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Rating:  -
Less Than Zero is a youthful spurt dripping with the removed, disinterested excess of modern youth. Ellis portrays the lives of rich, young, carefree L.A. kids so accurately that it is difficult to distinguish any removed perspective of him as author, other than the implied commentary in the portrayal of the characters themselves. Clay returns home from his first semester at college to find his friends continuing on a path of utter nihilism. Excessive drug use, promiscuous sex, and even premature death are dealt with in such an unemotional carelessness by Ellis' characters that they offer little indication of the relevance of anything in their lives. Clay's friends are so overstimulated by the excesses of wealth and modern society that they become incapable of stimulation. However, unlike Salinger's Holden Caulfield, to whom Clay is often compared, Ellis seems to shy away from creating a sympathetic critic of society in his protagonist. Clay presents the situation in its brutal reality, with little commentary. While the novel is a great success in conveying the degeneracy of wealth and the blasé attitude of youth, it falls short in truly indicting this culture. Ellis expects this nihilism to impeach itself, but offers little positive hope, in even the possibility of personal reflection from Clay, so that the reader is merely left with an overwhelming sense of nothingness, a profound statement on corruption that lacks any positive artistic statement.
Rating:  -
Less Than Zero is a decidedly love-it-or-hate-it affair, for the simple fact that its very concept, from plot to characterization to rhetorical strategy to structure, can be adored or loathed for the exact same reasons. The novel is a group portrait of the utterly hedonistic, stunningly decadent offspring of mid-80s Los Angeles yuppie culture. Ellis depicts a generation that exists without direction, purpose, or passion, which leads an empty existence fueled by clouds of cocaine and sex and parties and fancy cars and superficiality and complete apathy and detachment. The story is told through the eyes of Clay, a college freshman who's back in town for the winter break. In a strangely non-moralistic manner, Clay slowly begins to grasp the emptiness of his life, at his inability to connect with anybody around him. It's a raw, unflinching, and at times horrifying picture. It's also chillingly effective. That is, in essence, why I love this book- its depictions are powerful and unnerving, and they strike some sort of nerve, some sort of elemental impulse that is both fascinated and repulsed by Clay's existence. It's a glimpse into the abyss, and an utterly captivating one. Those who hate the book will probably be put off by the fact that it describes an awful and unenviable state of being without any hope of redemption of growth. It is, admittedly, hard to argue with those people.
The novel's detractors probably won't like Ellis' pacing or style, either. The novel is written in the typically edgy manner of young writers: That is, in the present tense (admittedly a hit-or-miss device, but it works wonderfully here because it lends a matter-of-fact, anti-romantic feel to the story, the sensation that nothing it depicts is truly special or noteworthy), with a dry and impressionistic sentences that juxtapose details in an odd but seemingly detached manner. Just about everything that Clay does, weather he's eating lunch with his father or snorting cocaine, is expressed in the same style- it all amounts to the same, Ellis seems to be saying. This may seem amateurish or pretentious to some, and again, it really is just a matter of taste. Structurally, the novel is intentionally repetitive, a haze of parties and nightclubs and expensive restaurants and intimate moments and vague recollections blurring into one another, even as the novel approaches its unnerving climax. This may strike you as boring (and, occasionally, it is), but it does mirror the crushing repetition and utter stasis of the characters' lives. Again, people who hate the novel will probably be annoyed by the seeming lack of variety.
So, I love this novel. It's strange, hypnotic, and irresistibly appalling. I would encourage you, however, to look over as many reviews as you can, and read a few pages, of this book before buying it. You may end up despising this thing with a passion.
Rating: -
"Less Than Zero" could be read in less than two hours. I'm not sure how long it took Ellis to write the book, but my guess is it wasn't much more that. It's not a bad book, but it reads like something he might have come up with during a freshman year creative writing workshop. Having read many of his other works (especially American Psycho, which this book seems to be the more successful, older brother of), I found the story to be more of a treatise and less of a terror.
We follow a young college freshman named Clay as he returns home to Los Angeles for Christmas break. It turns out that Clay and his friends are over-priviledged and bored, and their ennui is so stiflingly huge and all-encompassing that their entertainments (read: lifestyle distractions) turn steadily grislier and darker. Clay is the viewpiece for all of this, much less an actor on the stage than one of its proscenium lights.
The book is disturbing, I guess, and it's shudder-worthy to think that this in any way mirrors reality (I guess, on second thought, it's not so hard to imagine), but the book also lacks any depth or complexity. "American Psycho" tortured out its point with double-bladed questions and a central character that was the most viscerally active element of his horrifying world. "Less Than Zero" has only one question, and it's as soft and muddling as a giant bank of smog, and its central character is just as vapid and vaporous. He yearns for meaning, and he instinctively withdraws from the horrors around him, but his actions are all reflex, and his pathos is all pretend. Nihilism is a tough subject to arm wrestle with (it's got two elbows and a triple-jointed wrist), but Clay (like his name) is too mutably bland to do much else besides exist.
Notable for what it is, and just as dismissable for similar reasons, "Less Than Zero" is an okay read that gets even better after it grows up and becomes its dangerous kin. People who think they've got the teeth for it should skip ahead to "American Psycho" and avoid this milk-white malaise.
Rating:  -
I'm a huge fan of literary fiction, but I was bored throughout 3/4 of this. I read on because it felt as though it was just about to get interesting...it never did.
Rating: -
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Definitely captures the essence of young adults' disillusionment. I felt the book was written honestly -- the indifference the protagonist feels for himself, his friends, his lifestyle and culture is laid out for the reader to see and experience.
This book is a quick read - so even if you don't agree with everything written in the book or with the author, you're not going to waste a lot of your time. On the other hand, I viewed the book and the author as a (personal) study of a narrow scope of society and found this a worthwhile read.
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