Thu, 01 Nov 2007
Ellis Lunar
Brett Easton Ellis, Lunar Park,
Picador
This has been out for a while now - in
hardback since 2005 apparently, but the
paperback hasn't really been a presence on
shelves until quite recently.
As far as we were concerned, Less than
Zero was still it - a not so nice invocation
of nihilistic L.A. with the appropriate
soundtrack of the Bangles... appropriate
because the B's really didn't have all that
much to say whereas the likes of X had
plenty on their mind. Or even the idea of
MTV going eternally with the sound off! Nice
one.
Some years later, and after four further
critically acclaimed novels, comes this one,
Lunar Park. It is purportedly his story,
even though it is billed as a novel. His
story, as a celebrity author, involves much
in the way of drugs, alcohol, lost moments,
emotional distances, and detailed descriptions
of surrounding objects.
Not much distance at all from Less than
Zero, you might say but this is different as
some sort of redemption is being attempted
along the thing strewn way. It is very
readable in a sort of voyeuristic way but the
self-referentiality of it all is a bit, well,
nauseating - like a media event where all the
media get together and pretend they're
somehow important and introduce each other as
if they represent something far beyond their
actual occurence.
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pre Dec 04 reviews are here