Less Than Zero in Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Dec 30, 2015 Arukiyomi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books

Written when he was just 21, Easton Ellis, made quite an impression on the literary scene with this tale of the morally impoverished youth of wealthy Los Angeles. In it, he warms himself up for his later portrayals of 1980s USAnia in Glamorama and, most spectacularly, American Psycho.

Easton Ellis is an important novelist because he does what the archetypical novelist should: use the art form to leave humanity with an impression of itself that later generations could never do.

In the very prose he ...more

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Feb 18, 2018 Tiffany rated it it was ok

Shelves: movies, 1001-books, 1001-books__fromlist

Okay, so I've read two different places (in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die book and in a description of this book) that this is like The Catcher in the Rye for the '80s.

...

hmmm...

On the one hand, I see the disaffected youth, unhappy with life and sort of "What does it all mean?" And to be honest, I've never completely understood the big deal about The Catcher in the Rye, so maybe this is on the same level, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's trying too hard. Maybe the people who compar Okay, so I've read two different places (in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die book and in a description of this book) that this is like The Catcher in the Rye for the '80s.

...

hmmm...

On the one hand, I see the disaffected youth, unhappy with life and sort of "What does it all mean?" And to be honest, I've never completely understood the big deal about The Catcher in the Rye, so maybe this is on the same level, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's trying too hard. Maybe the people who compare the two just see two young men who are unhappy with their lives, and figure "Ah ha! They're the same!"

And I get the "for the '80s" part: there are a lot of references to MTV (especially turning on MTV and just staring at it, and oftentimes even having it muted), and the drugs and lifestyles of the L.A. rich kids of the '80s, and the materialism of the '80s, and the sexual freeness of the youth of the '80s. But... I feel like that's trying too hard, too. I feel like Ellis just kind of threw in EVERYTHING he could about the '80s. "Hey, MTV is big! Let's include that! Hey, Duran Duran is big! Let's name them! La Scala Boutique is fancy; let's throw that in! Drugs! Those are cool! Let's name every single one we can think of! And having sex with lots of people, from both sexes! That's in!" And everyone is too cool to take off their sunglasses. I can't read more than a couple of pages before I get "Sunglasses at Night" stuck in my head.

I just don't really feel like, for a book that's supposedly *saying something*, that this book is really saying anything. Other than, maybe, "Boy, life as a rich kid sucks." Parents suck, parents are out of touch, parents are also wasted; siblings suck, siblings are also wasted. And maybe that's what Ellis is trying to say: being a rich L.A. kid in the mid-80s sucks. Toward the end of the book, though, he does really hit hard with the underlying theme of everyone being disconnected and out of touch; no one connects with anyone else on a deep level, and everyone is lonely. There's a feeling of desperation in everyone and their actions; the word "unfulfilled" pops up in the next-to-last page, and yes, that's what this book is about, I think: everyone is unfulfilled. EVERYONE. ...more

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