I love B.E.E. because of his unerring talent for creating the best kind of repulsed fascination. (Or fascinating revulsion.) Also, he has the best moments. This one occurs early on in the collection, and was probably the place that hooked me:

"The door opens. It's a small bathroom and Raymond is siting on the toilet, the lid closed, beginning to cry again, his face and eyes red and wet. I am so surprised by Raymond's emotion that I lean against the door and just stare, watching him bunch his hands into fists.

'He was my friend,' he says between intakes of breath, not looking up at me.

I'm looking at a yellowed tile on the wall for a long time, wondering how the waiter, who I am positive I had asked not to put garbanzo beans in my salad, actually had. Where was the waiter born, why had he come to Mario's hadn't he looked at the salad, didn't he understand?

'He liked you . . . too,' I say finally."

I was told this was a collection of short stories, but the synopsis calls it a novel. It's both. I was turned onto Ellis because someone reading my book SLOW BURN ON RIVERSIDE said it reminded them on Ellis. Because I'm always on the look for anything similar to my own prose and themes, I was excited to dive in. Glad I did.

While this is much more meandering than my own stuff, I definitely see the similarities. I would have liked this more if it had a more visible thread with the stories, rather than struggling to remember all the characters and events that link the stories together; however, I did enjoy the prose (most of it) and will definitely be reading another Ellis book soon. Discovering him was encouraging, knowing there is an audience out there who love books about nothing but people living their miserable lives, boosting my confidence to continue writing more books that wade into this territory.

This is a pickle to review, but fortunately I like pickles.

First, my review is based off of my feeling toward Ellis in general. I like him, but beyond that, this would be a very strange text to start with, were it to be the first of his work you'd encounter.

The key thing is that it's packaged as a novel. Hell, Goodreads even claims it's a novel. It is however, disconnected vignettes that require a check of the book's wiki page to unsnarl. Wikipedia, by the by, seems to fall strongly on the other side of the novel/vs short story collection fence. This is understandable, since if reoccurring characters and themes made a novel, you would could build your own novel out of short stories (Lovecraft's for example).

So, if you follow, we've got a short story collection. Better than that, for the familiar reader, but probably not for the unfamiliar reader, we've got what seems to be a camera array of morally bankrupt characters instead of Less Than Zero's focused camera man. I'm unsure of the chronology, but it seems like The Informers is Ellis working out themes and playing with character types that would later make up his novels.

Ergo, assuming you're still paying attention, I'm pretty well unable to separate it in my mind from his overall work. Since I've filled in the sparsity of style and work with preludes to later and greater projects, I've also assumed that the shorts were products of experiment in Ellis' fictional laboratory (the super-wealthy hyper-desensitized party community) Hence the meshed review. I was happy knowing of the depths the tide was leading towards, while someone just testing the waters might have found the experience shallow.

The stories in this book are varying between 1 and 5 stars.

Everyone is tanned, blond, athletic. Shinny convertibles, swimming pools and wayfarers. And under the surface everyone is equally lost and isolated. Cocaine and valium fills the void as depression lures in corners. In short LA in the 80s...

I like the flat, lethargic, cynical almost melancholic world that Ellis creates.

But it's like suddenly he gets afraid of how good his writing can be, that he have to add vampires and kidnappers towards the end in a pointless crescendo of violence.

I got to say that this transition towards the supernatural left me stone cold dead.

2.5 too disconnected i know that’s the point but it gets boring quick, couldn’t appreciate half as much as ellis’ other work which achieves this vibe well.

also so so so horrific…. and confusing couldn’t keep track of who’s who… definitely the point but just not nice to read at all.

I love the way Bret Easton Ellis writes. I love how he never tells you his characters thoughts, but just from observing their dialogue and actions, the characters develop so naturally. His books bring out a masochistic side of me. I never feel good after reading anything he writes. But I can’t help coming back for more. His world of morally devoid, upper-class monsters has a strange allure that keeps me wondering about the characters after I put the book down. They are strangely hypnotizing works.

In eager anticipation of Ellis’ upcoming work “Imperial Bedrooms”, which is a sequel to the unforgettable “Less Than Zero”, I decided to put off reading “American Psycho” for a later date, and return to the moral desert of 1980’s Los Angeles depicted in “The Informers”, a collection of loosely connected short stories about a variety of wealthy, damaged people from that region of southern California. The problem was that having read “Less Than Zero” already, for the majority of this novel, I didn’t feel like there was really anything new here for me. Sure, this was written around 10 years after LTZ, and Ellis is now a more mature, fully formed writer. His stories encompass more diverse elements and perspectives, and for the most part, are quite engaging. But when it came down to it, it didn’t feel much different than “Less Than Zero”. With “The Informers”, rather than feeling that slow, cinematic-like descent into the abyss of darkness like we did in “Less Than Zero”, we get a collection of snapshots (some more vivid than others) that progressively form a whole picture. This variation would normally be a good thing for an author, but because both books are covering extremely similar thematic ground, “The Informers” just doesn’t work quite as well, and comparisons between the two cannot be avoided. With that said, there is some excellent stuff in here, and fans of Bret Easton Ellis should without a doubt read this. A lot of the tales in this book are quite memorable and are very affecting. The stories take a dark, ghastly turn near the end, which I thought worked very well, and nearly pushed me to give the book four stars. Newcomers would do best to start with “Less Than Zero” to see if Ellis is their cup of tea or not.

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

If you are familiar with Brett Easton Ellis, you are already aware that he is the one who gave us the opulence and overindulgences of youth like what can be found in . . . .

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But what if he mixed that sort of tale with a little bit of . . . . .

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Ummmmmmmm . . . .

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It’s the end of summer, 1982. Days are spent poolside in a hazy state of inebriation while movies play on the Betamax and the earworm of “Our Love’s In Jeopardy” burrows in deeper as the cassette reel turns. Everyone’s f*&^ing everyone and people are dropping like flies. But is it normal for your blood to end up all over the ceiling when you “OD”???? Or for everyone to think you’re hanging in Vegas, but then your arms get discovered on La Brea? Even the future president ends up on the cover of GQ with what looks like puncture wounds on his neck . . . . .

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Okay, so a word of caution to anyone who thinks this sounds like a good time: (1) it takes over 50% of the book before the vampires appear; (2) the delivery is a short story cycle so although loosely connected, there is not a real cohesive flow; (3) it’s B.E.E. so it’s super graphic and pulls zero punches when it comes to descriptions of sex and gore. I don’t blame you if you want to steer clear, but for Mitchell this a . . . .

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Racconti che cronologicamente precedono il primo romanzo di Ellis, "Meno di zero", ma qualitativamente si collocano sul podio insieme alle sue opere migliori: "Acqua dal sole" è una raccolta che, nella sua purezza di talento e nella forza e violenza della scrittura, se ne sta là in cima sulla vetta insieme a "Meno di zero" e "American Psycho", risalendo a un'epoca in cui Ellis non si era ancora ridotto a ripetere se stesso in un'infinito esaurimento di ispirazione e testimoniando anche l'esistenza, nel primo Ellis, di filoni poi abbandonati o ridotti a semplici suggestioni (es. i vampiri del deserto o delle città, di cui resta qualche piccolo richiamo in AP). Un Ellis essenziale, purissimo e incredibilmente originale.

REREAD—thots on YT!

Brett Easton Ellis’ style is on full display here but the Informers feels like a bunch of character sketches for any of his other novels thrown together to fill a contractual obligation. Taken as a short story collection there are a couple of excellent ones, but most are fairly bland. If you’ve already read his early successes and are desperate for more, there is plenty of Wayfarer sunglasses, cans of Tab, and heaps of nihilism for you; just don’t expect cohesiveness or depth.

This is a great book about moral bankruptcy in the middle of glitzy LA. I like this book because his writing contains loose affiliations of the different characters in the book. The first 9 chapters were great but the last 4 were not great.

Each chapter has a different character narrating it and is loosely connected to the other chapter but at its heart each character is alone. The characters have to take drugs/alcohol just try to relate to each other shows you the depth of their isolation. There is an eerie theme of the characters eyes being vacuous. It is as if the personalities are zombies or the undead. They are living without a sense of purpose.

I do not think that I can ever be in this sort of business. Hollywood to me seems to be an adult playground. It would be interesting to play in there occasionally but not to live in it.

3,5*
Kann es einen größeren Gegensatz geben, als Gusel Jachinas „Wo vielleicht das Leben wartet“ und Bret Easton Ellis „Die Informanten“ hintereinander zu lesen? Das eine handelt von Hunger und unvorstellbarer Armut, von verwahrlosten Kindern nach Krieg und Auflösung gesellschaftlicher Strukturen, das andere handelt von unvorstellbarem Überfluss, von Übersättigung und Wohlstandverwahrlosung. Immerhin im Punkt der Verwahrlosung stimmen beide überein, wenn auch mit gegensätzlichen Vorzeichen. Es ist die Abwesenheit der Eltern oder anderer Bezugspersonen, die sich dieser Kinder bzw. jungen Erwachsenen annehmen, die zur Verwahrlosung führte und bestätigt meine These, dass sich mit Geld allein Probleme nicht lösen lassen.

Beide Welten sind mit völlig fremd und obwohl ich selbst in den Achtzigern eine junge Erwachsene war, so kam mir fast nichts bekannt vor. Ich musste die angesagten Modelabels oder Modedrogen googlen und las fassungslos von der Leere eines jungen Lebens, das nur auf Konsum ausgerichtet war und ansonsten aus gigantischer Langeweile bestand.

Das Buch hat keine Handlung und keinen roten Faden, aus meiner Sicht ist es eine Kurzgeschichtensammlung, in denen eine kranke Gesellschaft beschrieben wird. Es soll eine Art Fortsetzung von American Psycho sein, das ich nicht las, aber im Kino sah. Mit dem Film konnte ich wenig anfangen, es war hilfreicher, das Buch zu lesen, um die Stimmung in einer bestimmten Schicht in Los Angelos zu begreifen. Die Darstellung einer kaputten Generation ist gut gelungen, die Leere des Lebens und die Langeweile waren greifbar, aber sie wirkten sich auf die Lektüre selbst aus. Ab einem bestimmten Punkt fühlte ich mich gelangweilt, angeödet von Ziel- und Sinnlosigkeit. In manchen Beschreibungen wird klar, dass die Elterngeneration ein ähnliches Leben führte, aber ein wenig mehr über die Hintergründe hätte ich mir gewünscht.

Der Titel des Buches blieb mir bis zum Schluss ein Rätsel. Kann mir einer erklären, welchen Zusammenhang es zum Inhalt gibt?