Rating: 
Summary: The Rules of Attraction
Review: Sean Bateman, Lauren Hynde and Paul Denton are entangled in a romantic triangle, although debaucherie describe their relationship a lot better than romance
The Rules of Attraction provides a slice of college life in the late 80s where heroine and homosecuality pours over an east coast liberal arts college
The writing is real crude, I do love how events are related through the perspectives of all the protagonists, although I wish it limited itself to only the 3 main characters
Ellis has unique insight into how a generation of young adults is going through the motion, with no goals and even less morals.. do they represent our society today?
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing
Review: this book is by far one of the most amazing books i have ever read. this book truly captures the true emotions of each character. it shows their weakness and wants. One might think this book centers around Sean or even lauren but after reading the book and watching the movie i have found that the books is about the one leaving the notes in sean's mailbox and who we read and find out ultimatly kills herself. the other characters are mainly only fillers. the book starts and ends mid sentence to show that the book was never really about them. one most look beyond the words to understand this book. a most read for all
Rating:
Summary: "Full of precisely observed life..."
Review: Those are the words I believe Arthur Mizener used to describe F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel "The Beautiful and Damned". Indeed there are a lot of similarities between Ellis and Fitzgerald. Both achieved success as writers at a very young age with novels that were essentially about spoiled rich kids. Ellis, like his forbear Fitzgerald, is fascinated by the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Fitzgerald was also looked down upon by the literati, who acknowledged that he had potential, but never really bothered to give his work the attention that it deserved because of their own prejudices. It wasn't until long after Fitzgerald left this world, and his work was examined by disinterested critics who cared about the writing more than the man, that works like "The Great Gatsby" and "Tender Is the Night" were canonized.
I can't spell out the similarities and their implications any better than that. Ellis is the heir to F. Scott Fitzgerald, whether you like it or not. No one else writes more accurately and accessibly about the youth and what Hegel would call the "spirit" of the age, the consciousness of a people. I am amazed at how Ellis managed to write such a heartfelt multi-faceted campus novel in his early twenties. One often thinks that writers need to be significantly removed from subjects and experieces before they can write about them. We tend to think of this in terms of age. With this balanced, multi-faceted novel Ellis demonstrated that age is not necessarily an pre-requisite of distance.
I have not read any other novel that has more accurately portrayed what it's like to attend a small liberal arts college in New England. It's easy for me to see how this novel is such an accomplishment, because it jibes with my own experiences. Ellis perfectly captured the circulairty, exhibitionism, and solipsism of small college life, and he did it with remarkable panache--the structure and form give nods to the modernist stylings of Faulkner and Joyce.
However, Rules of Attraction does have its problems. Ellis' vision wasn't quite as developed as it purportedly is now. Like many early novels by young, talented writers it contains a cynical, anti-heroic conception of the world. It's as if Ellis was trying to rewrite The Sun Also Rises for the kids of the '80s. But this is one of the primary limits of satire, a form that Ellis has mastered. One cannot present a strong life-affirming vision in a world that cripples or crushes the human potential for heroic action. Taken as a whole this point becomes less significant since the novel is episodic and thus impressionistic, or more than the sum of its parts. Ellis came very close to accentuating and celebrating the human in this one, but he could have done better. Either way, this Ellis novel is worth the time and patience of serious readers, despite what the pretentious gatekeepers at the kingdom of high culture may want you to believe.
Rating:
Summary: My Take on the Rules of Attraction
Review: Recently, I was speaking with two friends independently about The Rules of Attraction. One friend loved the book the other friend hated it. The friend that loved the book is the friend that recommended it to me in the first place. The friend that hated the book said that she could not get past the horrible people within the book. Girls gang-banging the entire football team, people treating abortions like they're having a mole removed, the rampant homophobia by some of the characters, the angry almost anti-woman ravings in some places, and the lack of concern by every character about anything or anyone other than themselves.
I went into reading The Rules of Attraction after having seen the film version. To sound nearly cliché, the book was certainly better than the film. For starters, the connection between the Bateman brothers makes more sense--as both books take place in the 1980s. Additionally, the attitude and the feel within the book of the carefree college days of the 1980s when sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll were not only unsafe, but when recklessness was encouraged. A big fan of various tapes and bottles of Beck's, I am still left feeling a bit unconnected a large number of the characters. Sean is kind of a putz and not nearly as cool as his homicidal brother. Lauren is, well, she's a word the folks here at Amazon probably won't let me use. Paul is still delusional--and yet probably the most normal of the principal characters--and Victor is still, well, Victor.
My favorite scene in the book is without question the scene that was not changed in the slightest when TROA made its film debut: when Richard "DICK!!" Jared, Paul, and their mothers sit down to dinner.
All in all, I can agree with both of my friends. One was right that this is a great book & completely worth the short time it took to read it, and the other was just as correct as the characters are very shallow and unlikable. However, to me that's one of this book's great successes. Ellis MEANT for his characters to be flawed, selfish, and reckless--like most exciting people I knew in college were... whether I liked them or not.
Rating:
Summary: Before Patrick, there was...
Review: Sean.Then, Paul, Lauren, Victor, etc... Following in the footsteps of 'Less Than Zero', Ellis brings us to another dark area, college. The lavish lifestyles, if that could only be so true, of Hollywood are much different here, in Camden. The book contorts with drugs, sex, homosexuality, etc. The writing is that of an odd collection of journal samples and interviews. Continuing with the first person, references to culture, etc...Ellis has us wanting more and more. Looking to the next page, to find out the differences in one character or another. We become addicted, not too far from reality television, as we need to know what each character is doing next. Using risque sequences, Ellis pulls us in, even further. But, in a way, as we read, we become victims ourselves. The book's central purposes are gossip, lust, anger, and self improvement. In a way, self improvement is the key measure, but with a twist. I won't reveal, that's for the reader. I did enjoy this book, a lot better than Less Than Zero, but not as much as American Psycho. I have yet to read The Informers or Glamorama. Anyway, this book is a fine production. In the realm of teenage angst, or should I say, youth problems, this takes the cake. You see people read sappy novels day after day, well, this is one of them, but realistic in a sense that, every bad thing that could happen, is pulled together. If I haven't convinced you, then I succeeded, because this is a book you don't just pick up and want to read, to read. It's a book you need to take the time to read, because you really do become in depth with the characters and there are so many things happening, you need to correlate, well. Rules of Attraction is very odd, and the movie is a mild exposure.
|
