Novel – 450 pages – my copy (paperback) bought from Waterstone’s on its paperback release in 2006
#52 of 2011-12 / #173 of All Time
- 4 nods out of 5 -
‘Hadn’t you once wanted to “see the worst”? the writer asked me.
Didn’t you once write that somewhere?
I might have. But I don’t want to anymore.
It’s too late, the writer said.’
Regular readers of this blog will by now realise the Worm’s attachment to the work of Bret Easton Ellis. Seemingly derided and applauded in equal measure, over the past three book-reading seasons the Worm has read three of Mr Ellis’ novels: his debut, Less Than Zero; his troublesome second novel, The Rules of Attraction; and his latest output, Imperial Bedrooms (see below for links to these reviews). With the current book-reading season soon coming to a close, the Worm could hear the gasps of a year spent without another Ellis review. But have no fear, Lunar Park is here.
Despite the Worm’s fondness for Ellis’s narrative style, previous reviews have been less than generous. Less Than Zero limped in with a severe 2 nods (something the Worm expresses regret about; surely a stable 3 nodder; although the concluding review comment was a supportive ‘Well worth the read’), whilst the other two novels hardly set this blog or the readers’ eyes on fire: and the Worm quotes himself on Imperial Bedrooms ‘a book of obvious limitations’; and on The Rules of Attraction a book best ‘left alone’. But Lunar Park is a different quantity altogether.
The novel is about the very writer himself, albeit in a parodied and hyped up version of himself. The first 50 pages surround his excess throughout the champagne days of the 1980s and 1990s: ‘There was also the money problem – I didn’t have any. I had blown it all. On what? Drugs. Parties that cost $50,000. Drugs. Girls who wanted to be taken to Italy, Paris, London, St. Barts. Drugs. A Prada wardrobe. A new Porsche. Drugs.’ Whilst there are humourus (fictionalised?) anecdotes from his Glamorama book tour: ‘E-mail memo #6: “15 miles southwest of Detroit writer was found hiding in back of stalled van on the median of a divided highway, picking at nonexistent scabs”…. E-mail memo #9: “Somehow writer has been tear gassed at anti-globalization demonstration in Chicago”… E-mail memo #13: “Berkley; angry drug dealer was found choking writer due to lack of payment in alley behind Barnes & Noble”…’
Ellis lampoons his own writing style and fame when discussing his latest working novel, Teenage Pussy. ‘Teenage Pussy would contain endless episodes of girls storming out of rooms in high-rise condos and the transcripts of cell phone conversations fraught with tension and camera crews following the main characters around as well as six or seven overdoses… There would be thousands of cosmopolitans ordered and characters camcording each other having anal sex…’ Such a description is surely the wet dream of Ellis’ legion of detractors.
This is all before he finds suburban security with a former (yes, fictionalised) lover, Jayne Dennis (Ellis even going as far as to commissioning a fake website for Dennis during the book’s initial publication). Middle age does nothing to quell Ellis’ grasp of the mania that surrounds him, especially the phobias in modern parenting and the angst of living in post 9/11 America:
‘…and there was something off about the obsession with their children that bordered on the fanatical. It wasn’t that they weren’t concerned about their kids, but they wanted something back, they wanted a return on their investment – this need was almost religious. It was exhausting to listen to and it was all so corrupt because it wasn’t making for happier children… These parents were scientists and were no longer raising their kids instinctually – everyone had read a book or watched a video or skimmed the Net to figure out what to do…. There were kids experiencing dizzy spells due to the pressure of elementary school and who were in alternative therapies, and there were ten-year-old boys with eating disorders caused by unrealistic body images. There were waiting lists filled with the names of nine-year-olds for acupuncture sessions with Dr. Wolper.’
But Lunar Park is so much more than a critique of society and culture; it is interesting in its interesting turn of events. The story becomes darker, with plot threads more akin to the genres of thriller, suspense, and horror. Such elements are rooted in American literary tradition; and nowhere more clearly than in the great work of Edgar Allan Poe: who himself had tales of disbelief, to make us question our surroundings and our selves. Ellis’ semi-autobiographical stance offers us this chance: ‘Regardless of how horrible the events described here might seem, there’s one thing you must remember as you hold this book in your hands: all of it really happened, every word is true.’
These plot strands surround a psychotic toy that kills horses, skins deer, and inserts itself into the anus of the family dog; a man who claims to be Patrick Bateman and is replicating murders from the book American Psycho; a menacing and ever present Porsche; and haunting images of his father, coming back from the dead. All of these surround Ellis’ very own neurosis and past; as Ellis writes: ‘this is what happened when you didn’t want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.’ All of this is woven into the book’s central relationship: that of father and son and grandfather; between Ellis, his father and his son – the fictional - Robby.
Yes, there are many negative features of this book: Ellis’ inability to show emotion and distress of characters other than have them cry (the fictionalised Ellis shedding tears continuously in almost every chapter in the second half of the book), as well as a sometimes awkward description style. But it is a triumph of ideas over the actual nuts and bolts of the words; as well as the author’s confronting of his own past to create a piece of work that doesn’t truly sit in any genre: fantasy, speculative, sci-fi, horror, autobiography. For this very reason, it is a book enthusiastically recommended for all readers to go out, buy and read. Step inside Mr Ellis’ world, “see the worst”, and “disappear here”.
Buy it here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lunar-Park-Bret-Easton-Ellis/dp/0330536338/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343424044&sr=8-1
Review of Less Than Zero:
http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2009/07/proto-bateman-less-than-zero-by-bret.html
Review of The Rules of Attraction:
http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2011/03/rules-of-attraction-bret-easton-ellis.html
Review of Imperial Bedrooms:
http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2010/10/imperial-bedrooms-bret-easton-ellis.html
