Less Than Zero is Bret Easton Ellis‘ first novel.

Plot:
Rich college student Clay returns home to L.A. for the winter break. He spends his time going to parties, doing drugs and having sex while thinking about whether or not he wants to have a relationship with Blair, his girlfriend. But Clay grows increasingly alienated from the amoral behaviour of his friends.

Less Than Zero is a good first novel, but not the best Bret Easton Ellis has ever written. It’s also completely stuck in the 80s (it was published in ‘85) and seems a little out of date for that. [Actually, I read the first pages and the looked up the first publication date because I had to know if it really was published in the 80s.]

This novel is hard to pull off – all the characters are incredibly jaded and unsympathetic, even Clay who tries to excise the effects of growing up in this company and tries to get some sense of (moral) direction.

I wanted to feel sorry for everybody but Ellis didn’t really let me. I mean, these are young people who are very lost. But then they go ahead and [SPOILER] get their rocks off to a snuff film and rape a twelve year old [/SPOILERS] and whatever sympathies I could muster just evaporated.

As I said before, sometimes the book feels a little dated because it asks questions that are not so en vogue today. But since the questions asked have never been really answered, since nihilism is still something that continues to engage people, I didn’t mind.

It’s definitely a book worth a re-read (especially since Ellis has announced that he’s writing a sequel). [And I think I need to get my hands on the movie - Robert Downey Jr. and James Spader? Cool.]

Informers, The (2008)
★ / ★★★★

Set in the early 1980’s Los Angeles, “The Informers” based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, was about the emptiness of multiple characters who would rather try to escape their problems in hopes that they would eventually go away rather than tackling them head-on. Although there were five to six storylines, only about two or three worked for me. I wished that Gregor Jordan, the director, instead focused his energy on those three and really explored why the characters chose to make certain decisions. Kim Basinger, Billy Bob Thornton, Mickey Rourke and Winona Ryder are the big names who I thought would elevate this picture. However, their storylines were so uninteresting, they might as well not have appeared in it. What did work for me was Jon Foster as a rich twentysomething who seemingly had it all but he chose not to use his priviledges to his advantage. Instead, he decided to deal drugs and hang out with people who really did not care about him–people who only cared about drugs, sex and living the luxurious life. I was really engaged with his scenes because little by little he realized that he was just being used, especially how his girlfriend didn’t care about him as much as he cared for her. I also liked the dynamics between Foster and his sister and how they felt about their parents’ (Basinger and Thorton) decision to move in together after they’ve been separated. Unfortunately, that bit was very underdeveloped. Lastly, I thought the scenes in Hawaii with Chris Isaak and Lou Taylor Pucci–father and son, respectively–was pretty well-done. It was somewhat humorous to me because it was a classic desparate father-son bonding where everything pretty much went wrong. But it could also be seen through a dramatic lens because the son hid this true hatred toward his father since the father only cared about himself. I really believe that critical adjustments such as a different director, sharper and bolder writing, eliminating storylines and expanding others (like the rising unknown disease now known as AIDS), this movie could have become a totally worthwhile experience. After all, the material was based on the works of a writer a really enjoyed such as “American Psycho” and “The Rules of Attraction.” “The Informers” could have provided insight on how it was like to live life without any sort of internal locus on control and how that manner of living could drive us to the ultimate levels of boredom, unsatisfaction, and madness.

Writing in the Rumpus, Rick Moody takes an absurd approach toward answering a question long loved by music geeks: What’s the most awful pop song you can think of? Moody’s nominee is Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love,”* and his essay ultimately becomes a heartfelt reminiscence of his sister, who died in 1995, and their shared passion for music. Before he gets there, though, there’s lots of willfully silly top-of-head riffing about Winwood and music, and one of the ideas that gurgles up is this:

And since I believe that the politics of an age affect the artistic productions of the age, I suppose I really do think that Ronald Reagan somehow forced Steve Winwood to make “Higher Love,” even though Winwood is a British subject (from Birmingham, I believe), and could theoretically make any recording he wanted to. On first blush, the theology of “Higher Love” is morning-in-America theology, theology of the kind that leads people to believe that Jesus wants them to make lots of money. Or that Jesus will somehow protect them from death, disease, poverty, bad luck, traffic accidents, and so on.

If it’s silly to apply all this to Steve Winwood, is it silly to apply it to books? It certainly seems like a no-brainer to say that politics has a strong influence on art—back in 2007 it was hard not to notice that a few literary novelists seemed to be commenting on American interventionism by writing stories about oppressive regimes and disappeared citizens. Life since 9/11 has made it easy to leverage politics into art; was it as easy to do it during the Reagan go-go years?

The 80s were the years of my childhood and adolescence—nerdy as I was at the time, I didn’t follow contemporary literature (or politics) very closely. But looking at the bestsellers for that decade, it’s not hard to detect some of the themes that Moody is concerned about—there’s scads of Cold War thrillers (Clancy, Ludlum, Le Carre), American verities (Jakes, L’Amour, Keillor), and high-fashion glitz and romance (Steel, Collins, Krantz). But I’m not sure what, if anything, the epic bricks by Clavell, Michener, Auel, and Uris have to say about the Reagan years. (Did we stop liking massive historical novels, or did people just stop writing them?) And the same question goes for all those Stephen King books—though The Tommyknockers is infamously a product of, and commentary on, cocaine addiction, and some smart graduate student could probably spin an argument about Reagan-era South American misadventures out of it.

It’s not as easy to tease out these influences when you look at the kind of literary fiction that was embraced by critics through the decade. Looking at the New York Times Book Review’s selections for best books during those years—imperfect benchmarking to be sure—what sticks out is an almost deliberate avoidance of political themes and messages. There was plenty of affection for Raymond Carver (in 1988), Philip Roth (1981, 1983, and 1987), and John Updike (1981, 1982, and 1986), none of whom seemed especially interested in morning-in-America themes. (Rabbit Is Rich talks a lot about the economy, but given when it was written and the time in which it’s set it’s probably best considered the Great Carter-era Novel.) Same goes for the interior stories by Marilynne Robinson (1981), Peter Taylor (1985), Louise Erdrich (1985), William Kennedy (1983), and others. With the notable exception of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, which was met with both critical and commercial acclaim, looking at the Times‘ selections you’d think American fiction writers spent the decade unaware that the country had a president, or politics, at all.

Conspicuous in their absence from either set of lists are the “brat pack” authors like Jay McInerney, Tama Janowitz, and Bret Easton Ellis, but those authors may wind up best reflecting the era in which they emerged—certainly Ellis’ American Psycho is a potent satire of 80s consumerism, greed, and selfishness. That book came out in 1991, so perhaps it took getting out of the 80s for those writers to effectively approach it. While they were in the midst of it, they produced threadbare works like McInerney’s Story of My Life, stories that were hollow and went down easy—the “Higher Love” of American literature.

* Moody’s wrong. “Higher Love” is just innocuous. As I suggested on Twitter, the song that ought to get this prize is Europe’s “Cherokee,” which has a number of fatal flaws: It’s reminiscent of (but not as good as) the band’s biggest hit, has a hilariously insincere “social justice” lyric, and includes a keytar solo. None of which, unfortunately, keeps the song from appearing in regular rotation on XM’s otherwise unimpeachable “Hair Nation” channel.

this video is so cool. incredible that they pulled it off.

There are innocuous objects which later become emblematic of systemic frustrations, an accidental center of so many Venn diagrams. Simon Spotlight’s movie tie-in God Hates Us All is one such object.

I noticed it on the fiction table at the newly opened Greenlight Bookstore. At first I thought a guerilla marketing team had placed the book. This wasn’t a novelization of a film or TV property in the traditional sense. The book in question is the fake literary phenomenon by Hank Moody, protagonist of Showtime’s “Californication.” I’ve seen the show, which posits David Duchovny as a Chuck Pahlaniuk/Bret Easton Ellis hybrid following his libido into wacky/zany adventures. The show is a pretty transparent “Entourage” knockoff as a male fantasy of wish fulfillment: an edgy New Yorker in Los Angeles, newly minted off of the movie rights from his edgy novel, adapted into an execrable romcom with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Moody’s talent is never questioned in the show. In fact, his agent and wife both complain about his stalled followup book. The show isn’t concerned, however, as Moody’s enfant terrible stature is merely a handy excuse for a parade of easy and topless women. This makes a lot more sense when you realize it’s also produced by Duchovny, who recently admitted an addiction to sex.

Back to God Hates Us All. What’s so particularly vexing is how this departs from novelizations. Showtime and Simon & Schuster have packaged the fabricated, ghostwritten novel itself as marketing: it’s not an adaptation, but a real novel fashioned out of the world of the TV show.

As an analogy, imagine if a movie studio built a real version of the Xanadu estate from Citizen Kane. Yes, Hearst Castle, its original inspiration, still exists. But its tangential relationship to the film (no one needs to see Xanadu to understand Orson Welles’ film, or vice versa) is similar to God Hates Us All. What is the point of the entire exercise? It’s not just marketing, but something worse: marketing which devalues its medium.

Think about this book in the context of where I first witnessed it: next to Olive Kitteredge, Nick Harkaway’s The Gone-Away World, and a new edition of Pride and Prejudice. Is there an ethical consideration here? If you were a debut novelist with a manuscript on submission at Simon & Schuster, would God Hates Us All give you pause?

I’m genuinely curious. I may just be overreacting, putting literary fiction on too high a pedestal. This may just be a minor casualty of what Henry Jenkins calls convergence culture – you can’t have Girl Talk albums and shot-for-shot Psycho remakes without a few trainwrecks. What’s more, I’ll proselytize for hours on the benefits of ideas operating across media landscapes. I suppose what bothers me most here is the purposeful blurring of the editorial/commercial lines. (Especially as a fan of Less Than Zero.)

: : : : : : : :

Duke is tomorrow. We win, we go to Tampa. We had considered making the trip to Durham for the game but in an effort to save money and potentially have the means to make the trip to Miami should we make the Orange Bowl, I think we’re going to stay home. We’ve only got three or four games remaining in the season depending on tomorrow’s result. It’s weird because typically by mid-November, I feel like the season just started yesterday and I’ve been robbed of enjoying the full season. But this year it’s not that way at all. I’ve actually taken in the entire year pretty well. Picked a good season to do it, too.

I’m planning on starting The Informers this weekend. I’ve now read Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, and American Psycho. Each book I read by Ellis, I become a bigger fan. I feel like I still need to do more reading/contemplating to be able to put it into words but I’ve never been this in love with an author before. His work feels like the kind of literature that would be written if someone tailored their writing to my tastes.

Lunch today was interesting. Went with Lee from work to the Tilted Kilt, which is essentially the irish pub version of Hooters – something I was unaware of before stepping in the door. I thought there was some sort of Halloween party going on when I first got in. The food was pretty awesome though, specifically the Gaelic Chicken.

Went to the mall last night to look for new clothes. Found some stuff I like at the Gap, but I’m holding off for right now until we figure out exactly what we want to invest in.

J’ai renié la gravité le jour où mon premier black out a battu l’apesanteur par KO.

Si match retour il y a, il se déroulera après l’arrivée aux urgences et avant le lavement.

Entre le sol et le ciel, j’appuie sur retour rapide pour faire avancer le film de ma vie, essayer de trouver un sens à ce qui n’en a pas.

Alors, si tout est une question d’éloge funèbre je me proclame immortel, de mon ennui le plus profond à l’hystérie la plus collective.

Plus on est de fous, plus on fuit.

Puisque qu’il n’y a plus de deadline pourquoi observer la timeline, pourquoi continuer à employer des mots d’anglais au lieu du chinois ?

Hum ? Quoi ? Je répondrai à cette délicate interrogation existentialiste, sûrement sur le trône lorsque je me serai totalement extirpé de mon coma habituel ainsi que de mon vomi personnel, enfin, je n’en suis pas sûr.

Autour de moi, tournoyant sans s’arrêter, une collection de poster encadrés et poussiéreux prouvant que la pop culture est plus une religion qu’un business, contre mon front une paire de sneakers édition limitée gluantes qui ne m’appartiennent pas, comme le reste de la chambre d’ ailleurs.

« Où je suis ? » c’est un meilleur échappatoire que « qui je suis ? ».

Un dernier sourire sur l’inconnue que je ne veux pas connaître, la frontière de la porte péniblement franchie, j’arpente chancelant, au petit matin de midi, ce couloir que je connais décidément par cœur, par cul…

J’aperçois finalement la lumière au bout du tunnel, ébloui par le monde, j’accèderai peut-être à la rédemption ou un café, une fois que mes yeux cachés derrière la fine couche de crasse de mes lunettes de soleil, décorant un automne sous assistance respiratoire en attendant l’hiver, auront trouvé asile entre mes paupières et mes cernes.

Certains ont une double vie, quand je doute encore que la mienne m’appartienne en constatant d’un rictus nerveux comment je peux la détruire avec trois doigts et une seringue, juste comme ça.

Quand il n’y a pas de stigmates, il n’y a pas de plaisir, demandez à Jésus !

Sociabilise-toi, on m’a dit petit, je suis un élève appliqué en faisant dans l’humanitaire entre toxicomanes en manque de problème et dealers qui veulent en avoir à tout prix.

Parfois les négociations tournent à l’explication lorsque le service après vente n’existe pas et que le distributeur veut son retour sur investissement, donc les gémissements font les coupables et les retards construisent les exemples.

Les fractures ou les fractions, je ne sais pas, mais on ne guérit pas de ce que l’on a perdu, alors la plupart se bercent d’hypothèses plutôt que de vivre face à leurs échecs chaque matin en se brossant machinalement les dents pour entretenir la vitrine de la machine à créer du vent.

Je ne crois ni aux signes des astrologues ni au destin des marionnettistes, mais une lettre anonyme au parfum de futur, pourquoi pas ! On s’accorde avec le déni qui nous rassure le plus.

Devenir accro à un bonheur hypothéqué, quoi de mieux pour un vendeur de rêve à la demande ?

Dans le creux des reins de la nuit on change, on se mélange, on voit rouge, on déroge, on s’érige, on s’arrange, on enrage, on se fige, on se mélange, on change, puis on se venge et les deux aspirines qui se désagrègent en pétillant militairement au fond du verre nous interrogent.

Quand on vit de prétextes plus ou moins douteux, on a toujours une excuse valable pour ne pas assumer.

Il faut dire que le sexe a plus d’ avenir que l’amour, à nous regarder, nous, le peuple des relations bucco-génitales qui ne peut pas s’empêcher de l’ouvrir, même pour faire silence.

…

Mon pays c’est mes névroses, je peux partir en guerre pour un câlin, un regard de travers, mais principalement parce que mon cœur n’a jamais eu les couilles de mon ego et je préfère le lit d’autrui à la solitude du mien.

Les moments de vérité j’ai toujours su les rater avec un professionnalisme certain, il ne me reste qu’une voie de garage ou un cul de sac, mais comptez sur moi pour préméditer un carambolage à la sortie de la boîte des enfants avec un permis de mourir.

La prévention construit une clientèle plus qu’elle ne la dissuade !

Avant de m’enterrer dans la concession voisine de celle de mon revendeur agréé de poudre aux yeux, il me faut combler mon prêt étudiant et les espoirs parentaux dans une salle de classe remplie à la hâte d’une mosaïque qui mériterait un bon lifting et fournie avec le prélat érudit, enfin plus que ces fidèles, faisant autant cours qu’un speed dating.

M’instruire ? Pourquoi faire ? Je ne vais pas apprendre l’existence dans un bouquin, j’opte pour un aquaplaning dans un verre d’eau, de redbull, de rhum ou une chirurgie à cœur ouvert par mail interposé.

Pourquoi les pécheurs parlent toujours de morale comme de la liste des courses du samedi après-midi ?

Chacun comble son enfance dans la désintoxication possible et la luxure plausible, certains pleurent secrètement leurs fantômes parce c’est encore plus dur de grandir à plusieurs plutôt que seul et les derniers montent une arnaque à l’assurance avec leurs démons le vendredi, samedi et dimanche, selon leur boutique.

Je ne termine jamais ce que j’ai commencé, comme l’autre soir dans tes bras, dans tes draps, je ne termine jamais ce que j’ai commencé comme la vie en général, je ne termine jamais ce que j’ai commencé comme cette

Bret Easton Ellis

“Lunar Park”

 

• The story is told by the main character. It is written in the I format. At times the format switches to “the writer” and at one point the narrator became a third person, looking at the story from the outside. The writer mentions several times that it is not him who is writing the book, but the writer within him, who has his own voice and personality.The writer’s point of view gives me the insights into his world. The perspective is not objective and sometimes I wondered whether the events in the book actually took place. I found myself taking the writer’s side in the most cases, which prevented me from reading the book objectively. His style of writing was so convincing that I did not doubt anything he wrote. I was with him from the beginning until the end. He is an excellent writer. The amazing flow of the words and sentences took me on the ride throughout the book.
• The book starts with a bit of confusion. The writer is describing his previous works and I was not sure whether it was the introduction to the book or the actual beginning. I had a hard time understanding whether it was a true story or not. All I knew was that I enjoyed reading it. I was ready for more, not matter what it was. As he wrote about his books, I was anticipating the next section, which never came. When I realized that I had to accept the way the plot went on, I became very anxious. I felt as if I knew what I needed to know already and was waiting for something else. Later on I settled into the book, still amazed at the amount of the events taking place.I feel that the writer was telling the readers the background information about himself through his previous works. When that was done, he started the actual story of him moving in together with Jayne and her two sons. The mystical events started at that point, which is actually what Lunar Park is about. From there on, the events follow in the chronological order. At times the flashbacks are made back to the time when Bret was a young kid. He remembers his dad in different situations, which made a big impact on him and his life.
• Bret’s inner voice is very youthful. He is very honest and does not come across as superficial. He makes mistakes, he breaks down, he cries, he loses the grasp of reality, but he is not evil, nor does he wish any harm to anybody. He represent a regular human being, who is struggling with the haunted past. He is sarcastic. He will break out into a joke in the midst of drama, because that is the only way to survive. Thinking too much about the pain makes him more depressed, so he runs away from it. He cannot handle the responsibility which comes with the fatherhood and family. It is hard for him to take care of himself and he has not realized that his bachelor’s life is over. It is very hard for him to make the transition into the adulthood.Bret’s use of language is very vivid. The actions came alive in front of me. This is one of the reasons why I could not realize that I had read almost 500 pages in just a couple of days. His tone was very youthful with a touch of humor. His sentences followed his way of thinking. When he was stressed or scared, he used short sentences, which gave me a very good feel of the urgency of his thoughts.
• The main setting is on the East Coast of the U.S. When Bret is looking back at his upbringing, he is referring to his hometown, Los Angeles. At the end of the book he goes back there to shed the ashes of his father. Otherwise everything else is pretty much centered on the East Coast around the New York City area. Most of the “scary” events are happening in the house. Bret feels chased, watched and attacked. He occasionally takes a drive to the college where he is teaching, but the house is the center of most of the happenings.
• Bret is the principal character, drug addict, unpredictable, very caring but not capable of taking care of his family. Full of imagination and is an incredible writer, who releases his inner thoughts through his writing. His wife is very needy, in terms of love and attention. She wants Bret to commit to her and the family life, which they are trying to create. They struggle and in the end she gives up. Bret’s son never got to find put that Bret was his real father. At that time when Bret’s wife became pregnant, they were not married yet and Bret could not commit to the fatherhood. In that sense, Bret feels a struggle to care for his son, because he constantly gets accused for not being the real dad. It hurts him, but in the end he is helpless.
• In Lunar Park, Bret is talking about his famous life and also about his inner struggle with his father, who’s spirit is haunting him. In this book Bret’s goal is to release that, which he does not realize until the end. It also seems to me that Bret wanted the readers to understand him. The celebrity life has not given him an opportunity to explain himself and his actions. I think he wrote this book to somehow explain and justify himself as a victim and a person who is human. I think he felt judged and lonely deep inside.
• Lunar Park, I finished reading this book in August, so I actually don’t quite remember all the details, but I think it signifies his crazy life. It was amazing reading a story about someone’s life from the inside as opposed to outside and I think that was actually the goal of the book. I think Bret wanted the world to understand him.

El polémico escritor Bret Easton Ellis, conocido principalmente por la mala leche vertida en American Psycho, sigue muy ligado al mundo del cine. Entre otros proyectos prepara junto al director Brad Furman el thriller Bait, que cuenta con una de esas sinopsis que por su rareza, dejan huella. La historia se sitúa en un apacible pueblo costero que hace su Agosto gracias al veraneo de miembros de la élite económica en sus playas. Allí también trabaja el tímido Cole, un joven de clase obrera que  trata de ganarse unos duros como camarero en un chiringuito mientras oculta al mundo la rabia que siente por aquellos a los que sirve. Estos son grupos de jóvenes adinerados y bien situados que pasean su inalcanzable estatus ante las narices del currante. Una noche Cole conoce a Haley, una chica rica con la que pronto siente una profunda conexión. Sin embargo, su novio y sus amigos, igualmente adinerados, le dan a Cole una paliza de muerte y lo humillan ante la chica y el resto de su ciudad. Es entonces cuando el pequeño gran psicópata que vive en su interior despierta y comienza a tramar su venganza. Esta tendrá lugar en el yate del padre de uno de sus agresores, donde Haley, su novio y su chulipandi preparan una fiesta. Allí, en alta mar, es donde Cole planea asesinar a cada uno de ellos usando como arma del crimen a la multitud de tiburones que nada por la zona. Todo muy en la línea brutal de Ellis y en la del terror norteamericano, que normalmente sitúa a beautiful people como víctima de todo tipo de tropelías. ¿Será, tal vez, porque el público que se deja el dinero en taquilla en esta clase de filmes pertenece a bajos escalafones sociales? Estudios de mercado dixit. Y su palabra va a misa.

George Pelecanos considers him the leader of Noir’s new school, Bret Easton Ellis is already adapting his Follower into a HBO serie…
Meet Jason Starr, a novelist from Flatbush who sometimes gets like Psycho killa : Norman Bates !

I’ve been living in Flatbush -right in the middle of Brooklyn- until I was 18-19 y.o, then I left to go to college… I’m in Manahttan right now, Upper East Side.

I’ve heard you’ve had a lot of shitty jobs before you blew up.
A lot. I’ve been a dish-washer, a telemarketer, I’ve parked cars, I’ve written for a couple of financial magazines… I even had a job where I was operating pizza vending machines… you know, like they do for drinks, but with pizzas (laughs), that was stupid…

Whats does the expression « New York Minute » mean to you ?
The intensity of the life in Manhattan. Guys laying in the subway, yellow cabs… Wall Street.

Only Manhattan ?
Yeah… Like most people, I identify New york to Manhattan. Nobody don’t really think of all 5 boroughs when you speak about New York.

We do. People say anything can happen in a New York Minute, for better or worse… Do you have a Brooklyn example ?
(Long pause, he tries to remember one) Back In the 1980’s… I’m walking home from school one day, it’s a normal day and then, I see a guy attack this teenager and start slashing his face with a knife. It was brutal, bloody, horrific.

Do you know why he did it, or if the guy has been arrested ?
No, I never heard anything about it. This was in 1984, the height of the crack problem in New York, when violence was rampant. I have no doubt the attacker was high on crack.

Did the kid survive ?
Yes, it was just his face that was slashed and he was running, screaming for help.

You were 18 at the time, and you started writing later… Do you think seeing such a violent act “triggered” something about your imagination ?
I’m not sure, it might have… It was the first time I’d seen brutal violence. This happened right in front of my house, on Bedford Avenue, near the Long Island Railroad train tracks.

You never read crime fiction before going to college, what brought you to it ?
I’ve never been deep into books. When I started writing (in college), my style was already precise, the sentences were shorts, so I started looking for writers who worked like that. I began with Albert Camus, but then I found out he was influenced with James M. Cain, that The Stranger was inspired by The Postman always rings twice… I had started writing « literrature » novels and I realized my style was naturally feeling like Noir, so I got into reading Elmore Leonard’s books, then Jim Thompson’s, then others… and this whole thing became my world.
(end)

Now that you’ve get to know the guy, peep his Top 5 lists for eternity

1st things 1st : The Books.

Crime and Punishment (Fedor Dostoïevsky, 1866)

The Killer Inside Me (Jim Thompson, 1952)

Edith’s Diary (Patricia Highsmith, 1977)

The Rules of Attraction (Bret Easton Ellis, 1987)

Get Shorty (Elmore Leonard, 1990)

Then, the Movies :

The Killers (Robert Siodmak, 1946)

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

Inglorious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

The Comfort of Strangers (Paul Schrader, 1990)

Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

A stack of twelve-teen books from the library sit on my desk. Which ones do I read?

A list of books three pages long, three columns wide, size 10 font, Times New Roman typeface is saved on my computer in alphabetical order. It’s been growing at a rate much faster than that which the strikethrough lines have been inching their way through titles since my second year in undergrad. Which ones do I read?

I have a file in my drawer of hanging files for writing related things that says “fresh ideas.” In there are upwards of twenty pieces of chit paper from the receipt printer at the restaurant that have handfuls of favorite book titles written by dozens of co-workers since 2005 to the present and counting – books these individuals who I come to love think I should read. Which ones should I, then, read?

***

It’s been years since I’ve seen the movie American Psycho.  I guess I don’t remember distinct series’ of scenes like you sometimes do from movies you watched years ago that made an impact.  I remember the cover -  Christian Bale’s character, a rich face sliding out from behind a gleaming knife blade and all of it rising from a dark, ominous background.  I remember him living a lie.  I remember addiction in everything.  And too much of everything.  But I never did read the book.  Maybe with intention, maybe not.  But I also didn’t believe in much of anything then – and that plays a part.

Bret Easton Ellis was recommended to me by a friend more recently, however, and I reevaluated my reasoning for abstaining from this literature…any literature for that matter.  Let me break for a moment to be very clear.  I love to read. Love.  Love.  Love.  Forget time management and graduate school and the fact that lately, I’m notoriously tired despite the twelve hours of sleep I’m getting each day.  I still worship the written word and have upwards of nine items on hold in the South Suburban Library System at any given time.  I consider my reading palette vast and open-minded and I try to keep it that way intentionally.   I enjoy reading about things that I don’t know about; after all, isn’t part of the fun in it all the fact that we are humbled by the thrill of learning more than we know?  Okay, since we’re all clear on that, we can return to our regularly scheduled program.

Ellis writes novels like American Psycho based primarily on a style called social satire.  There are a number of views on this style and even more nuanced views when Ellis’s particular work comes into play, none of which I am going to spend any time slicing and dicing.  I explored them and if you care, you can – but you won’t.  Because this was my little project and research component to make a relatively small personal decision about my own reading habits.  And it worked, and I did, and Ellis got the boot.

Most of my skepticism is in the fact that I don’t really buy into Ellis’s concept of social satire as a justification for how he breaks the rules of literature.  I’ll use another author here as a foil.  I think my favorite author is David Foster Wallace.    He recently died tragically by suicide in his forties, a brilliant man.  Wallace broke all the rules.  They do say in writing that you have to know the rules in order to break them.  And that you have to follow them for some time before gaining the respect to prance around as an acclaimed rule-breaker.  Both true  to the deepest degree of Wallace.  My historical background of Ellis isn’t strong.  It’s weak, in fact.  But those who talk him up to me attach Rules of Attraction to his name as a foundational work – you know, one that will cause recognition to bloom in hesitant faces.  Rules of Attraction follows no rules.  From what I’m learning about Ellis, he’s not a guy who cares one lick about following literary rules.  Maybe he just has his own plan to follow and it’s a smidge out-of-context with the American literary scene.  He seems a bit self-obsessed and it crawls into his novels about every third publication, so maybe that’s a factor.  I’m not sure.  But he’s too rebellious of a genre and an art that I respect for me to support his riots.

In essence: Ellis produces this piece of artwork (his novel, American Psycho) that claims to be a social satire on the era of excess that the 1980’s spends its days spiraling towards.  The novel is a hit with a huge crowd of folks for its brilliance in capturing the overwhelming concept of excess hidden behind a day-to-day facade.  The form and shape that excess takes in Ellis’s novel borders literary pornography, with violence in detail far beyond a plot-driven need.  The excess that society has derailed into is disgusting, true to a fault.  But Ellis does not capture this.  Ellis fails to socially comment on excess, but instead adulterates the literary functions that artists with his gift are offered with the pen and the page.  Using violence, or any other display of excess, I think Ellis could have depicted a rise above this pattern of social demise and cleverly commented on American excess in the 80’s.  Instead of commenting on the nation’s patterns, he participates shamelessly in them.

ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering in the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Miserables on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Pierce and twenty-six doesn’t seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, “Be My Baby” on WYNN, and the driver, black, not American, does so.

Word Count: 118

The air is cold but heavy. Tiny raindrops fall at such a continuous rate that the sensation—against your flesh—is more like the prickle of static electricity than the intrusive prod of newly formed H2O. You glance at a cell phone that tells you it’s 6:20, though the sky is dark, even for October. Several soggy pumpkins grimace in front of a house made of bricks painted brown. A light turns green.
As you drive you replay your conversation with her—give a voice to the typed words through which you communicate. You try to plan the interaction that will follow, but unlike a master chess player, you’re stuck after the second move. The windshield fogs up so you turn on the heat, defrost. A large rat scurries across the street. The radio is broken and the car’s sounds drown out your thoughts, but also everything else.
At the coffee house you step out of your car.
Practiced-faces are illuminated with a pale orange glow as they expel tenuous coughs of smoke, twirl plastic cups of brown liquid. You choke down a bit of nausea and walk forward, keep your eyes on the ground. You never liked places like this—but this meeting was your idea, not hers. Things are different now.
You order her favorite drink, a pumpkin-spiced latte. Very seasonal.
While you wait for the latte you watch a table of people animatedly arguing about something you couldn’t quite hear. A grinning brown-haired guy guffaws, leans back dismissively before jerking forward and gesticulating with a karate-chop gesture, saying, “Obviously his real motives were . . .”
In the noise of this crowded room the reasons for this meeting dissolve. It’s something you dreamed up last week, one of those times when the loneliness becomes a wavelength—something that can’t be ignored, something that splits your head like two thumbs across a Ziploc bag.
Your name is called. You grab the cold cup, find a seat.
She’s late.
A table of intellectuals next to you starts talking about the symbolism in a book you haven’t read. They basically seem to just brag about other peoples’ ideas to one another. It reminds you of a kindergarten show and tell, but with nothing to show and less to tell.
You pretend to type into a cell phone, but don’t.
There isn’t much you remember about her, and as you’re sitting there—in a loud, illuminated world that makes no sense—you’re thinking of the Earth’s plates grinding against each other. You’re thinking of a colony of red, translucent ants frenzying across a meteor drifting through space. You imagine conjoined twins without the surgery.
What she is to you is a face, a series of memories, the idea of a routine—the same thing that you are to her—an answer to something.
You remember a class, Diversity of Life, and sitting in a lecture hall thinking about her—watching people outside running around with books over their heads, trying not to get wet—but not much else.
“Excuse me.”
You look up. There’s a girl with a slight smirk, tilting her head at you.
“Do you know what time it is?” she asks. She asks, “Are you there,” then laughs at her own joke.
“Seven-twenty,” you tell her, trying to smile.
“Seven-twenty?” she says.
You nod. She lingers a second before walking away.
Your phone buzzes, indicating a text message—cancelling, apologizing.
You stare at the message for a minute but don’t write back.
You feel a slight relief at a failure avoided. At least now you know tomorrow will be the same as today. What’s a shape-less void if not another thing you can count on?
The girl that had asked you the time is now debating with a table of studied scoffs that you hate on sight. You watch them earnestly discussing a dead guy’s thoughts, swirling drinks, making faces—and it annoys you before you realize that maybe you’re just mad because they’ve found a gimmick that works.
Things look better from the outside.
You hear someone say, “by the statistics,” in an ominous, drawn-out croak.
And statistically we’re all just looking for something to hold onto—something that will hold us back, and keep us from floating away.
You think of something that could have been, but wasn’t. You know what it’s like to be alone. You know the universe will end in a series of winks and a redolence of scorched hair. You can define the word “wallowing.”
You wonder if anyone will ever touch your heart.
It’s always the simplest things that we can never get right.
The latte that you’d gotten her has your name written in sharpie on its side. The plastic cup is sweating beads of water onto a napkin that is damp now, soft. You leave the cup sitting—a memorial to an unheard apology—and walk outside.
A tiny raindrop lands on your eye. You blink and the streetlights become hazy glowing circles—the universe, revised. The engine starts and hot air blows toward the windshield—drowning out the voices, and everything else.
Things are better like this.

Something I wrote one night and haven’t really looked over again. An exercise on ending things.

So it looks like it is a go.  Just found this today…

Milk director Gus Van Sant will team up with Bret Easton Ellis to form their own non-literal suicide pact to write the screenplay adaptation of the Vanity Fair article The Golden Suicides by Nancy Jo Sales, which has been acquired by Palm Star Entertainment, Celluloid Dreams and K5 Film.

The Golden Suicides, for those who aren’t familiar, is the story about Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, a couple who both committed suicide in July of 2007, within one week of each other.  Duncan was a blogger and video game designer, Blake an up and coming digital artist who had done the dream sequences for the movie Punch Drunk Love.  The Wit Continuum will keep following up with any progress on this film: searching for film updates, casting, and release date projections.  Right now it appears that what I had blogged before as the “talks” of this being written into a screenplay are now officially in the writing stages.  Let’s hope these two have the chops to make it Duncanology worthy. 

Links: Gus Van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis Team to Write Suicide Film

             http://screencrave.com/2009-10-14/gus-van-sant-pens-the-golden-suicides/

Fernando Meirelles es un excelente director que primero nos trajo Cidade de Deus en 2002, con una magńifica estética y una historia increíble. Antes había dirigido y producido varios proyectos para televisión y otros largometrajes pero lo vinimos a reconocer hasta su quinta peli. Después confirmó de qué está hecho y realizó una conmovedora Constant Gardener en 2005 y que le valió varias nominaciones y un Oscar para su actriz principal, Rachel Weisz.

Tres años después, y luego de hacer de nuevo televisión, nos deleita con Blindness una peli basada en el libro de José Saramago, Ensayo sobre la ceguera.

Debo confesar que hasta hace muy poco me leí algo de Saramago, ya unos habían desertado su novela que me pareció cautivante, llena de vértigo, morbo y una extraordinaria narración. Desarrollarla en cine era todo un reto.

Pocos, en serio, pocos proyectos resultan verdaderamente gratificantes cuando pasan del libro al celuloide. Se me vienen a la cabeza tan sólo cinco de los que he leído; Curtis Hanson con Wonder Boys de 2000 basado en la novela de Michael Chabon, David Fincher con Fight Club de 1999 basado en la novela de Chuck Palahniuk, Stephen Daldry con The Hours de 2002 basado en la novela Michael Cunninghan, Mary Harron con American Psyco basado en la novela de Bret Easton Ellis y Tommy Lee Wallace con It basado en la novela de Stephen King (que es una tenebrosa producción para televisión).

El gran problema con un libro es que uno como lector se imagina todo muy específicamente, los espacios son muy luminosos o muy oscuros y los personajes son muy bajitos o muy gorditos pero nunca son los que le ponen a uno enfrente de la pantalla que incluso hablan muy diferente de lo que uno alguna vez se imaginó.

Teniendo esto en la cabeza Saramago nunca le puso nombre propio a ninguno de sus personajes, eran simplemente seres humanos con profesiones o características especiales. Después de sufrir su decadencia, es lo único que les queda: Su humanidad. Y el reto entonces se extiende a Mark Ruffalo que hace del doctor, a Julianne Moore que hace de la esposa del doctor, Alice Braga que hace de la mujer de gafas oscuras, Danny Glover que hace del tuerto del radio o Gael García Bernal que hace del rey del pabellón 3; el reto es que todos ellos no son sólo seres humanos son artistas reconocidos que deben desprenderse de su fama y hacerse humildes, mundanos, instintivos, animales, desconocidos.

Creo que es un producto acertado, fue muy fiel a la obra en su planteamiento, en su nudo y en su desenlace. Si uno cierra los ojos se alcanza a imaginar las líneas originales de Saramago. Me encantó la calidad del reparto que encarnó una población cosmopolita donde desde el primer ciego un japonés de fuertes y arraigadas costumbres se vuelven gratas sorpresas. Hubo instantes en la novela que me encantaron por su morbosidad, me llevaron al límite de mis instintos y quería disfrutarlos gráficamente en la peli. La putrefacción de los corredores, las telas que dejaban entrever los acaecidos pechos de las mujeres e incluso su violación por parte de los integrantes del pabellón 3 fueron momentos verdaderamente geniales. Eso sumado a descripciones de mendicidad, en la ciudad, los cortos donde se muestran los accidentes, los perros devorando cadáveres y todo el concepto de inframundo en el que se volvió esa nación hacen de la peli una desgarradora parábola.

Sin embargo, las imágenes de la ceguera blanca, la música, los pequeños detalles e incluso las mujeres bañando sus senos al aire libre con agua lluvia son tan bonitas que uno al final como espectador vive constantemente contrastes que evaluan la moralidad del ser humano yendo y viniendo entre horrores y belleza.

SOUNDTRACK: FIONA APPLE-When the Pawn… (1999).

I learned about Fiona Apple from CMJ New Music Monthly before her debut came out.  I was convinced she was just another pretty thing with little talent. But then I heard “Shadowboxer” and I was really impressed by the depth of her voice.  When I got the album, I was pretty much blown away.

When When the Pawn came out it was mocked for its absurdly long title.  (Even Janine Garofalo got in on the mocking, for which, shame on her because even if Fiona made some bad decisions, she was still a young woman who was fighting for the causes of good).

But looking beyond the title, For When the Pawn, shows Fiona’s voice getting stronger and more subtle, and her songwriting is truly amazing.  She used the assistance of Jon Brion, multi-instrumentalist and all around dabbler in fun sounds.  And he creates a soundscape of weird instruments, crazy sounds and an enveloping sounds that keep the album an item unto itself.

I haven’t listened to the disc in quite a while, but playing it again, i was impressed by the audacity of some of the musical choices, especially for a “pretty young thing” with a successful (and disturbing) video on the charts (“Criminal“).

The crazy noises that start off the disc (carnival-like keyboards, electronic squeals) sound a mile away from the jazzy sounds of “Shadowboxer” but Fiona’s voice comes in and you know that she’s still her, and her voice sounds even richer.  There’s a wild disconnect on “To Your Love” with the delicate vibes (!) that fill the bridge and the rough sounds in the chorus (not to mention the crazy wordplay: “My derring-do allows me to dance the rigadoon Around you But by the time I’m close to you, I lose my desideratum and now you”‘).  And then “Limp,” an amazing musical concoction:  more delicate jazzy openings followed by a raucous chorus with the wonderful put down: “So call me crazy, hold me down / Make me cry; get off now, baby- / It wont be long till you’ll be / Lying limp in your own hand.”

And that’s just the first three songs.  The rest of the disc sways between mellow jazzy numbers, beautiful ballads, and rocking scorchers, but it is always fueled by a dissonance that counters Apple’s voice perfectly.

Another can’t miss track is “Fast as You Can,” a wonderfully propelled track that bounces along jauntily until it hits an amazingly fast syncopated chorus.  And the production is so clean, the drum clap before the bridge is striking.  The disc ends with a couple of delicate songs.  “Get Gone” is  delightful jazzy song (complete with brushed drums).  It remains pretty mellow until Fiona breaks from a pause with a brutal “fucking go!”  And finally, the delicate ending of “I Know” brings the disc to a close.

Ten years later, this disc is still a gem.  One can only hope it gets rediscovered so a new legion of fans can enjoy its masterful music.  And for the full title of the disc, check the bottom the post….

[READ: October 16, 2009] “Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young”

This article opens with a note that Evan Martin found this article but noticed that it wasn’t online.  It was mentioned in Steven Moore’s essay “The First Draft Version of Infinite Jest.“  So he retyped it and it is now hosted on theknowe.net.  Here’s the write-up & link from The Howling Fantods:

“Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young”. The Review of Contemporary Fiction Vol. 8, No. 3, 1988. [NOTES: Read it here.]

This is a fascinating article in which DFW looks at the state of fiction circa 1987.  Specifically, he is responding to criticisms that the popular authors of the day, collectively Conspicuously Young, all fall into three very basic and uninspired cliche-filled boxes:

• Neiman-Marcus Nihilism
• Catatonic Realism
• Workshop Hermeticism

And the authors in question are Bret Easton Ellis, David Leavitt, Jay McInerney and these authors whom he mentions by last name only: Janowitz, Simpson and Minot.  Janowitz I assume is Tama Janowitz, but (Mona) Simpson and (Susan) Minot were unknown to me. I was surprised that later in the article Lorrie Moore appears to be included in this group of young writers (along with Amy Hempel who I’ve heard of) and Debra Spark (who I’ve not heard of). Although they seem to be contrasted with this group as examples of  “good” writers.

Anyhow, back to the article.  DFW does not disagree that the worst of  these Conspicuously Young (CY) authors do fall into these easy cliches.  However, he also criticizes the critics for bemoaning this new generational fiction.  DFW’s argument is that these critics complain that young authors spend too much time in the Now, while real literature should not date itself so much, or rely on pop culture as a signifier.  While DFW agrees that pop culture should not be a crutch, he also states that these critics are coming from a different reality.  They didn’t grow up with television as an unavoidable presence.  They weren’t saturated with media.  References to pop culture are such a part of these authors’ (of which he includes himself) lives that they can’t imagine it not being part of their fiction.

However, that’s still no excuse for lazy writing.  And for that, he is also very critical of fiction writing programs.  He notes the explosion of these programs in the last two dozen years or so.  And his main criticism of them is that the authors who teach in the programs (for they are largely authors) would rather be writing their books, not teaching others to write (which is understandable, yet unfortunate for the students).

Further, these programs tend to be unfailingly “safe” with regard to writing.  Like in most classes, students are taught to do what the teacher says (and mimic it back).  And this is something of a death knell for creative fiction.

And yet, he also comments that these authors should be aspiring to more than nihilistic comments about society.  Late 80’s American society, post Watergate and smack in the heart of Reaganism, is a confusing place for an artist.  So the above three groups make sense.

• Neiman-Marcus Nihilism because the mass culture the Yuppie inhabits and instantiates is itself at best empty and at worst evil.
• Catatonic Realism because in confusing times the bare minimal seems easy.
• Workshop Hermeticism because in confusing times caution seems prudent.

And yet.  And yet, “The state of general affairs that explains a nihilistic artistic outlook makes it imperative that art not be nihilistic.”  But fear not DFW suggests, there are up and coming writers who are not conspicuous yet but who are on the verge, ready to make great art.

The whole article is thoughtful; its simultaneously depressing and yet uplifting.  Of course, it being 20 years old does make some of the points no longer relevant.  I wonder if he thought Fiction Writing Programs had changed (for better or worse) in the last 20 years.

And yes, this confirms my contention that DFW was a great non-fiction writer.

—————————————————————————-

The full title of Fiona’s disc is:

When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king
What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight
And he’ll win the whole thing ‘fore he enters the ring
There’s no body to batter when your mind is your might
So when you go solo, you hold your own hand
And remember that depth is the greatest of heights
And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land
And if you fall it won’t matter, cuz you’ll know that you’re right

Je vous souhaite la bienvenue, ici, chez nous, chez vous, nous n’avons pas la culture d’entreprise, mais l’entreprise de la culture.

Meeting, happening, même combat !

Vous faites partie de la famille, abandonnez votre thérapeute, Dieu et votre amour propre, nous, nous vous aimons pour ce que vous êtes, ce que vous faites.

Je dois avoir la gueule de l’emploi et un petit quelque chose en plus de spécial ou alors, les fosses communes sont toutes équipées de machines à café.

Souriez, vous êtes officiellement mort, un CDI dans le portefeuille et une hypothèque de la maison du bonheur dans les promesses de fidélité.

Maintenant, les infarctus précèdent les calvities.

Caché dans une petite boîte trop parfaite pour être vraie, j’en construis d’autres pour vous tous, avec l’espoir que vous adoriez votre prison.

Je divertis le peuple en me faisant de l’argent : où est le mal ?  Tant que l’on ne me transfère pas vers la hotline ou le service après vente.

Il y a des vices acceptables, voire rentables, alors les plus scolaires d’entre nous préfèrent les participations aux bénéfices de l’industrie des pixels à l’argent sale des paradis artificiels.

Le crime, c’est tout de même mieux depuis son salon ?

L’obésité ou l’overdose ? Tout est une question de promotion !

Je me log chaque matin naturellement d’un air supérieur entre l’automate et le pantomime, pendant que tu pointes la misère sociale sur ton bleu de travail, derrière une machine qui ne peut penser sans toi.

Parfois, je me dis que l’esclavage c’est comme la mode, à force de suivre le mouvement, on pense l’incarner.

Peu importe les coups de fouet, du moment que l’on peut les revendiquer le premier.

Des régiments d’individualistes, vivant leurs ambitions par pack de six bureaux, dans un open space respectant les règles d’hygiène, mais pas celle de l’intimité.

Nous avons tous les mêmes diplômes.

Mais forte heureusement, en phallocratie, les droits de la femme ne font pas les salaires de la femme.

Pour rester dans les annales de l’entreprise certains font des dépressions, les autres des enfants.

Je préfère mes névroses souvent imaginaires, parfois obsessionnelles, à la monotonie de cette folie remplissant mes déclarations d’imposition.

…

Tous pensent réfléchir différemment, mais ils agissent de la même manière, dans le même sens, vers le même but.

Mais moi, j’ai des projets, je suis ne pas comme les autres, je combats le système de l’intérieur, un jour vous verrez !

En attendant, je fais semblant, j’achète quelques machins, je possède quelques trucs, pas grand chose, toujours dans la limite de mon découvert, pour ne pas attirer les soupçons, je prends un crédit, je file droit.

Je crois en ce que je télécharge, en toute légalité.

Certains ont des croisades humanitaires ou pédophiles, les autres des croyances nécrophiles ou mythomanes, moi, j’ai juste un besoin d’exister, je ne suis pas pareil, je me suis mis au bricolage.

Les jours d’ennui, j’hésite entre faire un don ou une OPA.

Un petit décontractant après le travail, entre collègues ou seul, un remontant dans ma voiture chaque matin en voyant le bureau se rapprocher dangereusement, un petit coup de pouce une fois la porte des toilettes close.

Moi, depuis le troisième bureau sur la gauche, celui avec le portrait de famille décomposée et ma figurine Green Lanterne achetée durant mon temps d’inertie sur E-Bay entre la première pause cigarette et le dernier mail groupé glorifiant un con et sa webcam, moi, je sauve le monde, demandez à mes euphorisants remboursés mais génériques, je combats l’horloge du lundi 08H00 au vendredi 17H00.

Je veux me faire un nom en perdant mon identité, dites bonjour à l’absurde banalité.

N’oubliez pas de mettre votre nom au feutre sur votre badge, prenez une viennoiserie et attendez la première vague de licenciement économique, en silence, gêné, comme à votre arrivée dans l’ascenseur.

]]> http://boozeburgersandbeats.com/2009/10/18/simply-the-best-post-11-fiction-books/ Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:33:57 +0000 mheusler http://boozeburgersandbeats.com/2009/10/18/simply-the-best-post-11-fiction-books/ http://blaluca.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/jay-mcinerney/ Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:22:41 +0000 blaluca http://blaluca.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/jay-mcinerney/

Jay McInerney a un party di anni fa

Jay McInerney (1955) è appena approdato in Francia per presentare la sua nuova raccolta di racconti, L’ultimo scapolo, in Italia edita da Bompiani (titolo francese: Moi tout craché). Tra le testate d’oltralpe che lo hanno intervistato ci sono Les Inrockuptibles, Fluctuat e Le Figaro. Leggendo le interviste, a parte gli scontati rimandi al collega-amico Bret Easton Ellis, scopro che lo scrittore di stanza a New York sta leggendo la prima biografia di Raymond Carver (il suo mentore) nonché Gomorra di Roberto Saviano: “Sono incapace di leggere un solo libro alla volta”. Che gli autori di ‘Gossip Girl’ stanno curando l’adattamento cinematografico di Bright Lights, Big City (titolo italiano Le mille luci di New York) – e si tratta del secondo adattamento dopo l’omonimo film di James Bridge del 1988 con Michael J. Fox. Che il Nostro ha una vera e propria ossessione per il vino (soprattutto francese, naturalmente…). Che New York ha superato lo choc dell’11 Settembre, una tragedia che pur avendo unito come mai prima le persone ormai è stata superata perché nella Grande Mela si guarda al futuro e non si pensa al passato. Che i newyorkesi non vanno molto d’accordo col la monogamia (McInerney si è sposato quattro volte). Che il Nostro assolve gli anni ‘80, vedendoli, a posteriori, abbastanza innocenti visto che i peggiori vizi sono apparsi negli anni ‘90 e la controcultura dell’epoca (la sua) era vera (cita “il punk-rock, i graffiti, la cultura hip-hop” per poi dire “Ho sempre più nostalgia di quella creatività e quella libertà anni ‘80 non sponsorizzate da Hermès o Gucci”). Questi ultimi pensieri in particolare fanno parte della risposta alla domanda: “Col senno di poi, come vede gli anni ‘80?”. L’intervistatrice è Nelly Kaprièlian (Les Inrockuptibles) e la risposta, lasciando perdere che contraddice la dichiarazione sui newyorkesi che non pensano al passato (rilasciata a Fluctuat), è la più suggestiva delle tre interviste.

Variety is reporting that Columbia Pictures has acquired rights to remake the UK miniseries Red Riding. The UK miniseries comprising of 3 parts was aired by Channel 4 in March of this year and is due to be released in theatres in the US in the next few months.

The story is an examination of power and police corruption set around the investigation of the disappearance of several young girls. Real crimes, such as the Yorkshire Ripper case, are featured in the story but the scripts are fictionalised and dramatised versions of the events. For the film, the setting will be transferred from Britain to the US.

The studio has bought rights to the mini and the novel series and is reported to be in negotiations with Steve Zaillian to write the script and Ridley Scott to direct. Scott and Zaillian previously collaborated on the films American Gangster and Hannibal. Zaillian has also received an Academy Award for his adaptation of Thomas Keneally’s acclaimed novel Schindler’s Ark. So the talent and the story is there. This could be very good indeed.

—————–

Warner Bros. Pictures has unveiled the trailer and poster for director Martin Campbell’s Edge of Darkness, starring Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone and Danny Huston. The movie is a remake of the 1985 BBC drama series of the same name.

The movie revolves around a veteran cop (Gibson) whose only grown-up child is murdered on the steps of his home. The cop digs into her case and discovers thst his daughter has a secret life, a world of corporate cover-ups and government collusion.

Martin Campbell is best known as the director of GoldenEye and Casino Royale, the two most recent efforts to reboot the James Bond franchise, while screenwriter William Monahan worked on the scripts for Kingdom of Heaven, The Departed and Body of Lies so there is good pedigree in the production.

The movie should be in Irish cinemas for February 19th, 2010.

—————————————

Lionsgate has teamed Gus Van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis to write a screenplay based on Vanity Fair’s 2008 article The Golden Suicides. Ellis had previously been announced as the screenwriter for the project, but it is the addition of Van Sant that makes the project that little more interesting.

The original article examines the suicides of so-called ‘golden couple’ Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, who each killed themselves in 2007. Both were incredibly creative people, she was a game designer and filmamker and he was an artist. And both began to show extremely odd behaviour including requesting ‘loyalty oathes’ from their friends. The pair eventually did away with themselves within a week of each other by respectively taking pills and walking into the Atlantic only to never come out.

Ellis knows how to write a tale of influential people gone mad having provided the source material for American Pyscho, while van Sant has a strong history of cataloguing despair and descent in madness having given us To Die For, Elephant and Last Days. Hopefully van Sant will also direct but there’s no word on that as of yet.