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While revisiting Ellis’s debatable "best work", American Psycho, I found myself slightly disappointed.
On first reading it, I was in a particularly bitter frame of mind where the violence and decadence appealed to me. Reading it again years later, I guess I wasn’t so angry with life, and so I found less enjoyment with Bateman’s horrific lifestyle. I still gave it four stars and will always respect the novel - (sick and disturbing as it is) - but I was also less forgiving of the constant (though satirical) details in consumerism, fashion, food tastes and body products. At the other end, I found myself less sickly amused, more just sickened, by the insanely cruel torture scenes.
I was one of those annoying assholes who smugly say to those who liked the film: “You think that's messed up? You haven't read the book!” To which I’d then compare the film as being like a fairy-tale picnic. I think I read that comparison somewhere and for some reason I thought it sounded cool. Well, anyway, these days I actually prefer the film over the novel. It highlights the satirical aspects - (something Ellis flawlessly incorporates into all his work) - whilst redressing the more horrific acts of cruelty (no hungry rats or children getting stabbed) with a cartoonish outrageousness that makes it easier to find the film amusing despite the darker moments (I still find the scene where he insults the hobo, before killing him and his dog, painful to watch).
And now, revisiting Ellis's less appreciated Informers, the very opposite has happened. I found myself loving this book even more than I did the first time. I can honestly see why some people - (fans and general readers alike) - don't like it. One negative Goodreads reviewer stated they skimmed the first fifty pages, checking if its “might as well kill yourself now tone” was going to stay. Unfortunately for them, it did. This book is one of the most minimalist, cold and soulless books I have read. At least, that’s how it appears on the surface.
Much like the minimalist approach Hemingway adopts in his excellent debut The Sun Also Rises, Ellis guts his prose to a hazy, zonked-out sketch of pointless words that seem uninterested in sitting next to each other. Much like his zombie-like characters, there is no pretence of beauty in Ellis’s writing - its form or its content.
As a self-claimed moralist, he is obsessed with the immoral aspects of humanity. Yes, he delves into death and murder and rape and torture, but he also pries further than that. The Informers is significantly less violent than American Psycho, but, like the latter, it plunges deeply into something more apparent in his and our society. That is: the eventual death of the human soul ... through materialism, consumerism, technology, and our growing lack of interest in anything that isn’t tangibly attainable and able to be labelled. But Ellis lends such a unique flavour to this by taking a surprisingly neutral stand on the subject. Instead of beating us over the head with the need to nurture our truer selves, nor conforming to the desperate conventions of "look-how-edgy-I-am" avant garde, Ellis takes a more subtle approach in simply portraying the results of such a base mentality.
Almost every single person is described as “attractive,” “tan,” “fit" and “healthy”. But ironically, they all seem dead, totally devoid of spirit or compassion. None of these characters seem even remotely happy with their lives. They’re just too tired and stoned to bother noticing. This justifies the zoned-out voice with which Ellis presents these multiple, loosely-connected but ostensibly similar people and their stories.
Furthermore, if you look a little deeper, most of these characters do convey an elusive though unmistakable inner sadness. There are several parts when, feeling perpetually lost and meaningless, they lose control of their emotions and break down. The stoned-out mother fears her son, hates her husband, ignores her dying mother, sleeps through the day on valium, dreams of drowning rats in the swimming pool … and she can’t face looking at herself in the mirror. One young man gets all the girls he wants, drives a Mercedes, earns a more-than-comfortable living … he sobs like a child when his friends don’t let him grieve a lost friend that hated him anyway.
That’s where this book actually shines in my opinion. Amidst these shallow, amoral shells, there is an occasional glimpse of humanity trying to break through. Some particular moments I really liked - ones where Ellis does infuse the slightest gasp of spirit, of actual humanity - are such as the early story, In The Islands, when a young Tim Price reluctantly joins his father in Hawaii. There’s a strange and quietly mocing scene at the end, after Tim is humiliated by his father and a girl. He storms off to his room. His father tries to apologise but Tim ignores him, driving in the final nail of their friendship. His dad walks out tearfully, sits by a bench, watches manta-ray playing in the surf. Tim’s attractive girlfriend finds the father and they have a vague but somewhat touching conversation. It’s weird and it doesn’t go anywhere. But amidst the uglier surroundings of the LA portions of the book, it feels serene and picturesque. That the father, although crude and clueless, still harbours good intentions and wants to connect with his son, and that the girl recognises this and comforts him after failing … well, let’s just say few other characters do anything like that throughout the rest of the book.
There are thirteen separate stories. Some of them are better than others, but all are at least interesting. There’s even some bizarrely colourful moments, such as a story about vampires and one particularly good section in Tokyo, where rock-star Bryan Metro abuses the maids, almost beats a groupie to death and tries to rekindle with an old friend from his former band.
My favourite story, however, and probably one of the best things Elli has written, is Letters From L.A.. I won’t give away the story, but the premise is a sweet and innocent Camden girl takes a break from her studies, staying with grandparents on the West Coast. She writes letters to her friend Sean - (Patrick Bateman’s brother) - which, although never answered, are continuously sent regardless, and indirectly reveal her mental transformation into another superficial L.A. clone. It’s actually very melancholic.
Overall, I’ve heard people say that, at best, The Informers is like Less Than Zero’s b-side. And while both books are very similar, I honestly think that, with the addition of many different people as opposed to just one unlikable an boring teenager, The Informers easily takes the edge over Ellis’s famous and reputable first novel. I can’t speak for anyone else, but as a fan of Bret Easton Ellis, The Informers earns a high place on my virtual shelf of “personal favourites”. What makes it even cooler, and inevitable that I will read it probably multiple times, is that as I read more of his novels, I will feel inclined to return to this medley that plays around with all the characters within his creative universe. Many people might be bored or offended or sceptical of Ellis’s writing, but I personally love his work and would recommend this book as the best place to start if you were thinking of giving him a try.
Even though it did work for me, I would discourage those interested in him from starting with American Psycho. For several reasons. Anyway, this was a great book and I do not regret revisiting it at all. Oh, and I might as well mention it. I actually think the film was very underrated too. Check it out if you enjoyed the book. It's directed by an Australian guy whose career never really took off - this film may have been the killer - even though he also made a good movie about Ned Kelly.
