Bret Eason Ellis review

To say that an Ellis novel is an indictment of the modern world is pretty much beside the point: the modern world is its own indictment, and doesn’t need any help from novelists to communicate its moral, historical, and psychological vacuity. No, an Ellis novel is an indictment of the notion that literature can do anything about that situation. It’s an indictment of us, in other words—of readers and writers and reviewers and editors and all the other people sustaining fiction’s greatest fiction: that fiction has value outside of the context in which it’s written, published, and read. 

- Dale Peck, "The Bret East Ellis review Out was afraid to run..."

Post-Empire

I had to stall that nagging little time clock that sits on my desktop and urges out productivity each day of my weekday life, in order to read this: Bret Easton Ellis's uncut essay on Charlie Sheen and the state of post-Empire public life.  The essay actually originally appeared in the Daily Beast on Monday, but on that same day Ellis tweeted (so post-Empire) that it was a highly-edited version (Empire) and the full version would be available on Wednesday.  Thank you Ellis and Twitter; this version is so much more satisfying.

Calling out Kanye West's "Runaway" as a post-Empire rallying cry; Ellis gets it.  This is exemplary of some of the reasons I suggested Kanye West as being worthy of notice in the zeitgeist of 2011; he is the embodiment of something important in our culture, whatever you may think of that something's (or West's) merit.

Bret Easton Ellis Reading

There was a Bret Easton Ellis reading and book signing last night at the Elliot Bay Book Company and, after a leisurely meal at Oddfellows Cafe, which is next door, Jaime and I joined the crowd in the bookstore's basement. The host said it was the largest turnout they'd had for a reading in their new space, but most of the crowd didn't show up until right before the reading began, so we found seats in the second row (we were seated just beyond the guy in the lower left with the receding hairline).

BEE read briefly, then there was about a half an hour of Q&A (neither of us Q'ed). After the first rambling question, which began with "You probably don't remember me"* and just went on and on, BEE made a couple of artful attempts to re-state the question, surrendered to the apparent ridiculousness and wrapped up his answer with "... just (pause), get over it." That got the audience laughing, although the questions didn't get much better after that. The highlight of the night was the insight he gave into the tripartite inspirations for American Psycho**.

If you haven't been to a reading/signing, it is kind of a tense*** experience, in that there are always a few people in the audience that you can tell are creepily-earnest fans, which can be distracting. On the other hand, if you have any sort of nerdish tendencies it is a great place to go and show your girlfriend that compared to at least one demographic you are more like a post-coital Steve McQueen in terms of "cool".

After the reading and Q&A, there was the signing. There were Post-It notes available for you to put in the front of your book with your name spelled correctly, in case you wanted the book personalized. I opted out, but Jaime filled one out and stuck it to her book. When we went up to get our books signed, BEE directed the conversation at my companion, mostly.

When BEE asked her if she wanted the book personalized, she said "no, that's ok."

"Oh, I just saw the stickie in your hand," he said.

"Yeah," she replied, in her typical casual, affectless manner, "I just wanted to keep my options open."

To summarize, for those just joining us: life imitates art.

* I suspect people who say this frequently are, in fact, remembered less frequently by others - whether it's causative or correlated is another matter.

** Stated briefly: frustration with the realities of growing up (i.e. reaching late 20s), the unexpected results of following a bunch of Wall Street guys around and one particular person who, in a moment of revelation, seemed to BEE to be a serial killer. There's more to say about this, but I won't for now.

***In my experience; which is to say, in a life already pretty well-provisioned with tension.

tCL: Imagespiration 6-4-10