Bret Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero
Novel / 190 pages / First published 1985 / bought in a junk shop in Lostwihiel, Cornwall, for £2 in the summer of 2008
- 2 nods out of 5 -
Novel / 190 pages / First published 1985 / bought in a junk shop in Lostwihiel, Cornwall, for £2 in the summer of 2008
- 2 nods out of 5 -
‘Disappear here’, writes the novelist who gave us the chain-saw welding, flesh eating, prostitute slashing character that was Patrick Bateman of American Psycho. However, Less Than Zero, his very first work (written at the tender age of 19 whilst still in college), holds back on the psychotic nightmares of his later books. Instead, we are treated to a novel of isolation from the modern world: a young Patrick Bateman before he turned to the chain-saw.
It tells the story – in first person – of Clay, an eighteen year old back for Christmas in L.A. from his college on the east coast. Throughout all, he describes his disconnection with the world and those around him, even though he spends most of his time around others and at parties downing copious amounts of drugs.
There is no plot, but a constant turning of action and characters; to illustrate this, there are no chapters, but rather small snippets of paragraphs, the longest of which takes no more than 3 pages – a novel for the short attention span that was the very first MTV generation. The main characters comprise Clay’s supposed girlfriend, Blair (who has an attachment to him, something he cannot believe in himself); his vain and egotistical friend Trent (who satisfies himself by watching snuff porn movies); and his old high-school friend Julian (who is descending into a more depraved world of drugs and male prostitution).
Yet alienation is the main theme throughout all this. Despite everyone always being together, these good looking Beverly Hills 90210 types, no one feels secure; nor does anyone display their own individuality. As Clay states:
‘They all look the same: thin, tan bodies, short blond hair, blank look in the blue eyes, same empty toneless voices, and then I start to wonder if I look exactly like them. I try to forget about it and get a drink…’
Clay repeatedly looks for the bottle – or more exactly, drugs – to forget his own significance; clearly showing nihilistic tendencies. At the novel’s end, Clay leaves for college – disillusioned with the city:
‘The images I had were of people being driven mad by living in the city. Images of parents who were so hungry and unfulfilled that they ate their own children. Images of people, teenagers my own age, looking up from the asphalt and being blinded by the sun. These images stayed with me even after I left the city. Images so violent and malicious that they seemed to be my own point of reference for a long time afterwards’.
It may all seem morbid and depressing – yet it isn’t. Amongst it all is Ellis’s cutting wit. For instance, Clay sees his psychiatrist, who is only concerned about writing a screenplay with him to make it big in Hollywood, rather than help him with his problems; his younger sisters have a larger coke supply than him; friends are more concerned with what scarf they wear than discussing their futures. It is a laugh at the 1980s image conscious generation.
Unlike his later work, Less Than Zero is not a fully rounded story, more a snap-shot of troubled angst, and more than that, a snapshot of money obsessed and image conscious America in the mid-1980s. Well worth the read.
