Book Report: Less Than Zero
While I was wandering around the bookstore last weekend looking for a new book and I picked up “Less Than Zero” and read the back cover. One of reviews said:
“One of the most disturbing novels that I’ve read in a long time. It possesses an unnerving air of documentary reality.” – Michiko Kukatani, New York Times
Tonight I finished the novel and as I flipped the last page and closed the book I read that review again. It doesn’t ring true anymore. Actually I should qualify that, both statements are only half true. I was prepared for some disturbing shit. I have read American Psycho, another one of Bret Easton Ellis’s books and that is or comes close to the most disturbing novels I have ever read but save for the last 30 or so pages of “Less than Zero” was pretty pedestrian relative to the subject matter. I could see where someone reading this in the mid-eighties could have that notion but in 2011 I have become numb to stories of this nature. It seems dated from a shock value standpoint but from a representation of the way US society is moving it seems fairly prescient.
The book is a first person account of Clay, a privileged 18 year old coming back home to Los Angeles for winter break and having an existential crisis in the midst of “catching-up” with his “friends”. The second he arrives he is immersed in an excess of sex, drugs and partying but amidst all the characters socializing and fucking each other no one ever makes a connection or has concern for anyone else. It is like each character is a ping pong ball bouncing around a large room. The collide and ricochet everywhere but in the end they are physically and emotionally unchanged after all of their interaction. No character ever empathizes with any of the other characters and any conversations that might lead to going beyond surface level concerns are greeted with a one word answer or a bump of coke. Is that disturbing? This is merely an amplification of the way many people interact except these characters have no restrictions. They have unlimited bankrolls and no judgement from authority figures thanks to the success of their absentee parents. It is the eighties version of Lord of the Flies, except this time their island is Southern California and Piggy and Ralph are no where to be found. A majority of the novel could be released as someone ghostwriting the exploits of Lindsay Lohan or some rockstar and people wouldn’t bat an eye. That’s why the reviewer’s statements about this book no longer ring true. As a society we have moved closer to emulating the characters in this book than anyone in 1985 could have imagined. The idea of this being the “air of documentary reality” is unnerving in its truth rather than its possibility.
I appreciated the writing style of the author, he apparently wrote this when he was 19 and the way he captures the disinterested views of an 18 year old realizing the terrors of the world is remarkable. The book is basically small 1-2 page vignettes that coagulate into a loose narrative structure that can be disorienting. The disorientation is an effective tool though, the drugs, parties and characters start blending together imparting to the reader a feeling of drug addled psyche dealing with a hostile and uncaring world. The book is an examination of Clay looking at his life and grappling with adulthood and uncertainty about himself. There are 3 phrases that are repeated at intervals throughout the book: “Disappear here”, “You are a beautiful boy and that’s all that matters” and “People are afraid to merge. To merge.” These also happen to be the main areas of examination of the book: Death, what one thinks of themselves, and how one takes that self view and integrates it into society and peer groups.
In the end the book doesn’t really resolve any of this but that’s the point. It is a story of a boy becoming a man and taking on the uncertainties of adulthood. In the first few pages one of Clays friends says “I want to go back”. “Where?” Clay asks him and his friend replies “I don’t know. Just back.” Clearly he is yearning to revisit a time when the world was simpler and the shroud of adolescence shielded him from the stark realities of life. As extraordinary as the circumstances of Clay’s life our he is in the same situation as everyone else, a solitary soul in an uncaring world blindly groping for meaning amidst the masses.
Have you read the book? What do you think?
PS – By the way, I am planning to watch the movie (wchich I have never seen) and I checked out the trailer:
Talk about missing the point… I know I am just going to hate this movie. Based on the vintage 80′s voice over guy’s cheesy tag lines it looks like a complete dumbing-down of the original idea into a vanilla “drugs are bad” type cautionary tale. Hollywood, you suck.
I read this book back when I was in high school but I probably should re-read it (and rewatch the film, that I bought.)
I would also suggest his novel “The rules of attraction.”
I think the film for that (made in the early 00′s) is also pretty good. Even if it has Dawson Creek’s dude in it.
@Hails – I saw “Rules of Attraction” a while ago, I thought it was pretty cool at the time and I vaguley remember Fred Savage playing some type of druggie in his underpants… am I imagining things?