Bret Easton Ellis on Glamorama - The John Adams Institute

On March 2, 1999, The John Adams Institute welcomed American novelist Bret Easton Ellis, who talked about his work and his novel Glamorama, in which male model Victor Ward constructs his own life on the superficial images of the entertainment industry out of his obsession with the glitter of New York fashion. The novel takes a surprising turn with Vistor leaves for Europe and becomes entrapped in a world of terrorists. Both humorous and horrifying, Glamorama shows there is no escape from the nihilism of our consumer society. When his first novel, Less Than Zero, became the literary sensation of 1985, Bret Easton Ellis was only 21 years old. His suffocating description of rich Los Angeles teenagers in search of high times and superficial sensations made Ellis the ‘voice of the new lost generation’. His other books include Rules of Attraction, American Psycho and Imperial Bedrooms, for which he visited the John Adams Institute in 2010.
Bas Heijne moderated the evening.
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[@ribomit0o20]

One time i listened to this interview on MDMA and it was so pleasurable, the two passages from glamorama are some of the best rising and rising

[@greggoat6570]

When he gives readings like this I always feel like he’s going too fast at first but once I get into the rhythm of it and his cadence, it’s perfect. Most of his characters are desperate on some level, near their breaking point, as is true in the passages he read. The rushed, frenetic reading enriches that, especially when celebrities and luxuries items are rattled off endlessly.

[@BareBandSubscription]

Very true. Even reading it naturally leads to a sense of rushing through the words and struggling to maintain any semblance of strong focus. I find myself naturally reading faster and catching myself constantly.

[@wltchflnder-general]

Amazing how he sounds just like Patrick Bateman

[@erlstone]

BEE is an "agent provocatuer" of the best kind... he has such a natural feeling for the swirl of pop culture, he would have made an excellent record producer or studio boss.. or both.

[@warmflash]

Wow. Brilliant

[@samgriffin6542]

amazing

[@apostle6100]

BEE writes the best unreliable narrators...

[@bruh-vs3ry]

44:03

[@bobbarkeriii2597]

No matter how mellow Ellis manages to sound, however, he retains a knack for maddening people, for saying just the right wrong thing to make his legions of detractors swirl like hornets. Some of these interventions begin on his Twitter feed, then are expanded on or tamped down on the podcast, or are made on his podcast and become a Twitter to-do, e.g. his claim that the action director of The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow, was overrated in Hollywood because she’s a ‘very hot woman’, his revulsion over the martyred sanctification of David Foster Wallace (‘the most tedious, overrated, tortured, pretentious writer of my generation’), and his slating of the Best Picture winner Moonlight as a ‘victim narrative’ capturing Hollywood’s sympathy vote. Ellis’s oft-expressed irritation with the clammy grip of liberal groupthink, especially entertainment-biz liberals who are so carried away by anti-Trump fear and loathing that it’s driven them to pills and apoplexy, has led some to associate him with the Intellectual Dark Web, that supposedly sinister warlock cabal of professors (Jordan Peterson), pundits (Ben Shapiro) and big-league podcasters (Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin).