Glamorama

[Ger]

Well, maybe it was a few years too late but I recently read this book. Found the first half a bit of a yawn (vacuous club guy name-checking loads of mid-90s celebs) but things certainly perked up in the second half although some of the graphic descriptions of torture have stayed with me longer than I would have liked...!

Don't know it I'd recommend it: one of its reviews stated that it was a satire on celebrity culture. I wouldn't go that far, but if you can get through the first part (maybe by playing a game of 'which of these celebs aren't particularly celebs anymore') and like a book that makes you go 'eouuuw' now and then, AND you've got a long train journey coming upm then go for it. Otherwise... nah.

[Grammath]

This is actually the only Easton Ellis I haven't read. I liked all his other books to varying degrees, even the much misunderstood "American Psycho". People don't see past the gore to the deeply moral satire that book really is.

I can see how he wouldn't be to everybody's taste, in some ways he's a cold, even misanthropic writer, but I think you can equally argue he is only holding up a mirror to certain groups in modern American society and the vacuums that exist in the centre of their lives. In that sense, you could see him as an American J.G. Ballard.

[Adrian]

It's great, though some might say narrow in its targets. I don't identify with any of the people he's after in Glamorama but he writes so well. I loved the way he lambasts the club people, and even now when I read a review of newly opened "celebrity" restaurant I think of Glam.

And kudos to Grammath for the Ballard reference. I never realised before how similar they are. It's uncanny. I'd add Chuck Palanuik, even though I doubt I spelled his name right. Choke is right on the button.

I won't say much about American Psycho. If ever a book deserved a topic of its own, that's the one.

[Grammath]

Why, thank you, Chris, you are most kind.

I think its spelt Palahniuk. Not read "Choke", but devoured "Fight Club" in the wake of the film and "Invisible Monsters".

I hadn't thought of Chuck in relation to the mighty JG, but now you mention it, there is that same element of surrealism running through both their work.

However, one of the things I find appealing about Ballard's writing, if I can be a bit pseudy for a minute, is his dispassionate authorial voice, the way he writes about the weirdest things as if they were perfectly normal and makes no judgement on the actions of his characters, however perverse. Its that which I think he shares most strongly with Easton Ellis.

Palahniuk, on the other hand, seems to me to postively revel in being bizarre and grotesque and reminds me more of another favourite American of mine, Tom Robbins.

Its a long time since I read "American Psycho" but its certainly one of the most, um, memorable novels I've ever read.