Discussion 9/05: Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis
Discussion points from your September leader, Undertow:
[QUOTE=Undertow]
-- Ellis' first attempt at an autobiography is unconventional, to say the least. What did you think of the style, along with the information he provided?
-- Do you think the book would be appreciated more after reading it a second time?
-- Did the character names, settings and events give away what was happening in the story? Were you surprised at how things turned out towards the end?
-- What were your thoughts about the book after the first 100 pages or so? How did these thoughts change as you progressed through the book?
-- Do you think this is a comeback for Ellis, or do you think he should quit?
-- Discuss Jayne Dennis.[/QUOTE]
I'm reading Lunar Park this weekend. I'll get back with answers for the discussion.
[QUOTE=Undertow]Door's open, boys and gals![/QUOTE]
Oh-kay. Give me a few hours, I'll post my views on the questions. I've not done this kind of thing before, so I'm supposing we'll just post our opinions of the questions and... then argue. Right? Right. I'll be back...
[QUOTE]-- Ellis' first attempt at an autobiography is unconventional, to say the least. What did you think of the style, along with the information he provided?
I loved the fact that the book starts out as a autobiography. At first I thought it was just a cheap device to sell a book. But after reading it, it is soon apparent that that is the only way this book could have been written. The only problem I had with it is this - I was so interested in the amazing life Ellis was leading in the first chapter, I didn't know where he was drawing the line between fact and fiction. So I guess he was totally successfull with his attempt at making it read like an autobiography.
What do you want to discuss about her?
I'm going to wing this. I have not participated in any Book Club discussions, so if anything I might end up writing is off, I apologize in advance.
[QUOTE]Ellis' first attempt at an autobiography is unconventional, to say the least. What did you think of the style, along with the information he provided?[/QUOTE]
Definitely "to say the least", but Ellis has never been one for conventional writing. His style caused me to immediately think of Stephen King (ON WRITING, mainly); the rest of the novel did nothing to change that, except I saw Ellis and his distinct humor shine through, along with his arrogance, his playfulness, his blatant attempts to steer the reader subtly while also "sounding" very rational and sensible, when deep-down you "know" he's in charge of every sentence. The style was plain and simple. Conventional and average. But at the same time it was not. This novel had nothing one could compare to Ellis' previous styles (but then again, it did).
I never felt like I was reading anything but an Ellis novel. He starts on a perfect note, a breakdown/confessional, and a (false, for the most part, but then again not) claim of autobiography. I cannot agree that it is "a first attempt at autobiography", because it is as autobiographical as any other book he's published. Yes, the main character is "Bret Easton Ellis", but it is very obvious that he is NOT portraying himself. I saw this book as Ellis using "himself" as a character to cut out the middle-man, in essence. Still, the novel is a complete autobiography, excepting the fact that it is not about Bret Ellis. He is not the main character. He is the ONLY character. And the character is not him. THIS is how the "information he provided" made me feel. And all at once.
[QUOTE]Do you think the book would be appreciated more after reading it a second time?[/QUOTE]
Of course, a second, third, and fourth reading is always better, more infomative, and (luckily) very easily read. You don't have to think. But like any Ellis novel, if you don't think, you've fallen into his trap.
[QUOTE]Did the character names, settings and events give away what was happening in the story? Were you surprised at how things turned out towards the end?[/QUOTE]
For me, yes, certain names and events, the mentions of Camden as a real college, these definitely gave a lot away. ESPECIALLY the mention of the character of "Bret Easton Ellis". I KNEW I'd read that name before, and when it hit me, I was stunned. That gave away the ending completely. But what I expected to happen never happened.
[QUOTE]What were your thoughts about the book after the first 100 pages or so? How did these thoughts change as you progressed through the book?[/QUOTE]
I thought the same. But I suppose the question is about the direct introduction of a concrete "supernatural" element. In that case, I still thought the same. Ellis "admitted" a few years ago that he was a fan of Stephen King, and as the first 100 pages or so was building (obviously) towards a "supernatural" element unraveling, I expected it. I was surprised at how well Ellis handled this: it was, quite like King is at his best, not "scary" but very disturbing on a personal level, all while being described from the "Ellis" point of view.
[QUOTE]Do you think this is a comeback for Ellis, or do you think he should quit?[/QUOTE]
He shouldn't quit unless he is done. If he IS done, he's written the perfect book to end it all with. This book is a blatant reckoning. He seems to have exorcised himself, and though the ending made me cry, it was not wholly a "finality-cry". As far as a comeback, Ellis never went away, least not from his job as a writer. Oddly enough, the biggest "comeback" in this book is that the book is about having to "come back".
[QUOTE]Discuss Jayne Dennis.[/QUOTE]
All I can really say at present about "Jayne Dennis" is that she is not real, but she IS as real as "Bret Easton Ellis". I did think that her name was awfully odd: a masculine surname, and a first name that made me immediately think of a certain friend of Ellis' named Jay.
[CENTER]--------------------------------------------------[/CENTER]
Like I said, I'm not sure how these discussions normally go, but my answers--while possibly seeming flippant and intentionally contrived--I can promise were not meant to be that way. I'm prepared to discuss this book in much, much more detail. This book is--like all Ellis--mindblowingly complex.
Still not done, but I thought I'd post on the first 100 pages and then again at the end.
So far it's pretty strange. I found myself almost compelled to get online and find out whatever I could about Mr. Ellis, autobiographically. But I think I'm gonna pass, at least until the end of the book. This book brings up the interesting question of the importance of fiction. Does it really matter what is fictional and what isn't? It's brave of Mr. Ellis to make himself look like a total asshole too because he's the only one with anything to lose by fictionalizing in the way he is.
[QUOTE=tomstrong83]Does it really matter what is fictional and what isn't? It's brave of Mr. Ellis to make himself look like a total asshole too because he's the only one with anything to lose by fictionalizing in the way he is.[/QUOTE]
"But this is what a writer does: his life is a maelstrom of lying. Embellishment is his focal point. This is what we do to please others. This is what we do in order to flee ourselves." -- [B]Lunar Park[/B] (p146)
Just finished last night. What a great book.
The supernatural element was a total surprise for me, but I'm not all that familiar with B.E.E.
That was actually one thing I was wondering about. The only other book I've read by this author is Glamorama. As far as American Psycho goes, I saw the movie when it first came out and I hardly remember it. I have a terrible memory. So although I was catching on to what was happening in Lunar Park I'm sure a lot of it went straight over me. It actually worked for me because it was written well enough that I could still follow, but I was wondering how other people who have read American Psycho felt about the whole thing.
[QUOTE=tomstrong83]Just finished last night. What a great book.
The supernatural element was a total surprise for me, but I'm not all that familiar with B.E.E.
That was actually one thing I was wondering about. The only other book I've read by this author is Glamorama. As far as American Psycho goes, I saw the movie when it first came out and I hardly remember it. I have a terrible memory. So although I was catching on to what was happening in Lunar Park I'm sure a lot of it went straight over me. It actually worked for me because it was written well enough that I could still follow, but I was wondering how other people who have read American Psycho felt about the whole thing.[/QUOTE]
I almost PMd you to mention that (without knowing if you had or not) you might need to read [B]Less Than Zero[/B], [B]The Rules of Attraction[/B] (to a lesser extent), and [B]American Psycho[/B] to catch some of the references. [B]The Informers[/B] (short stories written in the same vein as [B]LTZ[/B]) and [B]Glamorama[/B] were the two that I saw no relation to as far as [B]Lunar Park[/B] is concerned. I've advised several persons to read those before they attempt to read [B]Lunar Park[/B], but I'm very glad to hear that it is possible to enjoy the book as well as you seem to have without these prior career knowledge "reference points" as far as Ellis is concerned. [B]LTZ[/B] is a very fast read, so you might want to give it a quick run-through. [B]American Psycho[/B], though, is a VERY detailed and amazingly constructed book that'll take ones time up a bit more--but it's possibly the best novel published that I've read [I]since[/I] it was published. Ellis himself (as he mentions within [B]Lunar Park[/B]) had to reread [B]AP[/B] for the first time since then to confront his book and to be accurate with his representation of it in [B]Lunar Park[/B]... and you now know what he felt of it at his age now, compared to the age he was when he wrote it. If you might want, run a search inside the Cult Classics section, find some of the interview and audio links that are in [B]The Rules of Attraction[/B] and [B]American Psycho[/B] threads. Those interviews are the cream of the crop (as of pre-[B]Lunar Park[/B]), while I'm sure there are more recent ones available that are more contemporary in that light. 
I'm just awaiting discussion...
I liked the beginning and end of the book, but I thought the rest of the book got boring after a bit, partly because it seemed like I was just reading a King novel. Knowing what really happened and what was made up now, I'm sure I might like it more after going through it a second time. I think using the characters from Ellis' previous novels seemed like a dead giveaway that the reader should be taking a grain of salt with anything that was written in the book. I don't think reading any of Ellis' past novels is necessary to enjoy this book, although I think it helps with getting the idea that Ellis doesn't go full-disclosure, even in an autobiography.
[QUOTE=Undertow]I liked the beginning and end of the book, but I thought the rest of the book got boring after a bit, partly because it seemed like I was just reading a King novel. Knowing what really happened and what was made up now, I'm sure I might like it more after going through it a second time. I think using the characters from Ellis' previous novels seemed like a dead giveaway that the reader should be taking a grain of salt with anything that was written in the book. I don't think reading any of Ellis' past novels is necessary to enjoy this book, although I think it helps with getting the idea that Ellis doesn't go full-disclosure, even in an autobiography.[/QUOTE]
The beginning was probably the best way he could've opened a book that was trying to tackle his own past career and persona. I'd read many pre-[B]Lunar Park[/B] interviews where he'd mentioned (reluctantly, at first) that [B]'Salem's Lot[/B] was one of his favorite books and that he was indeed a King fan. But I never felt like the style within [B]Lunar Park[/B] was too much like King—it was an obvious device, as the horror genre at its best always is. The internal self-reference is a thing King does quite a bit also, and I knew I was reading a very blatant homage so the supernatural aspects didn't grate on me that much—I knew it all was to serve a deeper meaning. The references to past characters: I saw this as (yes, like King, but also) a direct way to present a writer confronting his past, especially when he himself was so unsure of the "real meaning" of some of the books he'd written in his youth. It took these characters intruding into his "real life" and hampering any attempt (however much "he" didn't want to succeed in this attempt) at having a "straight and normal" family life of his own. He realized that everything (all the way back to little stories he'd penned as a child) were ways he'd utilized to create an alternate reality for himself, to write things out and make them capable of being more easily compartmentalized (like the manuscripts in his childhood room in L.A.)... but he had at the same time used his writing as a way of intellectualizing his problems, distancing himself from their reality, from how they were an obvious reflection of his true self back to himself (thus the use of the supernatural—horror—a form of story-telling that is NOT very respected by Americans was necessary to break down his own constructed wall).
That's why I think it was very important to have read and know as much as possible about [B]Less Than Zero[/B] and [B]American Psycho[/B]. [B]Less Than Zero[/B] was the book that made him "his own man", but he had also never realized what he was saying about himself and his own feelings in it--he thought he was reflecting, mostly, his generation and the young people around him; same with [B]American Psycho[/B], although he did know he based Patrick Bateman on his father, he'd never realized how much that in-and-of-itself was a reflection on his own standing in life at that time. The more one knows about these books and their atmospheres and characters and overall feels add to understanding the turn-around they do to their author when he realizes these books are really about things he had ignored about himself. He'd always said that Patrick Bateman was "the most autobiographical character" he'd ever written (and "the most sympathetic", he'd added), but he had not ever REALLY faced the real-life danger of exposing such a raw nerve without having a firm grasp on WHY he was doing it--how this could harm others, how this could harm himself, and that, in a way, he WAS ultimately responsible for his own naive pretensions. I'm sure [B]Lunar Park[/B] can be read and enjoyed without having already a preconceived idea of what one thinks his earlier novels "meant"... but it is all the more powerful if it is able to, along with the author experiencing the same revelations, cause these ideas to be smashed.
This book was no more of an autobiography than any of his other books had been. I saw this as the point of all the blatantly false information—and this is measurable only on what each individual reader already knows or thinks they know of "Bret Easton Ellis". The more one "knows", the more [B]Lunar Park[/B] destroys and/or reinforces, and this pertains to the author himself. And the finale of the novel, the last little "return to style"—switching and swirling from in and out first and second and third person—even after the sad defeat "Ellis" experiences, after all the realization and how he STILL couldn't make things better for himself, how some writers are—at heart—self-defeating and unable to force a better "reality" for themselves, that there is something beyond all our efforts, bigger and always there whether we pay attention to it (and its intricacies) or not, and that in its inevitability we are only what we came from, what we are, and what we'll be (no matter our choice), and that, to me, was the meaning of the final two words of the novel.
[url]http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,1107881_7_0_,00.html[/url]
I'm just going to forgo the discussion questions and just jump into my thoughts of the book. This is off the cuff and i'm just writing my thoughts as I go along.
I never really read any interviews of the man himself except of the one I read here on this site midway through the book. At any rate, I throughly enjoyed this book and the intro autobiographical section is what creates the novel's start. I was amazed at how much crap his personal life fell apart in that section but at times I'm seeing it as fictionalized and what not but none the less you get to step into guys world briefly, yet I kept reminding myself that he is writing character that is called Bret Easton Ellis and not exactly the man himself. The horror genre for him is something new and I'm reminded of the reading I saw of him where he is just nervous about his novel when he gets to read House of Leaves and just baffles at how his haunted house book could possibly top that. There is release and departure on his part as the book commences and I just know he is finally accepting things with his life in it and the last chapter is very touching and quite possibly my favorite part of the entire thing. I felt like starting back at the beginning once turning to the back cover. As to him not cut up to writing anymore? I think that is a stupid thing to suggest, I mean he only has like 5 books under him and he doesn't go writing stories every year like Chuck does, he writes a story when he has a idea for one. Oh that reminds me of him mention that of the sort at Dallas reading where he mocks a audience member about that being his last novel and if he thought of persuing a sequel follow up of American Psycho with a aged Bateman and what not. He mentioned thinking of the idea for a short spell but quickly squashed it after deciding it would be a cop out of sorts. He basically just mentions roughly that he doesn't go about brainstorming ideas for stories like a speed junkie. He basically writes something when he comes up with something.
Overall I really enjoyed reading this. I have too many things stacked on my shelf to read before giving this among others a second reading, but it is definitely on my list. I'm left knowing I missing out on several key factors to the story and a second reading is going to magnify them.
Its been a couple of years since I've read less than zero and american psycho and glamorama and rules of attraction so alot of reference flew right by me and when I thought of the Detective Kimball only thing that came to mind was Arnuld in Kindgarten Cop. "I'm Detective John Kimball" "I'm a Cop You Idiot!" I was laughing to myself after being reminded of that simple mistake once corrected further in the story.
I know I'm a little late to the party, and I have no idea if I am "allowed" to do this or if it will be read, but my disappointment with Lunar Park has been festering for a couple of months and I feel I need to vent.
This book was lame.
Now, don't get me wrong - I love Ellis. I liked Less Than Zero a lot, and I thought American Psycho was one of the most well written and possibly important books of the 20th Century, and I believe people like Stephen King (who writes about cell phone zombies) are morons for calling it "bad fiction by a good writer." Lunar Park is a whole different story, however, as Ellis plots out a silly, poorly written novel.
I should say that the initial bit, where it seemed like a genuine biography, was pretty interesting, even the fake stuff with his "wife" and kid, and I was interested in the subtle transformation of the house. Was I upset with a supernatural element? No, because told within the right story it can be really fun, but I preferred the subtle to the full blown Ghost Buster scenes with the fat, nerdy guy who has ectoplasm machines or something, while the house is basically bleeding from the walls only instead of Jack Torrence trying to slice people up with an axe, an obvious and disappointing image of Ellis's father transforming between his own ghoul self and a Bateman ghoul was just taking the issue too far. Did I like the e-mails and everything? Yes, because again that was not so loud and unnecessary. It's like Match Point, if you've seen that - the sequence where he talks to the spirits feels so out of place in an otherwise brilliantly careful movie. It's overkill.
The next issue I have is with how Robbie is written. He's just a generic character, like Ellis - who crafted for us Bateman, among others - couldn't be bothered to actually develop a teenage kid. He was sort of like a bitter, young Clay without the drugs or the interesting message. And what's more, why does the fictional Ellis cry so much? Instead of trying to build genuinely emotional scenes, Ellis just has his character cry. It's a cheap effect, and a disappointing one, too. He cries so many times that by the end I couldn't help but feel disgusted by it.
There are issues with the writing itself, too, where it's really mundane or obvious or as if JK Rowling filled in for Ellis at points, but I'm afraid I can't locate my copy of the book at the moment so I can't really give any examples. Sorry.
Minor gripe - how didn't fictional Ellis recognize Detective Kimball's name? I immediately did and I only read Psycho once, whereas fictional Ellis is supposed to have written it, for crying out loud. Would he really forget that name? Absolutely not. Boo, Ellis. Boo!
If this was an "apology" for American Psycho, as Stephen King suggested, then shame on Ellis. He should be apologizing for this novel, not Psycho - this is a good idea executed poorly or lazily, but Psycho was a great idea executed expertly. And to have fictional Ellis "write" Bateman's death? And he burns on that boat and everything? Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I am so upset over this book, just because it should have been awesome and it was not.
To answer one question posed by the poster, even calling this a comeback attempt is preposterous, since as someone (LL Cool J, maybe?) once said, "Don't call this a comeback/ I've been here for years." Ellis never went away, but he did let me down on this one.
Door's open, boys and gals!