Glamorama

Rating:
Summary: UH, I don't get it...
Review: \Ok, well I have only read two of Ellis's books, but I must say that juxtaposed with American Psycho, Glamorama was horrible. What I got from American Psycho was its hidden commentary with 80s American culture. Ok, I can handle that, what I got from Glamorama was gratuitous... and violence scenes that did not really aid in developing the characters or story line in the slightest. Now, call me ignorant, but I really didn't see the hidden message of this book. What I found was a very different view of Ellis and his work that I had before reading Glamorama and only reading American Psycho. I enjoyed American Psycho; he really did capture the insane lament of Patrick Bateman. Then I read Glamorama. I found the story line confusing and to the point of frustration I continually questioned, what is Ellis's point? I suppose that his works are intriguing and have the guise of the contemporary genius's view on life and human interactions, but I definitely did not feel more enriched after reading this book. And that's all I have to say about that... THANK YOU!

Rating:
Summary: Yet another masterpiece by Ellis!
Review: After reading the other four Ellis novels I decided to dig into his fifth novel Glamorama. In Glamorama the title character Victor Ward or if you read Attraction Victor Johnson is a semi-famous model in New York. It is the night before the biggest club opening in New York history. Well this is how the first couple hundred pages are. All about those two days. The future how ever appears to have a cruise ship, conspricies, double agents, terriosm, murder, but through all of this is that dark black humor, Ellis is so foundly known for. This book is a masterpiece I decided to give you a short summary of the novel rather then a review, but since I am here. I might as well tell you why I gave this book the highest rating of a five. This novel is another beauitful satire on our American consumer culture, our infatuation with celebrities, and our flat out sindonistic ignorance. Ellis is a man of pure genious. His novels are some of the best in history. This one is a true American classic, and one that everyone should read. Hey maybe then this country might change it's ways; just a little. Well peace for now, and good luck with this one, it's symbolic in so many ways just like I was. Later.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant
Review: This is the best book I have ever read. It was so out of control and engrossing I couldn't stop reading it. The confusion, heathenism, specs and stench is all too much.

Rating:
Summary: Please, Spare Me...
Review: 'The tyranny of beauty', says Bret Ellis in an interview, is played off against 'the tyranny of terrorism'...like, please, baby, spare me! Elsewhere he complains of our age's obsession with celebrity, but when asked why he thinks this has arisen, he limply offers an 'I don't know'. One begins to suspect that here we have a satirist almost as shallow as his subject matter, or at least one content to laugh at 'the surface of things'.
*
For half its length 'Glamorama' amounts to a comedy of manners, enhanced by Ellis's ear for dialogue and his, rather surprising, virtuosity in shaping the word surface. There are sentences that have you riding along merrily, enjoying their rhythm and their unexpected twists and turns. Whole scenes crackle with a light-hearted energy. Ellis cites Don Delillo as an influence, but the music in his language seems more indebted to Updike and others. This makes for an entertaining read...up to a point.
*
There is a much-noted rupture half way through the book, and initially I took this to be the protagonist's fall into insanity - specifically, a drug induced psychosis. Such an interpretation appeared foreshadowed by earlier references to hallucinatory perceptions - ice, as perhaps a sign of the pervasive lack of human warmth, and confetti, evoking weddings and possibly ironically suggesting that such commitment would be impossible in the superficial milieu depicted. Of course, psychosis would be, in a sense, too obvious a move, and the book complicates such a reading, until it is virtually untenable. But to take events, such as ex-models turning to unmotivated terrorism and gratuitous torture and murder, as actually real...well, it's so unbelievable as to be uninteresting. Worse yet, there are pathetic attempts to 'explain' all these ridiculous goings on by gesturing towards internal American politics and geopolitics - these gestures are crude, inconsistent, and more befuddling than explanatory. Ellis's interviews are readily available on the web, and unfortunately he confides that plot or, as he prefers to term it, 'narrative' was one of his central concerns in 'Glamorama' - he wants the second half of the book to work as a plot-driven thriller. I'm afraid he's no James Ellroy.
*
The length of the book also betrays another weakness - Ellis's shallow rendition of shallow characters. The protagonist, Victor, may be superficial, but the reader's understanding of him need not be. Ellis does not render him with enough depth or nuance to afford us understanding, and so Victor is denied both our empathy and our sympathy. The minor characters are even more weakly drawn. The homosexual male characters are little more than bundles of stereotypical traits, and meagre bundles at that. The female characters leave Candace Bushnell looking like a latter-day Shakespeare - many are indistinguishable. The villains of the piece are pure cardboard.
*
Despite all these shortcomings, the book proved disturbing for me. The sense of disorientation and impending disaster created from around half way in to three quarters, was impressive and distressing. Victor, desperate for somebody to trust, finds he can trust no-one, including himself. His predicament approached poignancy, only to be scuttled by the aforementioned absurd 'plot'.
*
It might also be surmised that economic concerns prompted the inclusion of some of Ellis's 'signiatures', namely, several pornographic sex scenes and grotesque descriptions of torture and violence. The sex in the early chapters is quite skilfully rendered, with little hint of embarrassment in the narrator's tone; later, it (along with the book in general) becomes laboured and ungainly in tone. The violence harks back to 'American Psycho', but here seems to have been forced into proceedings. Controversy, I'm sure Ellis realises, sells units.
*
By book's end, I did not think that Ellis fathomed any of his characters. Any questions raised by the book were not going to be answered within the bounds of its pages. So I looked for insights in his interviews. None were to be found, instead my impression was extended - Ellis does not appear to fathom his own character, nor his strengths and weaknesses as a writer.
*
I would not recommended this book, since I feel its virtues (humour, wordplay, and the depiction of a drug-addled state of mind) are outweighed by its confusions, the result being ultimately unsatisfying. If someone commends it to you, I suggest you ask them why, and plead for detail, since being told 'it's funny', or 'it's really dark', is really not much of a guide.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe you missed the point.......
Review: After reading the many reveiws bashing this book and dismissing it for "having no plot" or being "severly disjointed", I felt the need to put in a few good words for poor Mr Ellis. I feel some of these reveiwers have missed the point. The point being that there is no point---if you can follow that. The protaganist, Victor Ward and his deviant cohorts are simply props in Ellis' satire of the celebrity obsessed society that we live in. He shows his thorough understanding of the topic with his irreverent, witty dialogue, and his ludicrous storyline. Yes, Ellis is an acquired taste...but if you start off small with maybe Less Than Zero--my personal favorite--and work your way up to Glamorama, I truly beleive that you will learn to appreciate his obsessive attention to detail and long run on sentences. It is Ellis' unique style that makes his books so intruiging. Nowhere else have I found the dark poignant nihilism that fills the pages of Ellis' novels. If you like that kind of thing, then by all means read Glamorama, because Ellis is this genre's master and this is his masterpeice.

Rating:
Summary: I have never read a more pointless book
Review: I read the Amazon reviews and synopsis of Glamorama and picked it up expecting a good read. I have honestly never read a more pointless book in my life. This novel had so much potential, and Ellis just threw it all away. He created a protagonist too stupid and annoying to grab you. And because the character is too stupid and high to notice anything that goes on around him, you miss tons of possible storylines and character development. The main character's self absorbtion and stupidity made me almost physically ill. Ellis took a subject matter that could have been used to create a great social satire and instead used it to create more manufactured and movie ready tripe. Skip this one, unless you dislike thinking for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Weird, But Great
Review: Yes, this book is about international supermodel terrorists (the same idea, you might notice, poked fun at by Ben Stiller in Zoolander... except in Glamorama it's no joke). As rediculous as that sounds, it works in Glamorama. And even if the idea doesn't provoke you, there is so much more to this book that it almost doesn't matter.

The beginning, about 100 pages taking place in Manhatten in the 90s in which the main character is enjoying being the "It Boy" of the moment, is important. If you don't like that, don't give up yet, because what follows is not light-hearted at all.

The rest of the book is intense and at points confusing. However, every word is more intriguing then the last. Even if the book isn't fun to read, you will want to know what happens so badly that you will blow off your homework or job to finish it. Even after racing through hundreds of pages, you won't know what happens... well ever. Although in the last hundred or so pages of the book, questions do get answered, it seems that every answer in this book leads to more questions. Some parts of this book are just downright bazaar and its last few pages are vague. However, after racing through those pages until the last I realized that I did enjoy everyone of those pages even if I'm dying to have lunch with Bret Easton Ellis just to beg him to answer my million questions.

Rating:
Summary: "Frantic and Rivetting"
Review: This book was incredible. I bought this book blind (not recommended by anyone) because I liked the cover. It was great reading. Ellis' writing is hard to follow and the story goes all over the place, but that's just a reflection of the story itself and the characters - everything is nuts. You never really know what's going so it keeps you on the edge of your seat. This may be difficult to swallow for readers who like worlds that are orderly and make sense - which this story does not most of the time. It was crazy and I loved it! Ellis' is smart but not intellectual. Can't wait for another great Ellis read.

Rating:
Summary: Wow, so boring...
Review: It took me months to finish this book, it was so boring. I had to read other books for fun while I read it, but forced myself to read Glamorama, just to finish it. I love all the other B.E.Ellis books, but this one killed me. Don't waste your time, there are plenty of other good books out there.

Rating:
Summary: The best American novel of the last 10 years
Review: Glamorama is easily Ellis' best novel yet. He has created a great character in Victor Ward, and even though I hated his guts I couldn't help but want things to turn out ok for him, but this is a Bret Easton Ellis novel, and "redemption" never comes easily!!! The name dropping and pop culture references are very entertaining and the plot leaves some huge holes that allow the reader to plug in their own conclusions with a little work, which is very rewarding. The way Glamorama so rapidly changes tone is genius, and you feel as hopeless as Victor when he's pulled from his NY fashion model world into...something else!! Highly recommended, a brillant commentary on both fashion and terrorism, two topics I never realized had something in common....