Gloom Rules

Ever heard of Bret Easton Ellis? He's a contemporary of Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club), and wrote the book American Psycho, which was made into a movie staring Christian Bale.

I own all of Bret Easton Ellis's books. I have tried to read every single one, and gotten bored/frustrated/disgusted by the tenth page. My last attempt was Bret's book Less Than Zero.

As I expected, it was boring, but I kept reading. The main character is Clay, an 18-year old college student who returns from New Hampshire to Los Angeles. He's rich, arrogant and addicted to cocaine. He feels nothing and does whatever he wants. The first fifty pages was a boring trudge through nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. But as soon as I reached page 51. . . things took off.

I realized that Ellis was creating a deep, symbolic build-up for one of the most amazing books I have ever read. Instantly, the book becomes gripping, mind-blowing even. Clay reminds me of myself, a dark side that I have, where I have "almost" everything I want, where I stop feeling and even death, rape, prostitution doesn't bother me. As he goes to party after party after party, takes snort of coke after snort after snort, as I watch him deteriorate, something beautiful grows inside me. I am facing myself, overcoming myself.

Don't read this book. Watch the movie, or stop caring altogether. I think only a select few will understand the symbolism in this book, something I can't explain in a mere book review. You'd have to read it, and you won't.

Bret Easton Ellis said "I read it for the first time in about 20 years this year—recently. It wasn't so bad. I get it. I get fan mail now from people who weren't really born yet when the book came out. I don't think it's a perfect book by any means, but it's valid. I get where it comes from. I get what it is."

He wrote the book in 1985 when he was 19.

Lockpick Pornography

Lockipick Pornography is a book by Joey Comeau, one of my heroes. I bought the book online for $10 and waited an anxious month and a half for it to arrive in the mail. When I got it I was so excited that I ran around my neighborhood clutching it, grinning like a schoolboy. I wanted to scream at everyone I met to buy and read the book or I would kill them. Slit their neck with a razor.

I would hold the book out in plain sight, so people could see the cover. LOCKPICK PORNOGRAPHY! OMG!

The book is about angry gay people who get up and get revenge on heterosexual people. It was hilarious and weird and sick and twisted. Lots of gay sex and about as transgressive as any Palahniuk novel. The message behind the mess was that gender is constructed, you're not born with it. Or maybe it wasn't. Whatever.

I don't really agree, but I still enjoyed the hell out of the book.

It was short. A mere ten chapters. I read it fast. Some parts didn't transition very well, others were hard to believe. Palahniuk says the best way to make an unbelievable story credible is to present it in a non-fiction form. This is why something as bizarre as Rant worked for him. For Joey's Lockpick Porn, maybe it didn't. But I still loved the hell out of the book. It was like reading a book that a friend writes, and yeah, parts of it suck, but mostly you love their book because you love who wrote it.

That seems to be all I feel lately, that second degree love for art. But I don't care.

Go buy his book.
http://www.looseteeth.ca/storebooks.htm