I found out two weeks ago he was doing a reading ten blocks from my house – and on my day off! And for free! I was excited! Although I find his style occasionally grating, and I haven't been able to get through any of his other books, I really liked American Psycho. It was an interesting book! Good satire!
I had a question all picked out. I was interested to find out if he found any of his characters likeable – not sympathetic, not fuckable, likeable. And if not, why does he think he hasn't written such a character? Not the worst question, am I right?
And then he got there, and then he started talking. He seemed sounded kind of nervous and uncomfortable with the packed room, but also confident in himself, which is exactly the correct personality for a writer to have at a reading. Sympathetic, but cool enough that you don't have to feel awful when somebody who went to college inevitably, in a loud, clear voice asks what the hell they think they're doing. So far so good!
Ellis read four pages from his new novel, Imperial Bedrooms, which is a great title that Elvis Costello thought of. Of the seven minutes he spent reading, I spent five mentally whittling down the lengthy description of his protagonist's beautiful-but-empty condo, and mentally deleting the terrible foreshadowy references (the desperate, lonely character suddenly hears the song “Hungry Like the Wolf,” if you know what I mean). But that's ok! It's a hard job, writing books! He already wrote one classic! And he still had fifty-three minutes to bring the interesting!
On with the questions!
It started with a lowball: There are a lot of balconies in your novels. What's that about?
Bret Easton Ellis has no idea. But he loves reading the papers people write about his work, and he's sure someone will answer this question in a paper someday, and he's sure he'll be blown away!
Ok. (Really?)
Can you speak for a moment about “This is not an exit,” the famous last line of American Psycho?
He liked the way it sounded.
Ok. (Whatever.)
And then he said a lot of boring, stupid shit.
What advice do you have for burgeoning writers? Real writers don't need advice. They don't ask questions. They just write. (C-)
What's your favorite movie adaptation of your work? “The only one that worked,” he said, "was The Rules of Attraction.” (F)
What audience does Ellis have in mind, when he's writing? He doesn't write for an audience. He writes the kind of novels he wants to read. If he had a reader in mind, he might as well be working for a PR firm or something. (D)
Why are there so many bisexual characters in his novels? He doesn't think about it. There aren't that many bisexual characters. Sean Bateman is “kinda gay.” Clay, from Less Than Zero and Imperial Bedrooms, isn't bisexual so much as his bisexuality is a literary device furthering the sense of him as rootless. (Haha)
But then he brought out some crazy shit!
A girl who went to college asked him what was up with his weird remark in Movieline about women directors?
Ellis hemmed a little bit. He let us all know that the asker was referring to something he'd said in an interview. He guessed he'd said that women can't be good film directors because "of the way [they] are built." Eesh!
He said he didn't remember really how it'd come up, and that what he'd said had most likely been taken out of context, and that it had become way too big a deal, and that he'd been sort of unfairly vilified for it... And anyway, he'd been in a snotty mood that night, so... But he didn't want to apologize or take it back, at the same time, because he kind of meant it, to an extent.
But, he was revising his opinion! He did really like a couple of women-helmed movies this year – like The Runaways!
(A 16-year-old child, and Joan fucking Jett as just another awkward teenager)
And I think, Bret Easton Ellis is kind of a dick. A stupid dick, who is really stupid.
But then it gets crazier! Lie to the strangers next time, Bret Easton Ellis!
Someone asks, says he heard from a friend that Ellis had been “haunted” after writing American Psycho, by the murderous protagonist, Patrick Bateman. True? (I know, blah-sounding question, right?)
Well, not by the character, but Ellis says he was haunted by the public reaction to the character. He called American Psycho “basically an autobiographical novel.” (!) He said it'd taken him years to be comfortable admitting that in front of an audience (!), but it was the truth. For years, when asked about this misogynistic, batshit horrifying character, he'd said he'd been hanging around a lot of Wall Street guys, and thinking about how their behavior related to what was going on in the larger society, and blah blah blah. But really, he said, the character was based on his own rage and loneliness (you know, while he was doing crystal every night with Jay MacInery and Tama Janowitz). He said he was angry because he was entering the world of adults, and finding out that all the consumer goods he'd been told would fill "the void" (barf), hadn't. He said relationships were hard, and girls seemed shallow.
("What's rarely said in all the furor over this novel is that it's a satire, a hilarious, repulsive, boring, seductive, and deadpan satire... Ellis is, first and last, a moralist. Under cover of his laconic voice, every word in his three novels to date springs from grieving outrage at our spiritual condition" - Henry Bean, Los Angeles Times Book Review. "The novelist's function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and [Ellis]'s done it brilliantly" - Fay Weldon, Washington Post.)
In a flash, I realize, OF COURSE, that Bret Easton Ellis is a total dick. First he writes horrible things that, it turns out, are not metaphors, but are in fact... you know... sexualized torture porn. Which he claimed were metaphors. Which we all bought as metaphors! I did some pointed re-reading:
“[S]he makes a futile dash for the front door, crying out... I'm leaping in front of her, blocking her escape, knocking her unconscious with four blows to the head from the nail gun. I drag her back into the living room, laying her across the floor... and nail three fingers on each hand, at random, to the wood by their tips. This causes her to regain consciousness and she starts screaming. After I've sprayed Mace into her eyes, mouth, into her nostrils, I place a camel-hair coat from Ralph Lauren over her head, which drowns out the screams, sort of. I keep shooting nails into her hands until they're both covered – nails bunched together, twisted over each other in places, making it impossible for her to try and sit up. I have to remove her shoes, which slightly disappoints me, but she's kicking at the floor violently, leaving black scuff marks on the stained white oak. During this period I keep shouting “You bitch” at her and then my voice drops to a raspy whisper and into her ear I drool the line “You fucking cunt.”
Finally, in agony, after I've taken the coat off her face, she starts pleading, or at least tries to, the adrenaline momentarily overpowering the pain. “Patrick oh god stop it please oh god stop hurting me...” ... The fingers I haven't nailed I try to bite off, almost succeeding on her left thumb which I manage to chew all the flesh off of, leaving the bone exposed, and then I Mace her, needlessly, once more ...
I take advantage of her helpless state and, removing my gloves, force her mouth open and with the scissors cut out her tongue, which I pull easily from her mouth and hold in the palm of my hand, warm, and still bleeding, seeming so much smaller than in her mouth, and I throw it against the wall, where it sticks for a moment, leaving a stain, before falling to the floor with a tiny wet slap. Blood gushes out of her mouth and I have to hold her head up so she won't choke. Then I fuck her in the mouth, and after I've ejaculated and pulled out, I Mace her some more (245-246).
When I read it, I remember thinking, RIGHT ON, that's exactly how society treats women! Metaphorically as well as too-often literally! Women as consumer goods to be used! Etc! On re-reading, however, I AM AN IDIOT. But more to the point, Bret Easton Ellis is a total dick. A misogynistic narcissist who writes only for himself and never attempts to grow as a writer-slash-person. He treats his fans like he's too cool to think for a second about what balconies might mean in his novels. (Duh, it's privilege and isolation, dumbass.) His style is BORING. He says terrible things about women. His only good novel's content is base - and not fun base, where lots of different kinds of people die for everyone's enjoyment, or where anyone dies for a really hard-hitting metaphor that increases awareness, but instead for no-good base reasons, where ex-girlfriend characters (and occasionally gay men) die because Bret Easton Ellis hates women and wants to masturbate to their pain.
There was no longer any point to asking my question or getting my book signed, so I left. Thanks for a charming evening, Bret Easton Ellis!
No comments:
Post a Comment