What in the flying fuck? I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that i never ever want to be left in a room alone with Bret Easton Ellis. He is probably one of those people that gets really close while he's talking to you and as you inch away he just keeps getting closer and maybe touches you on the arm as you start to panic about how fucking creepy he is and how he just might rape you. Also, the intensity of his loathing toward rich people is a little annoying.
The book started off painfully slowly, taking probably more than 1/3 of the whole 546 pages to pretty much just rattle off a bunch of celebrity names and designer brands. I know I know, this is supposed to be effective satire about consumerism and money and blah blah but I'm pretty sure that could be done much quicker than Ellis felt necessary. On top of that, the complicated "set-up" type story, nor the whole concept of real life vs. film production is never effectively explained and it just seems like a vague idea that Ellis never cared to tighten. He was probably too busy finding more celebrity names to mention.
Ellis is as showy as Andy Warhol, without the talent. At least the artist's aesthetic had intent and cultivated style. Maybe then, he is more like Koons, who pretty much everyone that went to art school looks down upon. I bet you his favorite word is juxtaposition.
I tried to get an explanation for what I obviously must have been missing, but anyone who gave this book praise didn't really have any reasoning and just said that it changed their lives...which is funny, because it just makes them sound like posers, which this book is supposed to be speaking out against.
Anyway, this review does much better than I could do, so pretty much just read this instead of getting the very little information that I can provide: http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/01/24/reviews/990124.24mendelt.html
"I can't imagine that anyone actually enjoys these torturous novels -- except, perhaps, the people whom the books clandestinely celebrate, the actor-models and model-writers and celebrity-editors and their gang. But then, Ellis has become a sort of hip brand-name label in the publishing world, and people go in for him precisely for the reasons they might go in for a $300 Helmut Lang plain cotton shirt: It's so outrageous they assume there has to be something to it. But there isn't. The emperor has no clothes, designer or otherwise."
I couldn't (obviously) have said it better myself, NYTimes.
