Although Ellis follows his familiar intriguing style, I found myself loving and loathing this book at the same time. There were times I just wanted to finish so that I could be done and others when I genuinely wanted to finish the story.
Following the young, rich, and hip for way too long, this book seems to offer too many details; some of them make sense later, others just seem like a way to add pop culture references. I found myself skimming over paragraphs that seemed to be placed just to shock.
Overall, good if you are a fan of the author but others probably wouldn't care too much.

Bret Easton Ellis—another douche bag with three names—should just condense this book into a list of people he wants to blow: Johnny, Brad, Kiefer, Tom, Arnold, Sean, Donald (father and son), Carrot Top, Conan, Jimmy, Stephen, Whoopi, and Ernest Borgnine.

Or he could have reduced the novel to a list of celebrities whom he would beg to take a dump on his face: Madonna, Angelina, Cindy, the dead Princess Di and her offspring, Kevin Spacey’s personal assistant, Oprah’s accountant, and the Los Angeles Lakers’ towel boy. Afterwards he tries to guess at which supertrendy restaurant they had dinner.

Either one of two things must be true about this hack: he wasn’t popular in high school so he’s going to spend the rest of his life trying to compensate for that, or worse, he was popular in high school and he somehow thinks that is the epitome of human existence. There is something icky about an adult—or someone who purports to be one—trying to be cool.

His literary inspiration obviously came from People magazine and about thirty percent of the book is name dropping. Every page is dripping with the author’s self loathing for not being one of the cool kids, or not one of the cool-enough kids. So he grew up with money but he obviously hates the fact that it wasn’t enough money which in his world must be even worse than being poor.

And then there’s this: Oh my god, so supertrendy, the chapters go backwards! Isn’t that the coolest! My suggestion is to start with chapter one and then call it quits thus saving yourself…oh shit! Wait! Then he starts going forward with the chapters so I would urge you not to go anywhere near this thing, quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I have ever tried to read.

Come con American Psycho la situazione le prime trenta pagine è stata tragica, per poi diventare adorazione. Sono giunta infatti alla conclusione che Ellis è davvero uno dei pochi che o si ama o si schifa grandemente. Lo svuotamento della realtà causato dall'ambiguità delle situazioni, dai dialoghi fatti di niente, dalle situazione a volte quasi grottesche, è terrificante. Procederò con Lunar Park il prima possibile (so che dovrei seguire una qualche cronologia, ma ormai è andata così.)

4.0 Stars
Video Review: https://youtu.be/3hvDORi-RaE

At this point. I have read several books by this author and am realizing that all his stories have the same narrow premise. They are all about privilege people partying until something terrible happens. I adore many of the author's book but reading this one made me really notice how the author recycles ideas. That being said, I enjoy this subject matter. As always the characters are unlikeable and the horror is vulgar. I recommend this one to fans of the author's other work who don't mind reading something similar.

Not for the faint of heart, impatient, or easily confused. SERIOUSLY disturbing at times and difficult to follow but the mix of thriller and satire was interesting, uncharted territory for me. This was my entree into Bret Easton Ellis’ writing and I’m definitely interested in reading more of his stuff.

This could be my new favorite BEE novel, I may have to give Lunar Park another read before I can say for sure though. Yeah, it took a little bit to really get going, but once it did I was sucked in.

-tHi Leo.
-tHi Leo.
-tAre you seriously gonna do this?
-tYeah I’ve got a friend who will likely read this whom I’m hoping will find it funny that I’ve done this ahahahah.
-tWhat have you been reading Leo?
-tStop saying my name. It’s creepy. I actually tried another Bret Easton Ellis book thinking I’d enjoy it. Wanted to give the guy another chance.
-tHah! Not content with people taking advantage of your meekness IRL, you’re now extending the courtesy to books?
-tIt’s too easy for you to dislike me, man. You know too much. In this one there’s a model dude who endlessly list celebs, goes to parties, fairly plotless, affairs, drugs, he sees confetti everywhere, smells shit, is cold, may or may not be a film.
-tOh, cool. Well it’s not that bad, then. If you were gonna try BEE again, better you pick some novella—
-tIt’s 500 pages.
-t…
-tI’ve no idea.
-tOh. Well you made it to the end, right?
-tDon’t— listen, don’t you start with me on this.
-tOkay...
-tWhat? You’re gonna back out now?
-tThere’s no need to get all riled up—
-tYeah but it’s because of your passive aggression that I felt the need to finish this one! You’re so insecure about ditching bad books.
-tI’ll work on it. Just tell me what this one means so we can move on. This guy sees confetti everywhere. Why?
-tOne admission first: I didn’t make it to the end.
-t[Cringes] Page number?
-t400.
-tNot bad. If you didn’t have the point by then…
-tExactly! Yeah so he sees confetti everywhere, and it’s never falling, it’s always landed, because it’s like he’s late to the party. If I remember correctly, first he sees it on a table he’s at, and it’s on his shoulders, and later it appears on the street and in blood and stuff. So it was falling on him, then it’s already fallen everywhere he goes. He’s becoming a has-been at 27, and “the party’s over” feeling refers to the party of life. Early on a character mentions the lifecycle of the celeb: nobody, rising star, star, has-been. The only lifecycle these celebs are concerned with is the lifecycle of the celeb. It may as well mean death once the cycle comes to an end. This is cute, I guess, but it’s nothing people hadn’t figured. To say nothing of the fact that years of dedication to the writing of this to me demonstrates an unironic interest in this culture, nullifying anything vaguely satirising it would have to say. What’s that quote about satire?
-tIf you don’t know it, I don’t.
-tSomething about it being a mirror or a sphere of glass in which you see everything but yourself? But there’s BEE’s magnified face right in the centre, genuinely giving a shit. IMHO. What do I know? My American Psycho thoughts were not appreciated.
-tOh yeah? What were they?
-t[Sighs] I deleted the review in the end. Couldn’t be bothered defending it. Didn’t care enough— and what internet stranger thinks they’re gonna change another internet stranger’s opinion through the magic of condescension? There are many more entertaining ways to waste your time. Like writing book reviews, forgetting about them, and then defending 5-year-old opinions even although you forgot what they were. For all the internet’s merits, the whole permanent-record thing makes people’s worldviews seem artificially static.
-tYeah make sure and write a BEE-reminiscent novel about that and make sure you can tell me when it’s done so I can go ahead and not read it— anyway, wasn’t there like a weird mannequin purple blood hallucination thing in the middle?
-tIt’s so convenient how much you do and don’t know about what I just read, mate.
-t…
-tGiven BEE’s commitment to soullessness— not the voice he has created for Victor, just a genuine soullessness of his mission, a novel that is indeed pages of words but with no heart behind it— it’s some Don DeLillo steal, probably. Doesn’t mean anything.
-tThe smell of shit?
-tA nab from Infinite Jest, which is obsessed with waste. IJ came out in 1996, this came out in 1998, and the shit-smelling starts about halfway into the text. It seems to have taken BEE about four years to write this, so he’d be right in the middle of writing it when IJ came out! Ahaha. Pffft, I doubt either was the first to wade about in waste— I just thought it was a funny coincidence. Anyway, these little symbols are supposed to make us think that Victor’s different from the rest, somehow, like we should feel sorry for him because he’s caught up in a superficial world when he was meant for better. But nothing in his actions or even his words gives evidence of this. If it ain’t true of BEE, it ain’t true of his characters. There’s also this bit where the protagonist of this novel is on an ocean liner and Jurassic Park is playing and he has dinner with “The Wallaces.” In DFW’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing…", an essay about a cruise holiday, Jurassic Park plays repeatedly. IDK what BEE’s trying to do here, but it’s a faux pas nonetheless. Wallace’s BEE insecurity manifested itself when he pretended he hadn’t read any BEE at the time of writing his BEE-adjacent stories. He pure had. Neither BEE’s nor DFW’s strategies are recommended. Just tell us you hate the guy and can’t stand that (you think) he can write well! We would love you all the more for it :)
-tThe main character’s cold all the time.
-tThe frigid nature of the text tells you that one.
-tPeople’s breath “steams” a lot?
-tBEE’s stab at joining the canon of great American writers who are careless with science. Or all the characters were really kettles.

[Edit: I've read at least three more violations of this kind, in other texts, since writing this review for the first time yesterday. Another common one: if a substance is water-based, I don't think it should be described it as oily/greasy, but I read all the time "oily blood" and "greasy tears" etc. In general I don't enjoy authors who are so afraid of cliches that they'll deliberately imbue their text with weird expressions they've never seen before. Sometimes there's a reason something hasn't seen before-- it's wrong. The literary world is all too kind about science violations. "Don DeLillo can think lightyears are a type of year if the mistake appears in a pretty sentence." The literary world could use more scientists. Or engineers mebs ;)]

-tWhat about the mentions of a director, a cinematographer, learning the script, calling out “action”, all of that? Was it all a film or not? I need to know!
-tHahahaha, no you don’t. Probably a metaphor for la-la land of celeb culture/ the cliché of narcissists that they see life as their own film. It’s the pointlessness of the lives they lead: they’re just “reading scripts”, going through the motions, dead in life, late to the party. What with all the terrorist stuff introduced, it shows a real cognitive dissonance taking place in Victor’s head when it comes to heavy stuff going on on the planet at the same time as he’s thirsting after all of his silly pursuits. I do know if it’s a film or not.
-tYou do? Which is it?
-tIt may or may not be. Who would watch a film this dull anyway?
-tWhat kind of an answer is that?
-tIt’s the same as American Psycho: did he kill those people or not? He may or may not have. I mean to say, that’s about as far as the author took that idea. It’s not, as I think he would pretend, that he holds a secret answer in his heart and asks the reader to formulate their own solution. Instead I just feel in my heart how soulless this text is.
-t[Snarky tone] Yeah well Leo, that’s the point.
-tI’m glad you got that one in before a BEE fan reading this could! I agree that you may well feel that’s the case, but I don’t. Seems like quite a convenient get-out clause. If the writer doesn’t care about the answer to a question his text raises, why the hell should you?
-tI suppose you also feel that when people compare your writing to BEE’s, it’s inaccurate?
-tDude, my review of his book is a dialogue conducted with myself: I wish it was inaccurate! At least with this book he’s proven he can write passable female characters- and for that, it gets one star more than American Psycho!

"Glamorama" segna un cambiamento nella scrittura di Bret Easton Ellis. A differenza dei tre romanzi precedenti, infatti, Ellis utilizza una struttura apparentemente più tradizionale: la storia ha un inizio, una parte centrale, e una fine, abbandonando l'impressione dei primi romanzi quando i personaggi sembravano colti in momenti qualsiasi - proprio come la struttura a videoclip di MTV, che era stata il metro di paragone per la scrittura di Ellis.
Se, però, apparentemente la struttura è più tradizionale, "Glamorama" è, almeno per me, anche il romanzo più ambizioso e strutturato di Ellis. Sicuramente il meno diretto. Però, al contempo, è anche quello più sinceramente divertente, dove la lettura è anche scoperta. Quindi, il consiglio sincero è quello di non leggere assolutamente nulla di "Glamorama" (anche perché, almeno nell'edizione Einaudi, la sintesi nel retrocopertina è così fuorviante da essere imbarazzante) e approcciarsi a scatola completamente chiusa.
Detto questo.
La maturità di scrittura di Ellis si nota anche nel modo in cui decide di giocare con i suoi lettori e le aspettative che ha chi legge nei suoi confronti. "Glamorama", infatti, inizia come ci si aspetterebbe dal classico romanzo di Ellis, o per lo meno, come i suoi precedenti. Per le prime 200 e passa pagine, seguiamo Victor in giro per New York, mentre organizza freneticamente l'inaugurazione di un nuovo locale - non suo, eh. Victor è figlio di un senatore, ha fatto la Camden, è un mezzo modello, ma è solo semifamoso, il mensile che gli passa il padre non riesce a bastargli, immagino, nemmeno per arrivare a fine della prima settimana. La narrazione è filtrata costantemente dagli occhi e la voce di Victor, e la costante onnipresenza delle marche di "American Psycho" come unico segno di identità, qua è sostituito dalla costante onnipresenza del nome di persone famose, stilisti, modelle, attori. In "American Psycho" erano i soldi a determinare l'identità, qua è la fama. Poi, a fine prima parte, il romanzo inizia a deragliare, prima diventando una specie di noir, poi appena arriva in Europa, diventa qualcosa che può essere riassunto unicamente in "che cazzo?", e che è, ovviamente, il vero colpo di genio di "Glamorama".
Per comprendere, almeno intuitivamente, "Glamorama", secondo me, bisogna riconoscere lo scarto che intercorre fra la trilogia "Meno di zero", "Regole dell'attrazione", "American Psycho" e questo. E lo scarto consiste, fondamentalmente, negli anni '90.
" - E Victor Ward come sta? - chiede Eva, sorridendo.
- Sta contribuendo a dare un volto al decennio - dico sarcastico.
- Il decennio finirà presto -, mi avverte Eva
- Penso che sia già finito, bella -"
"Glamorama", come quasi tutte le altre opere di Ellis, è interconnessa a tutta la sua opera, i personaggi ricompaiono ciclicamente, spesso sono ex alunni della Camden (il fatto che dietro la superficie ci sia solo il vuoto fa sì che se uno non si ricorda di 'sti personaggi non cambia assolutamente nulla). Victor è un ex studente della Camden, e l'impressione è che "Glamorama" rappresenti le conseguenze. L'enorme post-sbornia dopo l'ubriacatura tristissima di quegli anni, ovvero gli anni '80. Allora "Glamorama" diventa una specie di sequel della trilogia anni '80 di Ellis. Senza però per questo perdere la sua urgenza nel rappresentare gli anni '90. Uno degli aspetti più interessanti, per me, è tutta la trama terroristica (che è grossa parte del "che cazzo?" che si diceva prima). In breve: Victor in Europa finisce immischiato in una specie di gruppo terroristico capitanato da un modello. Gli anni '90, in fondo, hanno visto il proliferare di tutta una sottocategoria narrativa dove impiegati, gente qualsiasi, finisce a darsi al crimine, più per fuggire alla monotonia, al nichilismo, al vuoto quotidiano e dare un senso e significato alla propria vita, che per un vero e proprio interesse ("Point Break", "Fast & Furious, "Fight Club", "Matrix" e così via). E' lo stesso per i terroristi di "Glamorama". Mi rendo conto che è una frase un po' del cazzo da dire, ma la differenza fra gli anni '90 e gli anni 2000 può essere anche ben esemplificata dal diverso approccio al terrorismo. Per decenza non elaborerò oltre. Ma è interessante notare come per i terroristi di Ellis "ciò che conta veramente è la volontà di portare a termine la distruzione, le conseguenze sono soltanto decorazione".
Che poi, un'altra domanda fondamentale sarebbe: ma 'sti terroristi esistono veramente?
"Glamorama" è, infatti, anche un romanzo che parla fondamentalmente della realtà e della sua disintegrazione, di come tutto ciò che è solido svanisce nell'aria. Questo processo passa necessariamente nella scelta di Ellis di raccontare tutto con la voce di Victor - scelta che d'altronde era già stata usata per Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho" e qua, se possibile, esasperata ancora di più. Ogni oggettività viene meno, non si può nemmeno più parlare di narratore inaffidabile, qua siamo davanti a un vero e proprio delirio. Lo stesso titolo, immagino, credo, non so, ho fatto lo scientifico, riflette questa decostruzione della realtà, in favore di un'allucinazione mai nemmeno condivisa. Gli aspetti più perturbanti del romanzo, infatti, sono riconducibili alla costante sensazione di trovarsi dentro un sogno o un'allucinazione che però non ha mai la decenza di abbracciare la propria condizione d'irrealtà, ma che anzi cerca di imporsi costantemente come reale. I Victor a un certo punto si moltiplicano, come un prisma, sono in continenti diversi contemporaneamente, a cene, eventi, ed è impossibile dire quale sia quello vero. "Se non si guarda attraverso l'obiettivo delle cineprese, a quella distanza tutto appare minuscolo e illogico e vagamente irreale". In un mondo dove tutto è fama e spettacolo, allora, si potrebbe pensare che le telecamere, i media, decidono cosa sia vero e cosa no. Col cazzo. Le foto, i video, vengono falsificati, diventano completamente inaffidabili, incapaci di segnare un vero e proprio modo per discernere ciò che è reale e ciò che non lo è. Anziché sembrare tutto reale, la conseguenza è che tutto ci appare falso. Forse l'idea più sorprendente e spiazzante, e beh, geniale, di "Glamorama" è quella di far dire a Victor che ci sta una troupe, o meglio una serie di troupe, che stanno girando un film su di lui, o con lui, o dove lui interpreta un personaggio, riuscendo al contempo a imbastire una specie di satira sulla società dello spettacolo e soprattutto una rappresentazione perfetta di quando qualcuno vive completamente dissociato da sé.
"Glamorama" è indubbiamente un romanzo complesso e respingente proprio perché il lettore non ha veramente alcun appiglio e l'unica cosa che può fare è dare completa fiducia a Ellis. Ma è sorprendente anche la capacità di Ellis di far coincidere la sua scrittura alla soggettività del suo narratore, ovvero Victor. La freddezza, la distanza, la completa dissociazione e allucinazione vengono restituite proprio attraverso la scrittura, facendoci sentire prima di tutto le sensazioni di Victor senza mai nominarle e senza mai giudicarle. Ellis si mette non solo sullo stesso piano del suo personaggio, ma fa letteralmente coincidere interiorità e scrittura. Questo è evidente nei rari sprazzi di sincerità e dolore, spesso significativamente legati al passato, ai ricordi di quando Victor era alla Camden, quando la scrittura lascia il passo della sua freddezza a un senso di malinconia e tristezza abissali. E' solo alla fine che comprendiamo come "Glamorama" sia un romanzo di caduta e presa di coscienza, e che la caduta è cominciata molto prima della storia che stiamo leggendo. Siamo a una festa che pare uscita da "Meno di zero" o "Le regole dell'attrazione". Lo stereo diffonde The last day of our acquaintance di Sinead O'Connor. "Forse non mi sarei nemmeno ricordato di quel pomeriggio, pensai. Pensai che una parte di me avrebbe potuto cancellarlo. Una voce fredda nella testa mi implorava di farlo. Ma stavo conoscendo un sacco di gente figa e stavo diventando famoso e a quel punto non avevo modo di capire una cosa: se non avessi cancellato quel pomeriggio dalla mia memoria andandomene e lasciandomi Chloe Byrnes alle spalle, brandelli di quelle ore sarebbero sempre tornati a perseguitarmi negli incubi. Questo mi assicurava la gelida voce. Questo prometteva".
E' solo alla fine che capiamo che il nostro "che cazzo?" è in realtà un "che cazzo è andato storto?" ma soprattutto anche un "che cazzo posso fare?".

what begins as a (incredibly quotable: ‘spare me, man!’) drawling list of superficial decadence and mindless consumption descends into nonsensical horrific violence. classic Bret. i particularly liked the intra textual filmic bits, and i am now sufficiently scared of the 90s

(2.7)

This quite frankly annoyed me. The first 200 pages are funny in places and well written satire with a well crafted sense of mystery and weirdness which just never pays off. I felt like I was having a slight aneurysm for a solid 60% of this book and whilst some of it is written well, a lot is not and the plot does not merit 480 pages, it drags so badly partly because of the breakneck speed of the narrative - each sentence is a full tumbling account which goes on and on in a panicked type of way, but still lets the overarching narrative progress very slowly. It’s quite a tiring read.

Every other paragraph listing celebrities / semi famous people, songs that are playing and the brand of everything etc is all very on message but gets very very boring and you can sometimes skip pages without missing anything as it’s just a list of real life 90s celebs who Victor is at a party with.

Victor is not a bad character and creates some genuinely funny moments through his worldview but becomes (again) tiresome by 60% through. Also Bret Easton Ellis needs (needed) to get laid because if you’re writing a six page threesome scene with that much detail you’ve been watching too much porn.

The themes and some devices also seemed borrowed from American Psycho but in a less effective way; I felt like I was reading a worse version of that book, which I also thought wasn’t great.

I just can’t emphasise the lack of explanation or payoff Glamorama gives to the entirety of the middle act where everything starts to get very strange - without spoiling the plot the reveal of the people Victor gets caught in with does little to cast a light on half of the dream like sequences and baited imaginary characters (like the film crew) - I may be taking things too literally which I’ve seen some people say about Glamorama, but I like weird metaphorical books where you don’t quite get what’s happening but this was too much and not satisfying at all.

Some feminist critic (I think it was Kate Millet) once criticized John Updike for being "a penis with a thesaurus".

This is a pretty devastating critique, I think. Not because it's so dead-on accurate as much as it's catchy, funny, easy to remember and makes its point with elegant precision. It's (most likely) totally wrong and unfair and such (I haven't read much Updike, to be honest) but that also makes it kind of awesome in a sniping, political-cartoon kind of way.

Taking a page from this person (I'm pretty sure it was Kate Millet) I'm going to say right here and now that Bret Easton Ellis is an AmEx with a thesaurus.

Woah. I know, I just totally did that.