I can’t finish this I hate it

3.75⭐️

I’m sure at least three of the executives I used to work for are vampires.

Bret Easton Ellis hat es wieder geschafft: "The Informers" ist ein Buch, das Unbehagen auslöst, schrecklich zum lesen ist und dabei immer die Wahrheit spiegelt. Stilistisch bleibt der Autor im gleichen Gebiet wie bei "Rules Of Attraction" oder "Less Than Zero". Seine Kurzgeschichten sind trocken, karg und scheinbar gehaltlos. Doch je weiter man sich durch dieses Trauerspiel vorkämpft, desto tiefer findet man sich in einer Welt wieder, die in ihrer Seelenlosigkeit nur echt sein kann.

Wie weit man die Szenen und Figuren als Fantastik oder extreme Metaphern betrachtet, bleibt zu jedem Zeitpunkt dem Leser überlassen. Ist einer der Protagonisten wirklich ein Vampir, oder dient dieses Bild nur als Veranschauung? Sind die Bewohner von L.A. in ihrer Welt ohne Moral verloren? Oder ist es die gesamte Menschheit, die bereits Ende der 80er an ihrem Ende angelangt war? Wie auch immer, Ellis kennt kein Erbarmen.

The book begins and ends with an apologetic and hopeful tone which is odd because there is very little done with regret or a cause for optimism after experiencing the narratives of the many characters that amount to a part of a whole in The Informers by Brett Easton Ellis. The Informers is set in various cities in California in the 1980's but Los Angeles is the primary playground. The book is made up of a series of interconnected stories centred around the young, rich, and the beautiful; sprinkle in a few housewives and rock stars at a cross roads in their personal and professional lives and it adds a little flare to the drama. For most of the characters there are plenty of people around: some are friends, some are colleagues, some are acquaintances, and some are employees, but one thing they have in common is the ability to enable certain behaviours. What you can't help but recognize is the fear to feel, the friendship by association and expectation, and the questioning of if anyone really likes one another? In fact if it weren't for the thoraline, librium and valium having friends would really fu#&*ng hurt.

n  "I had never really liked Carol Banks anyway. I lost my virginity to her a year before we actually started dating. Cute, blond, cheerleader, good SATS, nothing too great. Carol had always called me nonchalant, a word I never understood the meaning of, a word I looked up in a number of French dictionaries and could never find. I always suspected that Jamie and Carol had done something but since I never really liked Carol that much (only in bed and even there I was unsure) I sit at the table, uncaring, not moved by what everyone but me knew."n

The author utilizes the moral decay of society by way of California as a setting and many of its listless children to demonstrate the deterioration. The culture of money, sex, drugs and violence are the harbingers that bring about their demise but their desperation for the next "thing" is what makes the future seem so, so bleak and filled with a cloud of darkness in The Big Orange. The characters are so into themselves and only show a modicum of generosity if it includes getting something for themselves or keeping something what other people would deem immoral on going; leaving family, friends and innocent bystanders to suffer the resulting effects. For some characters it seems that they have never been taught to know what's good and what's bad they just go on doing what they've always done. For others they have become victims of their environment or have sacrificed themselves, giving in to temptation. The stories are very much related and relevant today but the timeline is often hard to determine due to the course of events and the fact that characters appear, disappear and reappear again.

n  “ 'Not quite. I know that the owner of the Seven Seas slept with him and now Julian has a free pass and all the coke he wants.” Susan sighs mock-wearily. 'Besides, it’s just too ironic that they both have herpes.' This makes Graham laugh for some reason and he takes a drag off his cigarette and says, 'Julian does not have herpes and he did not get them from the owner of the Seven Seas.' Pause, exhale, then, 'He got VD from Dominique Dentrel.' William sits down. 'Christ, my own kids are talking about quaaludes and faggots—Jesus. Oh, take your goddamned sunglasses off, Susan. We’re at Spago, not the goddamned beach club.' "n

To give you a little taste of what you're getting into, if you decide to take the plunge I would like readers to be aware that there are a lot of men in the “industry” sleeping with girls younger than their own daughters and housewives waking up to a cocktail of pharmaceuticals that perk them up just enough to glance out the window at the sunshine and the glistening body of the pool boy. A good way to start the day for some, but for a lot of lonely housewives in Los Angeles, sleeping with young men the same age as their son was simply just another Tuesday. Parents become so disassociated with anyone they can’t have sex with, it leaves their children to fend for themselves while they consume what they believe to be the secret elixir in their never-ending search for eternal youth. You won't find any parent of the year candidates in The Informers, this behaviour is the norm, no one seems shocked by anything, in fact that's the least shocking aspect of the book. Outside of the college-aged, blonde, tanned and fit young bodies, and the Porsches, cocktails, tennis matches and colonic seminars; or suicide by shooting one's self in their stomach to preserve their face, there is an outlier involving a middle-aged rock star and A possible foreshadowing of things to come for the younger characters. A self destructive musician sets out on the Asian leg of his world tour and through the clouds of blackouts and smoke machines he proves not only to be a danger to himself but an extreme danger to others as well. He finds himself waking up wondering what sticky mess he got himself in to the previous night while still trying to process the many nights before, and the coming repercussions for his actions. It's easy to blame the rock and roll lifestyle for your behaviours but Bryan Metro is just a bad dude and the passage involving a groupie from a small town in Nebraska confirmed that notion.

n  " I’m not even playing my guitar anymore. I start the second verse again: 'Another night passes by and still you wonder what happened… ,' then nothing. The bassist yells out something. I turn my head toward him, my hands killing me, and the bassist urges 'You give the world one more try' and I’m saying 'What?' and the bassist calls out 'You give the world one more try' and I’m saying 'What?' and the bassist yells 'You give the world one more try—Jesus' and I’m thinking to myself why in the hell would I sing this and then who the f*ck wrote this piece of shit and I motion for the band to go into the chorus and we finish the song okay and there’s no encore."n

For the most part the focus is on the children living in the City of Angels. The narcissistic “angels" who sleep all day, chain-smoke cigarettes, wear their Wayfarer sunglasses, soak in the sun, and have multiple sexual partners with no gender discrimination. During the onset of the AIDS crisis of the 80's, a presumed friend's death is merely an inconvenience in their lives and at most a point of reflection at one's own life; the end game is to mellow out and get over it because life's much too short to dwell on the tug of emotions. Fixating on tanning, youth, and strength distracts some from addressing their own hollowed existence, buried feelings, compounding problems, and even their own mortality The overwhelming message of the decade for the younger generation was to remember to take their vitamins, along the way the message got a little misconstrued, but they made sure they always got their Vitamin D.

n  “ 'But aren’t we, like, seeing each other or something?' I ask. 'I guess.' She sighs. 'We’re together now. I’m eating a salad with you now.' She stops, lowers Martin’s Wayfarers, but I’m not looking at her anyway. 'Forget Martin. Besides, who cares if we see other people? Don’t tell me one of us.' 'See or fuck?' I ask. 'Fuck.' She sighs. 'I think.' Pause. 'I guess.' 'Okay,' I say. 'Who knows, right?' Later she asks, grinning, rubbing suntan oil over my abs, 'Did you care that I slept with him?' and then, 'Nice definition.' 'No,' I finally say."n

You can't make it in Los Angeles unless you're willing to do awful things, and for the most part The Informers is flooded with people more than willing. Given the grave misuse of power in many industries today, especially the entertainment industry it seems the dirt from under the rug has finally been revealed. The balance of power has shifted even if slightly, the spotlight is brighter, the roaches are scurrying, but it seems like Los Angeles will always be a world un to itself. An unnamed character from New York instantly feels out of place in Los Angeles and longs for a sense of belonging after endangering it back home. Time gradually changes her for the "better" and after months of adapting to her environment she's beginning to feel like she belongs there but what of her is left? Complicated relationships are only made complicated when people care, otherwise it’s just an end to a nuisance and the beginning of a new search for distraction. My thoughts echo when it comes to this book, minus the violence and thoughts of bleeding out to ensure vital signs are functioning, with that said I am glad to be leaving their bleak alien world and I appreciate this unique reading experience.

n  “Listen—my name is Yocnor and I am from the planet Arachanoid and it is located in a galaxy that Earth has not yet discovered and probably never will. I have been on your planet according to your time for the past four hundred thousand years and I was sent here to collect behavioral data which will enable us to eventually take over and destroy all other existing galaxies, including yours. It will be a horrible month, since Earth will be destroyed in increments and there will be suffering and pain on a level your mind will never be able to understand. But you will not experience this demise firsthand because it will occur in Earth’s twenty-fourth century and you will be dead long before that. I know you will find this hard to believe but for once I am telling you the truth. We will never speak of this again.”n

The Informers is like the sick love-child of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio and Nathanael West's Day of the Locust. While this collection of interweaving short stories is not as shocking or subversive as, say, Glamorama, it is equally blunt in it's chastisement of Hollywood glitz & glam phoniness (like Holden Caufiled on crack). Ellis's dystopic vision of Hollywood is a contemporary re-imagining of what West did with Day of the Locust, and of what Bukowski did with Ham on Rye. It's as honest as John Fante's Ask the Dust in it's critique of "west coast envy." What Ellis does truly brilliantly, I think, is presenting believable (most of the time) characters who feel truly blessed and "happy" to be living in L.A., yet the reader gets a look at what's going on under the surface, and it is not pretty. The vampires were a stretch, and the child murder was terrifying, but combined and/or inter-mixed with the rest of the more believable shorts - a father trying to reconnect with his son, a mother lusting over young (young) men, a wannabe rockstar abusing his female fans - sexually and physically, well, you get the point that this is L.A. and that the fantasy is fresh, fun, beautiful, but the reality is dark, disturbing, and dangerous. I'm not sure there's been a more on-the-money satirist since Mark Twain or Jane Austen - if only they had been more free to express themselves!

This is like watching that SNL skit, the Californians, for three days.

Avrei messo 5 stelle se non fosse che due tra gli ultimissimi racconti mi hanno lasciata un po' perplessa (belli e significativi se presi da soli, ho trovato si amalgamassero poco con il resto degli scritti).

Ad ogni modo, con questo libro dichiaro ufficialmente il mio amore per Ellis.
Amo il suo modo unico e raffinato di mostrarci personaggi al limite, senz'anima né cuore.
I sui sono protagonisti vuoti, spenti, indifferenti alla vita propria e altrui, stanchi, sempre brilli o fatti, in cerca di una scintilla che possa finalmente far esplodere in loro una fiammella di interesse.
Ellis ci parla di ragazzi e di giovani adulti (ma anche di adulti più maturi, in qualche caso) cresciuti a Champaigne e MTV, figli di papà e figli degli anni '80, consumati dagli eccessi della Los Angeles patinata, dai party più in del momento, da relazioni inconsistenti, valori totalmente assenti e da una terribile, degradante, inevitabile noia. E la noia dei ricchi, si sa, porta solo a danni spesso irrecuperabili... il modo in cui Ellis descrive l'indifferenza è pazzesco, crea dei dialoghi wow.

Si tratta di una raccolta di 13 racconti, ma potrebbe benissimo essere considerato un romanzo con punti di vista differenti ad ogni capitolo perché in un modo o nell'altro sono tutti collegati tra loro. I personaggi si intersecano tra loro nei vari racconti, diventando a tratti narratori, a tratti protagonisti, a tratti semplici comparse nella vita altrui.

DNF: took me 3 stories to realise that the stories weren’t interconnected, and half of them to realise that there was no point to any of them, only despair.

Giving it a higher rating then American psycho just because it’s not American psycho. Not quiet 5 starts because the last few chapters almost come close to American psycho.

A new member of the much-coveted one day club. Enjoyed the first few stories much more than the last. Understood more after I realised it was a collection of tangentially connected short stories rather than something intended to be read as a novel. Is there anything more disgusting than vapidity?

I just finished reading this book, and I must say it is definitely amongst the ones that linger long after you've read them. The transgressive fiction which is being polluted due to the introduction of the 'romance' genre in it, is still intact in this book.
It's a disoriented, disjointed amalgam of lives. People, some related and others not, each try and survive in the moral leper colony of this world. Some turn to sexual vices, some drugs, and others write letters to people who never reply.
I liked the book. Not worth a second read, but definitely stands at a solid 3.5/5 stars.