Customer Reviews

Less Than Zero

5 star:		(69)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

"Less Than Zero" is probably not going to appear on the Oprah book club selection anytime soon, but that doesn't mean it's not any good. Just the opposite. This is one edgy, fresh and disturbing novel by one of America's great author's.

Bret Easton Ellis released his "Lunar Park" as a sort of testament to his estranged father and he was bashed pretty badly for it. So one has to wonder what was on his mind when he wrote this novel. The story is basically this: Enter Clay, a college student home from New Hampshire on Christmas break. He's back on LA and starts in on the LA scene: cruising around, getting drunk, laying out to get a tan, and just general partying non-stop. Now, Ellis is edgy, and this is most apparent when he, or rather HIS character starts watching bootleg Mexican porn that involves chain saws and some other horrific incidents. It's not pretty, and the novel pull no punches in this corner. Ellis makes no apologies for this, and actually pulls it off within the context of the story. It's not just there for shock value but rather fits neatly in with the character's self-destructive mode. I was reminded at time of the novels "Running With Scissors" by Burroughs or McCrae's "Katzenjammer--Soon to be a major motion picture, with their edgy and tart keen sense of irony and persecption. "Less Than Zero" is this and much more, for Ellis takes things to a deeper level.

Now, all this said, about the plot, etc. let's talk about the writing. Reading this book made me want to become a writer, not because I thought I could do better, but because I wanted to create something this good. And here's a reason why: Nothing really much happens to transform the character in the book; nothing makes the protagonist different in the end than he was in the beginning, yet the journey was something else. And this is where the great writing comes in, for it makes the book riveting and you won't want to put it down. There's a glimmer of hope in the end of the novel and this saves the book from being a "downer," but really, you have to read this to understand what I'm talking about here.

"Less Than Zero" is not going to be for everyone, especially those easily offended, but if you're used to the likes of, say, Chuck Palanhiuk with his novel "Invisible Monsters" or McCrae's "Katzenjammer," then you'll get through this just fine. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in cutting-edge literature.

Make no mistake about it: Bret Easton Ellis can write. He can produce spare, tight sentences that evoke chilling and haunting images. But there's something fundamentally lacking in "Less Than Zero" which makes me give this book only three stars.

Ellis is a master at depicting the anomie of the young, bored, and super-rich, as he did superbly in "American Psycho"; but at least the loathsome yuppies in that book were alive. "Less Than Zero" seems populated by walking zombies. Here we have Clay, the protagonist (or is he an anti-protagonist?) fresh off the train home for mid-year break from a college in New Hampshire (Dartmouth, maybe? Ellis carefully declines to identify the school); he hasn't been home for two minutes before he's bored into a coma. The problem is, he's already bored the reader. And the rest of the people in the book aren't any better: Blair, his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, spoiled rotten by her film-director father; Julian, descending into a miasma of drugs and prostitution; Daniel and Trent, indistinguishable blonde beach boys with too much money and nothing to do for it; and Clay's parents, dashing from one extra-marital affair to the next, and his sisters, only in their early teens but already as crass, materialistic and soulless as Clay and the parents -- are there any redeeming virtues to these people? Or is what passes for their lives an experience in pure hedonism? Clay seems more like a cardboard cutout than a person; his soul is so shriveled he can watch a snuff movie featuring a fifteen year old girl and yawn through the whole thing. He's a passive sociopath, uncaring, unfeeling, un-alive. One gets the impression that the only reason he's not out making a snuff film of his own is that it would take too much effort. Clay is fascinated by a billboard on the freeway that says "Disappear Here". We get the feeling that if Clay disappeared, nobody would care much one way or the other. He's that much of a cypher.

Ellis's problem in this book is he does such a great job of describing the emptiness of his character's lives, we wonder why he bothered writing about them at all. They don't grab us, they don't interest us, there's nothing about them we can relate to. As Blair says to Clay toward the end of the book, "You're a beautiful boy, but that's about it." It's not that Ellis can't invent interesting characters; Patrick Bateman, the anti-hero of "American Psycho", was a loathsome psychopath, but at least there was some substance to him. The characters in "Less Than Zero" seem to be made of air. Perhaps that's the fundamental problem with the book; the sense of emptiness is so overwhelming that ultimately the book's impact on us fades to less than zero.

The writing style is okay, but nothing special. Like a stripped down and stupid Hemingway, sort of. I really liked Ellis for a while when I was younger, but looking back, this book wasn't great. Worth a read if you're in the Ellis phase, but if you're new to him, I suggest 'American Psycho', which remains as his one truly good book.

Written in clear, simple, matter-of-fact prose, Less Than Zero, is a chillingly disturbing and hair-raising novel that hones in specifically on L.A.'s edgy, filthy and unrepentant subculture, where booze, drugs, hustling, casual, empty sex, shallow values as well as violence-both physically and visually-are the norm. It is a subculture of pills, plastic surgery, 'laboratory' or 'Frankenstein' created perfection, spiritual vacuousness, fatalistic/lobotomized acceptance or indifference of anything and everything are neatly meshed together with a wad of cash acting as a decorative bow. The novel revolves around Clay, a young man on summer break from college in New Hampshire. Visiting his financially well-to-do family, he decides to 'reconnect' with some of his school friends and girlfriend, Blair-the very latter a brainwashed drone to the excessive frivolities that only L.A. can offer. After getting into the inner sanctum of his friend's lives, Clay gets acclimatized (with the aid of drugs, among other things) to their jaded perceptions and their uppish, arrogant world view of, "This is how it is, man. What planet are you from?" attitude. As time progresses, Clay unwittingly begins to mirror the very people-with all their dangeriously luxuriant excesses-whom he fears and despises. What is even worse is that his family and home life is no refuge either from the dizzying despair that is slowly enveloping him, for his home life is as equally terrible as what he's trying to flee from; his only form of escapism is marijuana, cocaine, sex, partying and booze, all of which temporarily act as a kind of fake portal to the untouched nether reaches (so he believes) of his mind or his soul. But bit by bit, that too slowly gets chipped away at, and what is beyond that is too terrifying to imagine. Clay's only saving grace is a quiet moment of introspection at Topanga Canyon, where, "...I could hear the wind moving through the canyons...A coyote howled...I had been home a long time." (P. 207). Silence was his saving grace, for it forever imprinted upon his mind all that he experienced; it was the catalyst that set him free: "There was a song I heard when I was in Los Angeles by a local group. The song was called "Los Angeles" and the words and images were so harsh and bitter that the song would reverberate in my mind for days. The images, I later found out, were personal and no one I knew shared them. The images I had were of people being driven mad by living in the city. Images of parents who were so hungry and unfulfilled that they ate their own children. Images of people, teenagers my own age, looking up from the asphalt and being blinded by the sun. These images stayed with me even after I left the city. Images so violent and malicious that they seemed to be my only point of reference for a long time afterwards..." (P.208). They say that the globe has many, many war zone. Los Angeles would definitely be included.

Less Than Zero tells in vivid first person a journey through the underbelly of 1980's L.A. life from the passive point of view of Clay, a young man who finds himself facing the hard truths of adulthood. The story is told in short, but journalistic flashes in the mode of music video. From page to page the story drives home the flip side of the over priveledged preppy life - too much too soon, be it money, free time, and most dangerously - drugs. It has been compared to Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and I can see the similarities. Ellis, who in college when he wrote the novel, is one of America's most loved by fans, hated by critics authors. Less Than Zero was a triumphant debut novel and one that has spellbound audiences for near two decades. Check it out. You won't soon forget it.

After reading so many positive reviews of this book and enjoying so many books that have been compared with this novel,I decided to read it . Upon searching everywhere I finally found this "gem of a novel".I dove into this book with enthusiasm but by the end I was more than a little disapointed .Not only were there too many insignificant characters, they were all completely flat and uninteresting .
As an avid reader I have never read a book with such a boring protaganist.With all the usual components of what i find to be a great read : glamorous , oversexed, and drugged up rich kids, somehow this book just dosen't work. Don't waste your time. If you want a similar but MUCH better read try TWELVE.

This book gets one star for writing about "something different." BEE definitely "made it new"- which is more than we can say for some of these fossil novelists publishing tripe to rave reviews (Seek My Face, anyone?). He gets another star for being so young. Twenty is an age at which we can still be justifiably self-absorbed.

Minus one star for over-the-top and unrealistic plot- which it WAS, no matter what kind of background BEE was attempting to portray. Minus another star for the overly stylized dialogue, which even Andrew McCarthy couldn't flesh out. Minus another star for the rip-off of a conclusion. At only 200 pages, BEE could've continued with Less Than Zero for mere days and come up with something half-plausible.

It should count for something that the film cast included the ever-hot James Spader (Yow!), but not on this board.

I found this to be a quick, easy read that built up to a very dissapointing conclusion. A good way to pass some time but not a very good read.

In Bret Easton Ellis's book Less than zero is a tale full of drugs and immoral acts. During and after reading this book i couldn't help feeling as strung out as the protagonist Clay, who through out the book needs a snort of coke to get through the day. After reading the book you may feel the same way. The amount of drugs that is taken by all the characters in the book is enough for ten people to OD. Strangely enough i couldn't help wondering after reading this well written book, whether to be affraid of LA or the people that inhabit LA? But any way read the book with a snort of coke.

I have read most of these reviews & all of you are basically saying the same thing but in different words & some of you just plain didn't get it. The point Ellis makes is simple satire dissatisfied kids nothing is enough while having everything. I read this book after college actually I saw the movie first. What impressed me about Ellis writing is he has the ability to make it personal. What I mean is he brings you there as if your living right along with these kids. His words tell a story of empty rich kids in LA. There whole existence consists of sex, drugs, & total consumption to the extreme you can feel the desperation inside them. This book brings you to that place of these empty kids who's search for soul, feeling , and a voice is constant never reaching satisfaction. It's quite a sad story but Ellis words are unique and the protagonist- Clay somewhat reaches validity in himself in the end by wanting to leave LA and start over. I have to mention the movie came out in 1987 and was amazing one of my top 5 films of all time.