The Informers is light when compared to the likes of American Psycho, and despite a return to the empty soullessness seen in his debut Less Than Zero, this is void of any real shocks of a graphic nature. This collection of short fiction loosely held together by one or two characters who flit in and out of a few, includes narratives from jaded rock-stars, vampires, drug abusers, and characters in the mould of 'Clay' from Less Than Zero - empty and depressed materialistic youngsters. It is sometimes hard to follow and link connections between the many characters, but there are links so its less stand alone stories that have nothing to do with each other. At times superfluous and lazy but also flashes of the really good writer I know he is. Death stalks these pages, and it can get depressing, so there is very little in the way of warmth here. That's not to say it's a bad book though. No one does sour like Ellis does sour, if you like that kind of thing. The movie is worth watching too.

Despite the mid rating, I liked this a lot. The final two stories were just so weird and unnecessary that it brought down the whole book for me-- tbh a lot of the 3rd to last did too but it is what it is. A light parody of white upper crust LA in the 80s in all it's immoral, drug-induced, and sex-crazed glory. Everyone sucks so much due to privilege and hedonism combining but everyone is also human in their emotional lives. And when you think about it, isn't privileged white Americana the same as being a vampire? I am sick of heroin usage being shorthand for morally off the rails human being, though.

Probably would be 4 stars without the last two stories and 5 stars without the last three. I apparently love how Ellis writes and criticizes high society and nihilism is a philosophical thread I like to indulge in despite not believing in it. But the intense violence and in your face surrealism of the closing stories flopped for me, unfortunately.

— "Imagine a blind person dreaming," she says. "You can't understand, you can't comprehend the pain." —

A gathering of thirteen loosely interrelated short stories set primarily in 1980s Los Angeles. Drugs, expensive cars, designer clothes, and everyone unsuccessfully navigating and relating to love and lovers and one-night lubricated stands and friends and family and whatever else there might be out there.

For me, it's solely about the first-person present tense all hard angles and go and fuck you for looking back. The corners cut the unsuspecting reader, and each story is the introduction of a new narrator with no concern for explanation or excuses. What's missing is almost more interesting than what's present.

Okay, so it's a little disconcerting and maybe a little self-indulgent being shoved so far out one's own skull, like being flung into a distant orbit, knowing (hoping) you'll return, but not for a while, and you might as well enjoy the view before the wreck.


Now, we must have a vigorous loofah and several scalding baths/showers, and after, maybe some hot cocoa and watch the Sound of Music, that, or we'll just uncork a bottle and drink ourselves into a curled stupor until all the bad things go away.

3.5
Undeniably a fascinating collection of short stories about the rich and bored. BEE always delivers but I personally prefer some of his other books

4 días y +200 páginas. El quinto libro que leo de Ellis, y sin embargo apenas me estoy acabando de acostumbrar a su sabor.

Estas historias cortas, que se relacionan magistralmente entre sí, sin tener mucho que ver son lo más meramente Ellis que le he leído, y pese que es un libro que se escribió hace más de 20 años, seguimos teniendo esas costumbres (falsamente) autodestructivas, que creemos que son la felicidad: alcohol, sexo, antidepresivos y autos.

Todas las historias son maravillosamente transgresoras, pero hubo una en especial que me pareció muy arriesgada y aunque va con el tono, me pareció muy buena: Los secretos del verano. Las últimas no son tan buenas, pero todo el libro vale la pena. Es un libro corto, pero no es tan digerible ya que las historias te dejan pensando.

Insito que lo mejor del libro es que todas se conectan de una forma misteriosa e intrinseca.

Probablmente no habrá reseña, pero es un libro recomendado para los fanaticos de la ficción transgresora.

-En su momento, el primer tropezón del autor.-

Género. Novela (por decir algo, pero sigan leyendo, por favor).

Lo que nos cuenta. Conjunto de historias (más o menos) conectadas (de aquella manera...), ambientadas en Los Ángeles de comienzos de los años ochenta, que nos muestran diferentes (in)capacidades personales en las relaciones no superficiales o sexuales y la influencia del dinero y la diletancia en ellas, con espacio para situaciones inesperadas totalmente (sí, sé que no estoy siendo claro, pero sigan leyendo, por favor).

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

This one is probably the weakest of anything I read by Ellis, its underappreciated by ur average hardcore BEE completists. However, I don't see this collection of connected short stories without merits.

Sure its smth of a half baked attempt to rekindle both vibes of R.O.A and A. P. and fails at it due to the length, granted the violence in the most famous 3 stories were kinda forced to the whole structure of the collection and yes probably the form of the short stories might not be a medium that Ellis masters. That being said, we must not forget to consider too things:

1) This is probably the only work of fiction in which BEE tried to write in the voice of characters whom he probably never wrote abt before: Among different female characters we have mid age ppl which is smth I found weird because I got so used to the BEE formula (teens and mainly young white, blond, tan & filthy rich young guys). We even have a chapter narrated by a white trash member of a weird gang consisting of the narrator-a car washer in a gas station- , a junki woman and a fatso psycho. Nonetheless, do not be deceived by the plethora of the seemingly different and "diverse" characters. Its still a BEE book,meaning it contains one of the most BEE™ elements of all: Vapid surface level materialist assholes who cannot communicate with each others and are technically dead inside.

2) It contains some of the most heart moving stories (I say this unironically) Ellis could ever write in his whole career ( apart from the last two chapters of R.O.A and the last chapter of Glamorama).

Yup ig its an ok book. Read it, its funny actually

Boring. Very boring. Extremely boring. I know that's the point when Ellis is writing about rich people, but it pretty much felt like I was reading the parts of Less Than Zero that ended up on the cutting room floor. About 70% there was some action, but it didn't really seem to fit the rest of the story, and by then I was just trying to finish it so I could get on to the next book. If you want to read about boring spoiled rich people, read American Psycho. If you want to read about boring spoiled rich people in LA, read Less Than Zero. If you want to bore yourself to tears, read this one.

I'm not an Ellis hater, I love his style, loved American Psycho. I think he is very capable of being funny and entertaining, but this is not his best. I read somewhere that he worked on these stories while writing Glamorama. It definitely feels like these were never meant to be published. Honestly, the best part is a mention of a guinea pig wearing a diamond necklace. Not even kidding. Save yourself the time.

Ik ben nu halverwege mijn project om alle boeken van Bret Easton Ellis op chronologische volgorde te lezen. In The Informers heeft hij duidelijk souplesse gevonden in zijn schrijfstijl. Veel bekende onderwerpen (nihilisme) en stijltechnieken (doorlopende zinnen, verbondenheid van perspectieven) passeren de revue, maar het is veel gelikter geschreven dan in zijn eerdere werken. Dat maakt het makkelijker lezen en geeft het boek veel vaart in de eerste 75%, maar de laatste 25% is daardoor minder shockerend en dus wat saai.

Heel leuk vind ik de puzzel die dit boek is (en eigenlijk zijn hele oeuvre lol). Het zijn korte verhalen met terugkerende personages en het is soms even zoeken over wie het verhaalt nou precies gaat en wat er op de tijdlijn tussen de verschillende verhalen heeft plaatsgevonden.

I don’t know why I keep coming back to Bret Easton Ellis, I never seem to overly enjoy his vacuous characters but something keeps drawing me back. The Informers is my forth Ellis book and this one is a collection of short stories that ultimately link together to make an overall story. Think Crash (the movie) but with shallow characters. The Informers follow the lives of several interconnected characters, they all eat at the same places; sleep with the same people and pretty much act like each other.

Each chapter is told from a different character in a first person prospective and in the end each point of view come together to make a very loosely connected story. The characters remind me a lot of Less than Zero but most of the characters in The Informers are supposed to be adults. There are a lot of conversations in this book between different characters and this is the part of the book that Bret Easton Ellis does best. He seems to be able to have a lot of conversations and still drive the plot without adding to much more and the interactions between the people seem to feel very natural.

The book feels shallow and cynical; it tries to spotlight a moral decline of Californian life. Most of Bret Easton Ellis novels feel the same, he is often called a moral satirist but I often feel like he is just a nihilist. But I still feel the need to read his books; even if I don’t enjoy them (except for Imperial Bedrooms). Ellis has an interesting style and if I rate his books from worst to best, it looks like he is improving as a writer with age. This might be the fact that his books are more and more metafictional and that seems to help add depth into a book a shallow annoying characters.

A collection of powerful stories, some interconnected, each one more layered and interesting than the last. The setting of each story—mostly LA—plays an important role in the underlying themes of despondency, urban decay, and detachment from reality. Ellis is an expert writer with clear prose and the perfect amount of attention to detail. My favorite stories are “In the Islands, “Discovering Japan,” and “Letters from LA.”

“I probably won’t stay here but I’ve been thinking about it. I’m dreading seeing those people who I called my friends. I’d rather stay out here and not, as you so often put it, ‘deal with it,’ y’know? Everyone out here lives such exciting and interesting lives, going back seems so anticlimactic. (God, this letter is awfully meandering—I wonder if it makes any sense to you.)” —Bret Easton Ellis, “Letters from LA,” The Informers, ps. 144-145

The nihilism, the apathy, the emptiness. The violence. All the booze and valiums and Wayfarers and the disentchantments. Bret Easton Ellis, at your service.

I like Ellis' writing, especially the dialogue: so readable while it's all the same which is part of the point; the push and pull between bored rich people and the human abyss. I don't think I like that in other writers much, reading about rich people, but when it's a rich asshole designed by Ellis I end up intrigued and fascinated. Also, it isn't ABOUT them, it's ON them. Mostly, there's no way to get jealous or pity or sympathize with these people, these characters are the dry joke of the broken American Dream. Superficial interests vs drowning it all out; the looks, clothes and the brands vs the drugs, sex and the brutality. I like how Ellis engages with these themes.

I wasn't always sure his style works well in short stories though. Some of these pieces function as intended but a lot here blends and blurs. Which is ironic because that is quite on par with the messages of his books, and twicely so in "The Informers" because these stories are meant to connect. You meet the same characters again, they are related, friends, they sleep with each other. But I could never remember who Martin or Bruce or whoever was and felt like I am missing a point when I couldn't place them correctly. So, it ends up a bit mushy and not as poignant as his novels are to me. There were definitely stories where I wondered what was the f*cking point. But some of these hit. Maybe simply by their shock value. There is one story about a kidnapping that was very, very much too much. Surprisingly that one was followed by one that emotionally touched me in an unexpected way, that's not what I come to expect from Ellis.

Also, I have seen this labeled as Horror and also not, and that makes total sense. A lot of this is just litfic writing with some mildly darker and, naturally, nihilistic edges. Suddenly there is talks of vampires but nothing happens. Until it does, and even then you wonder is there a vampire or does he only think he is one which makes for a very fascinating take. Yes, and then there are a handful moments of incredibly disturbing acts. So, does that make it Horror? I am very much undecided. Maybe it just makes it messed up. But I very much disagree with those calling this a novel.

My too 5:
5) The Fifth Wheel (but don't say I didn't warn you, this one made the list because I am not sure I can ever forget it)
4) In the Islands
3) The Secrets of Summer
2) At the Still Point
1) On the Beach

The 3 I'd skip:
Bruce Calls from Mullholland/ Water from the Sun/ Another Gray Area