Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis.
This was released in 2005 and I didn’t get a copy of it until 2007. Damn you all. Since then I have read it 3 times. Its an easy book to read. It reads like Harry Potter, really. Just book Candy. However, underneath all the smooth pros that Ellis is renowned for lies something a bit more tricky.
Lunar Park Starts out with a sort of auto-biography thing and self reflection on Eilis’s part about his becoming a big time author and all that was associated with that. Cocaine and book signings and more cocaine and sex. Its funny and fun to read but ultimately pretty lame. He gets away with it because we all love him so much. I mean for the love of god the main characters name…the “Hero’s name” is Brett Easton Ellis.
After this he sort of segues into what becomes an entertaining yet transparent attack on the absurdity of modern American child rearing and a horror story. I know..haha…but somehow it works. I get the impression every time I read this that he is being absurd…and a bit more absurd and then even a little more absurd and then suddenly there will be a moment of absolute seriousness that due to the previous absurdity really “hits hard”. The horror aspects are sort of murky and hard to follow but fairly original and interesting.
The best bits of this book are the comical elements like the new novel Brett is working on in the story called TEENAGE PUSSY that reads…
…(Michael didnt have a six pack_ he had a twenty-four- pack; a case!) to anyone who might look. Women keep pleading with him to be more open and emotional, and they indignantly throw out lines like “I am not a slut!” and “You never want to talk about anything!” and “We should have gotten a room!” and “The was rude!” and “No-I will not have sex with that homeless man while you watch!” as well as my two favorites: “You tricked me!” and “I’m, calling the police!” His usual answers: “Swallowing is about communication, baby” and “Okay, I’m sorry, but can I still cum on your face?”
Ellis damn near broke my ribs making me laugh with this stuff. Do you see what I mean? Its all a big trick. Its a set up. Ellis plays all of us. In the beginning of the big he makes fun of his older work and the drugs and sex etc and then is writing a book in which those things have no real place in the story so, he puts this “New book hes working on” into the plot in order to appease us, his dancing monkey like fan base. The New York times said it was “Addictive….Sublime….Exquisite….Stirringly executed…A phantasmagoria of love and loss, a fusion of hallucination and wisdom.” Give me a break. These are the exact type of words that B.E.E. seems so disgusted with within these very pages.
I can say that this is a very interesting and well written book. B.E.E. springs his trap with ease and just about all of us get caught in it and what can we do? Jack shit. Its Bret Easton Ellis people.
Gaijinass 