, taken a couple of nights ago.
Hope you don’t mind the semi-awkward pose.But… I’m a book blogger, so maybe it will be more appropriate if you just pick from my GPOY pool? The recent ones are posted here. Up to you. :)
abandonedmarionette said (a): Hello! I was wondering where you bought Numbers by Rachel Ward? It’s just that I have a hard time finding a paperback copy. Thanks. :)
I got it from Fully Booked, SM North EDSA. :) You can just email them about it and they’ll find a copy for you and send it to the nearest FB branch to you. :)
(b) Hello, I hope you don’t mind but I tagged you in this post. If you have the time and if it’s not bothering you, I hope you can answer the questions I’ve made for you! :) Thank you.
Sure, I will! Thanks, it’s sorta sweet. :)
gottabeki said: hey. i like your style. you’ll do great.
Hey! Thank you. :)
unbreakablebyu said: your blog is super-duper awesome! i love your book reviews anyways. i just hope i can buy— those books’ (sigh)
THANK YOU SO MUCH. :)
Responses to my BOOKSTACK POST:
uhohohno said: I really liked Rant. A friend told me that she was disappointed with a lot of Palahniuk’s work after Fight Club, and that Rant was the most engaging of all his post-FC stuff. I really wouldn’t know because I’ve only read the two, but I want to see for myself. You seem to be a fan. Which of his other books would you recommend? I have Non-Fiction, Lullaby and Choke.
I’ve not read a lot of CP books, but so far—minus Rant—my favorite is Diary. :)
cheshire-kat-95 said: The Night Circus is a work of art. It was masterfully written—just be careful you pay attention to the dates, times, and places at the beginning of the chapters, or you may get a bit lost.
kebe said: Night Circus! Pandemonium! Divergent! Not-so-good reviews about The Future of Us but *shrugs.* Haven’t read it; will wait for your reviews!
leysritt14 said: I’ve read Divergent and it was… disappointing. I had too many problems with it :( I don’t know how you’ll find it though. I hope you’ll like it better than I did.
ilovekashilario said: I’ve also read a few good reviews regarding “The Night Circus” but I have yet to have my own copy. Please do post a review soon!
almostandrea said: Rant is fantastic! You won’t be disappointed. I’ve also read some other Mareen Johnson books, and they were pretty good. Happy reading!
bookidentity said: Cinder was awesome but I am really into both fairytales and scifi, though I was disappointed that it was first in a series. Numbers I didn’t expect to like - I picked it up in the store but promptly sat down and read the whole thing. Very absorbing.
a-bendable-light said: Rant is great! And The Name of the Star was pretty good!
xoxoreia said: divergent was okay. i didn’t really get as wrapped up in it as I was with hunger games. maybe it’s because i had such high expectations. still want to read the sequel, insurgent, though. :D can’t wait for your review. :)
waywornwanderer said: Divergent is just great. Haha. Out of words, sleepy. :)
Thank you so much, guys! Your opinions helped me a bit on what to expect before cracking all these books open. I’ll share to you my views once I finish them! Again, thanks! Especially to those who understood how my offline life seems to devour so much of my time lately. I love you, guys! :)
Let the rumpus start…in heaven. Rest in peace, Maurice Sendak. :(
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You might smack me with all the redundant intro’s but—I’m still sorry for all the sparse updates! A flurry of (non-work and work-related) events are taking over my life lately and they are eager to pull me away from my online havens. Not from my books, though! To join my other babies (which I know were silently whimpering for the lengthy week of ‘abandonment’ I just did to them) are these:
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk. I think I need a dose of Palahniuk’s trademark mind-squeeze-inducing stories, I terribly miss it. :) I think this one’s about a serial killer.
Less than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis. My first of Ellis, lots of people are shooing me away from this for some reason—and it’s not that it’s a badly written book. Anyhoo, I decided to try it. USA Today said it’s The Catcher in the Rye of the MTV generation—we’ll see about that. From Amazon: Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980’s, this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age, in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money a place devoid of feeling or hope.
Divergent by Veronica Roth. Finally.
Numbers by Rachel Ward. I like the premise of this book, even if (or especially because?) it sounded a lot like Death Note. After her mom’s death, the girl protagonist can see the dates predicting deaths of people with brute accuracy—when she looks them in the eye.
Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver. Sequel to the dystopian love story Delirium. Hope it’s better than the first book!
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson. This is going to be my first MJ novel. I bet it would be nothing like her awesome shorts! It’s a thriller set in London, full of humor, suspense…and ghosts. :)
Cinder by Marissa Meyer. Everybody knows I love fairytale reimaginings. Meyer offers the world one of her own, with a cyborg Cinderella in the forefront. How. Can. I. Say. No. To. This?! I hope Cinderella is not a damsel in distress in this one. :D
The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler. Ah, I love time-bending tales. Two youngsters could mysteriously see their future—spouses, careers, status updates—in Facebook, at a time when Facebook was not even invented yet. “As they grapple with the ups and downs of what their lives hold, they’re forced to confront what they’re doing right—and wrong—in the present.” Sounds promising. :)
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Been hearing a lot of good things about this book! Chris Schluep’s blurb says, “Erin Morgenstern’s dark, enchanting debut takes us to the black and white tents of Le Cirque des Reves, a circus that arrives without warning, simply appearing when yesterday it was not there. Young Celia and Marco have been cast into a rivalry at The Night Circus, one arranged long ago by powers they do not fully understand. Over time, their lives become more intricately enmeshed in a dance of love, joy, deceit, heartbreak, and magic.”
Anyone who’ve read these? Thoughts?
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(via dannytrinket)
