for the past 4 years, my main interest has been bret easton ellis's novels. also for the past 4 years, i have been "enrolled" in university. it's now my final semester (god i hope it is) and as graduation nears, i can't help but want to look back at the stories that have accompanied me along the way ... and perhaps say goodbye to them, finally?

how i was introduced to them

i was introduced to ellis through likely the same way everyone born past 2000 was, through the american psycho movie. it's funny actually. before watching the movie, american psycho, patrick bateman, christian bale- anything to do with it was completely non-existent to me. i wasn't even aware of the business card scene. i mean i must have been, but before that it was likely just another internet meme to me

though i'm now convinced that american psycho is more of a christmas movie than anything, i watched it on halloween with a friend. at that point, maybe only a few days prior, an awareness was beginning to grow. gifsets of the movie were being passed around on tumblr and i thought it was all hilarious. and yep, i laughed throughout the whole movie, especially at the part where patrick is sitting in a cab with evelyn, and puts on his headphones in a desperate attempt to ignore her .....

obviously, i was hooked. there was something about it that felt very ... real? personal? to me. at the time i could only identify that it was patrick's enjoyment of music that spoke to me, but there was definitely more to it. the months afterwards were blurry. for non-american psycho reasons, it was a difficult time. sometimes i joke that i'm trauma bonded with patrick bateman, but i really don't know if i would have been as curious as i was if i wasn't at a vulnerable point in life

anyways, the rabbit hole went like this

i somehow stumbled upon the american psycho emails and thought it would be the best way to delve in. if i liked the emails, i would probably like the novel. ...i liked the emails. i read the novel. i moved onto his other novels, reread some, and eventually finished reading them all (except white, um, i'm not very interested in what he has to say there)

if you aren't familiar with ellis's writing, he pretty much only writes about himself. i guess that's what i recognized in the movie. all the thoughts and "feelings" were all his and they felt deeply familiar to me. it's somewhat embarrassing. i've never been able to personally identify with art like this. i'm still a little surprised while writing this, like am i sure? as if the past 4 years haven't been enough evidence, ha-ha-ha

i've thought a lot about his work. put together little theories and analyses, just because i think they're so interesting and not talked about enough. i mean, sure, for american psycho you have the movie and a lot of people have read the novel, but there's still so many little details that are so fascinating to me that i never see talked about or written down anywhere

and, oh boy, doesn't that apply to my favorite novel of his, glamorama. no movie, no recognition, no NOTHING... which is crazy, because it's on par with american psycho?! but i'll get onto that later. ☝

general thoughts on the novels

less than zero/the rules of attraction

these are very meh to me. i mean i love the rules of attraction, and less than zero is just OK, but compared to the rest of the repertoire, they just aren't my favorites. but they are the foundation for the rest of his work and that has to be respected, at least a little

i'm trying to avoid saying it but, fuck. american psycho and the other novels all take place within the Ellisverse (i really really hate that name), and characters sometimes have mini cameos later down the line. THIS is where it gets you, i swear to god, all the references ("disappear here", anyone?) and characters just make it so fun and worthwhile to look into his stuff. everyone's favorite murderboy, patrick bateman, actually debuts in the rules of attraction ...

american psycho

what is there to say about this that hasn't been said already? just kidding. soooooo much

the main appeal of ellis is how compelling, believable his first person narratives are. i've once said that they're true to life. i think it's what helped fuel the initial outrage against the book. if we could know each other's thoughts, it would not only be maddening, but boring as fuck, honestly. what you're getting with american psycho is patrick's unfiltered thoughts, all the ugly and "wrong" but also sometimes the "too real"... it's the only novel to make me feel as if i was in direct conversation with it

what also helps is that it's also really funny. i'm sure it helps everything go down better, at least for me it does (i sincerely believe the worst chapter, as in the worst to get through, is the chapter where he lists off the recording equipment he ordered. some dread the rat, the torture, but please don't ever make me read that fucking list again)

the informers

a collection of short stories. really only here for the sake of completion. i remember liking it. this is also marks the end of the novels that have been adapted to movies

glamorama

.......... oh boy. that's twice i've said it now. here's a third: oh boy.

i HATED this on first read (but to be fair i wasn't really the most clearheaded while reading it, i'm sure it's still fine even on the first read). now that i've started with that sentence, you know where this is going.

yeah. sigh. i love it. yeah. it's my favorite ellis. whatever. (i guess at this point, i huff and puff and kick at the ground, all embarrassed and the like). right before my second read, i distinctly remember having a hard time falling asleep, just staring at the wall, thinking, "i have no fucking clue what happened in glamorama" (this meant it's time for a reread)

glamorama is a showcase of my favorite quality in ellis's stories: diction. i've always been a firm believer in the importance of *how* you say things, so to have an entire novel basically dedicated to it. dear god. sometimes i think the english language came together just for this to all work

all these stories have the same layers that come with having unreliable narrators, but somehow, glamorama takes it further. layers and layers and layers

one of my favorite things to do with this novel is compare the narrator, victor ward, to patrick bateman because glamorama not only exists because of american psycho, but is a continuation, sometimes even a heightened version of its themes. and by doing this, i realized that while patrick bateman is honest as he can be in his narration (when he lies to the reader, he's also lying to himself), victor is a LIAR - which is a surprise if you know him! victor, known to be honest to a fault, almost never shares his real thoughts with the reader. "liar" isn't the exact term, he's more of a concealer, but still

a quote from glamorama:

I have so many little theories. I’m still piecing together clues—there’s only a blueprint, there’s only an outline—and sometimes they come together, but only when I’m drinking from a cold, syrupy bottle of Sambuca.

like... you know!?? here he tells us he has theories, but will we ever know them? uh, because of a few other reasons, no, but also because he never tells us anything. and god do i love the extra amount of confusion this brings in addition to an already confusing story

but, OK. i'm going off on a tangent here. all you have to know is that glamorama is PEAK!!!!!!

lunar park

the big secret in patrick bateman's lore, in which he becomes a real, but mostly fake, dude. if that even makes sense. this also marks the end of ellis's "fictional" world. anything from lunar park takes onwards takes place in "the real world" and previous novels exist as just novels in them, meaning that american psycho is just a book here

if ellis stopped writing here, it would have been a perfect finish. it's him finally acknowledging everything and references all of his previous stories.... but, um, well, the list goes on. oh well! lunar park is still really fucking awesome!

what i most enjoyed about lunar park was how fake, but real everything is. a metafiction novel was a perfect fit in his repertoire because all of his stories have always been about the Fake. a fake wife, son, daughter, to represent his complicated relationship to his ultimately fake character, patrick bateman? so, so good

imperial bedrooms

if glamorama was considered a commercial flop, i have no idea what this one is (but i could be wrong, but only because nobody talks about it lol). despite it being pretty ass, i kind of love it and lovingly refer to it as IBS. it was the most exhausting one to get through and i ended up starting and finishing crime and punishment while reading this because it's that rough

supposedly it was supposed to be a romance novel but ellis got his heart broken or something, so it turned into this. my poor girl rain. you deserved so much more

the shards

ellis once said that the shards was an "ellis novel for people who don't like ellis." and he was right, because i didn't really like it that much! it had a neat gimmick and somewhat interesting dynamics, but it was way too long.

onwards

it's tragic that the list peaks in the middle and sort of ends at a crawl, but what can you do. i enjoyed them all to an extent and i'm still looking forward to whatever he publishes next, if he ever decides to

its been a wonderful 4 years of having these books by my side. i'll love them forever even though they have probably left a permanent scar on my brain. but that's what good fiction does to you, right? right, guys? hahaha......

i'm thankful that they somehow, magically, through coincidence, came to me during the start of "university" because i can easily say goodbye to them and not drag this out forever and ever for the rest of my life. maybe it's silly because they're just books, but i've read them all, thought about them all so much, and it's just time to move on. there are so many more things out there than this

that being said, if anyone out there ever wants to talk about these stories, feel free to reach out through neocities or email me!

anyways, i'll end this the only way i know how: with a playlist. yep, this was all just a way to promote my glamorama inspired playlist- haha! (jk i am just really bad at ending posts)

thank you for reading... 💛