Less Than Zero is an historical artifact. It's also an interesting book to read after Power of the Dog and The Cartel. From producer to consumer. Both books are songs to the futility of the War on Drugs.

Artistically, Less Than Zero is a gaping wound that existed in the 1980s. It's all about nihilistic people picking at scabs and making themselves bleed over and over. Ellis nails it. ( )

One of the worst books I 've ever read.

A simply horrible read.

This book is a jumble of unconnected blurbs about characters that I have no interest in whatsoever. The entire book consists of these loser, druged up people who do nothing but meet up at clubs, snort coke, try to have sex and complain.

There is absolutely no backstory on any of them. The only reason that I kept reading is because it is a fast read.

Wow, I wonder why?!

I ripped through the book over 2 days and couldn't wait to get to the end.

Just horrible. ( )

Portret van generatie teenagers in Los Angeles, kinderen van filmproducenten, hun makelaars en advocaten ( )

Menos que cero (que es también el título de una canción amarga y cínica de Elvis Costello) cuenta la historia de un joven estudiante que regresa a su casa de Los Angeles para pasar las vacaciones y reencuentra a su grupo de amigos, punkis dorados, hijos de productores y magnates de Hollywood, un clan en el que cada villa tiene su piscina, cada adolescente su dealer.

This is now the third Bret Easton Ellis book I’ve read (American Psycho, The Rules of Attraction), and all three are kind of the same book told with superficial differences between their settings and characters. On the one hand that seems to show to me that Ellis is a limited writer in terms of thematic scope, but on the other hand I do dig the stuff he’s talking about and he does it well enough to make me think hard about what he’s saying (and make me feel depressed and lonely).

Mainly this book is about what happens to people, spiritually or psychologically or whatever, when their material circumstances get too easy. Ellis is talking specifically about some hyper-wealthy teenagers growing up in LA in the 1980s, but he’s using an extreme circumstance to exemplify a broader condition in the so-called developed world. These characters live totally repetitive, unsatisfying lives of overindulgence: binging on drugs or sex or shopping, developing eating disorders, homogenizing their looks, skipping out on their friends. They live the same day over and over: go to the movies, do some coke, party at Blair’s house, fuck this person, fuck that person, drive around, see a psychiatrist, where are my parents vacationing now? They’re living lavishly and without material worry (besides how to score, and only sometimes), but in a deeper sense they are doing absolutely nothing, and never have done anything. It’s just a nonstop frictionless road, and nobody seems to know how to get off it. Only occasionally do the characters even want to, as far as this reader can tell.

It sounds like an empty and insulting thing to complain about, “ohhh I’m so bored because I’m so rich,” and in a way it is. It is clearly, obviously good to be materially comfortable. But—and excuse me if I’m sticking up for the importance of book just because it somewhat applies to me—the repetitive life of mindless overindulgence is indeed spiritually empty. It’s just nonstop junk food: you never get full and there’s always some pain in your stomach.

The book reaches its climax with a few scenes of the depravity ramping up. Not gonna describe it here because it’s really disgusting and depressing stuff, but one point Ellis seems to be trying to make is that in the absence of worry, people will turn to cheap entertainment to stimulate themselves, and as they consume more of it, its intensity must increase in order to give the user the same level of stimulation (like drug addiction, obviously). Eventually things get really extreme and debased, and even that highest level of perversity isn’t enough to scratch the itch. Now I agree in general with this progression, but I am not sure whether it necessarily happens to well-off people faster or to greater extremes than anyone else. Probably greater extremes, at least, because the rich can do anything they want, take anything they want, and usually avoid answering for it (see: Epstein). But anyway I was a little less sold on this point than the preceding one about the emptiness of the lifestyle.

Despite liking the themes of this book a lot, it isn’t the most impressive thing in the world. There basically isn’t a plot besides “every day is the same and getting worse.” None of the characters seem to change or learn anything. Thematically relevant, but kind of a failure in terms of storytelling. Ellis is no great writer in terms of aesthetics either. He writes with a Camus-like bluntness and flat affect which, like in the Stranger, is thematically relevant but ultimately unimpressive. And he gets pretty gruesome with the details too, maybe gratuitously (not as bad as American Psycho obviously). Those are all important points off from the novel. Less Than Zero made me think a lot about the dullness and emptiness of a modern comfortable life, but was not a big feat of a novel. Honestly some Norm Macdonald interviews have been just as good or maybe better at getting me thinking about these same things. I’m generously giving this 4 stars but I would do 3.5 if that were possible on goodreads. ( )