Glamorama

Rating:
Summary: wonderful prose
Review: This was a great read. I am now going to read all of Eliis' work. I picked this book up on a lark and I couldn't put it down. Although I do agree with some of the other reviewers that this isn't a perfect novel, it certainly does have the machine-gun prose that I enjoy. Wonderful!

Rating:
Summary: another airport novel
Review: What starts as an interesting satire on celebrity culture and the shallow, amoral nature of the super-famous becomes a trashy, melodramatic airport novel. The first and only book I will read by Ellis.

Rating:
Summary: Raymond where are you
Review: Take the incoherence of a typical Raymond Chandler plot minus Chandler's magic, add all the suspense of a major golf tournament which Tiger Woods is taking part in, sprinkle occasional splurts of blood that looks like ketchup and of hard sex that looks like a porno session at the gym, and you'll get a book that does not work, just like its protagonist - idle, debauched and immensely forgettable Victor Johnson alias Ward.

Rating:
Summary: "There was no time...
Review: when you nor I nor these kings did not exist." I wonder how many people caught that. I'm not sure if Ellis did himself.

It seems that Ellis is divided between being astute chronicler and outraged moralizer. His analytical, indifferent mind and sensitive bleeding heart are in conflict. In the end, I believe he chooses to be the moralist. And that's a disappointment. Because he's well aware that what he's writing about is NOT novel. Our society is not "sliding down the surface of things" into a cess pool of sex, violence, drugs, and celebrity worship. We've always been in that cess pool from day one.

But at times, he seems to be aware of all the implications of what he writes, including the implication of his own place in all of this:

"'But Bobby I'm not...political,' I blurt out vaguely.

'Everyone is, Victor,' Bobby says, turning away again. 'It's something you can't help.'...

...'We're killing civilians,' I whisper.

'Twenty-five thousand homicides were committed in our country last year, Victor.'

'But...I didn't commit any of them, Bobby'

Bobby smiles patiently, making his way back to where I'm sitting. I look at him hopefully.

'Is it so much better to be uninvolved, Victor?'

'Yes,' I whisper. 'I think it is.'

'Everyone's involved,' he whispers back. 'That's something you need to know.'" (p.315)

Everyone's involved. And that's something you need to know. There is no high perch where we can look down upon all that we find morally repulsive and criticize it without indicting ourselves. That's the way it is. And any moralizing is just contained within it.

But Ellis is also well aware of where all this will eventually take us: to a horrifically beautiful orgasmic cataclysm of severed limbs, fanning blood, genital fluid, People magazines, Gucci bags, Prada suits, and a stale cold wind blowing over all of it. To a "champagne supernova in the sky" where the only question to ask all those who are morally disgruntled and shocked and to those who chose to blind themselves with illusion about this outcome will be, "Where were you while we we're getting high?"

Rating:
Summary: High expectations will lead to disappointment.
Review: After reading American Psycho and The rules of attraction I considered myself somewhat of a BEE fan and eagerly anticipated reading Glamorama. I was thus disappointed with what I discovered. Glamorama was written in an identical style, particularly to American Psycho (to be expected I suppose)but lacked the storyline and continuity of it. The gratuitous sex and violence present in both of them felt appropriate in American Psycho and contributed to the storyline and humour, whereas in Glamorama both seem far too contrived and obvious. Despite its many failings Glamorama is at times hilarious and genuinely interesting. It is a shame that the story is so confusing and a lot of the content is innappropriate and seemingly only included because it was successful in previous books. I recommend reading this book mainly for curiosity value or to fill in time on long trips where a book based on frivolity is warranted. Do not anticipate a brilliant or entirely coherent book!

Rating:
Summary: The sad story of Bush Junior
Review: This book explains how now Candidate Bush came from being a nasty, drunken and wasted Daddy's boy to being the succesful, energetic self he is now. He was replaced by an human artefact at the demand of his father during his father's electoral drive and with the help of various constituencies (Japanese, vested business interests) who did not want their candidate's chances at electoral success to be wasted by the bad reputation of his son. The author details the spiritual agony of "ancient" Bush Junior who progressively gets sidelined and realizes too late the awful truth before being erased from earth. Of course, names and situations have been changed, but all similarities with actual facts are not coincidental. By the way, this is my own interpretation of the book, and I am not a foreign terrorist who tries to undermine Candidate Bush's campaign. But I found it funny that the situation in the book fits so well with reality. Is Bret Easton Ellis trying to convey us a message?

Rating:
Summary: The latest version of the single Bret Easton Ellis novel.
Review: Bret Easton Ellis has done a remarkable job of selling the same book again and again and again, and "Glamorama" is the latest incarnation of his single story. Name dropping, pop-culture references, drugs, and sex. Ellis claims that "Glamorama" is his first book with a plot, but I couldn't identify one.

What makes "Glamorama" different from previous BEE novels? He tries even harder to be shocking. He has more graphic sex and more violence than I remember in previous novels. Now that such things are prevalent in "bestsellers," however, they lose what little impact they had in "American Psycho" (or earlier).

Victor, the latest incarnation of the troubled Ellis protagonist, is undeveloped and has few qualities that draw one to him as a reader. To the author's credit, Victor is his first protagonist to actually undergo a change, but that matters little when one doesn't care about the character in the first place.

Ellis does have a different style that can be entertaining. But without substance, style isn't enough to warrant reading a book (unless the style is truly revolutionary, which his is not).

If you have to read a BEE novel, make it "American Psycho" or "Less Than Zero." Neither are terribly good, but they're both better than his latest effort. I feel like I wasted 3 hours of my life on "Glamorama."

Better still, skip Ellis entirely and read an author who actually has some literary merit.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful People in a Really Bad Book
Review: The only thing vaguely interesting about this book is that it takes place around beautiful and famous people. The main character, Victor Ward, is a thoroughly dislikable semi-famous moron. There is no story for three hundred pages and then an idiotic one--supermodels as terrorists. I kept hoping it was a spoof.

Ellis tries to pull some little tricks like fading in and out of a movie shoot and mixing up the chapter numbers and 'inserting' some lead-handed symbolism like cold and confetti all over the place. I was embarresed for him.

Rating:
Summary: Confusing, but Enjoyable
Review: Glamorama, Bret Easton Ellis' latest book was, to me, very entertaining and interesting. At times, I was so confused, I backtracked to see if I had missed anything, but the plot and the character developement.. they're great. I especially liked how he elaborated on the relationships of people from previous books. I loved this book, even though the ending was quite confusing.

Rating:
Summary: The Same Old Note, Playing In A New Time.
Review: BEE taps one key on a piano. Let's shock the reader. So after playing out the shock of the America's youth growing up too fast, he writes a contreversial book about a serial killer with a catchy title, his career is saved.

That brings us to the present where he's running out of ideas. Ah-Ha. Let's write a book mixing ultra violence (that played so well in AP), mixed with elements of America's celebrity worship (that plays so well every night on television gossip shows), mixed with drugs and sex of course, mixed in with the same shallow characterization which Ellis can't seem to shake.

Empty characters, violence, sex, drugs, but now! Celebrities are thrown in the mix. Now we have a book. LOL.

Throw in some symbolism that doesn't quite hit the mark. At the end, after all the drugs have been snorted, there is not one more celebrity name to be dropped, the sex as well as the violence has been over played, tie up the book with a page of forced symbolism whining about the state of celebrity worship in society.

Ellis doesn't develope characters. He just moves cardboard pieces around trendy locales surrounded by sex, violence, drugs, and now CELEBRITIES!