I'm a Bookworm

I’ve been meaning to write this review for a while now, but have been putting it off because it concerns one of my favourite books of all time, and I want to do it justice. So in preparation and anticipation, one day I set about rereading the book once again to make sure I did it the justice it deserves. As you might have ascertained from the tile and book cover in the post, the book is Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis. To give more structure and organization to the review, I want to write about this novel in three different parts, hopefully getting closer and closer to the essence of why it’s made such an impact on me.

Plot

The novel tracks the movements of Victor Ward, a 27 year old model-slash-actor-slash-club-owner who also happens to be sleeping with the girlfriend of his backer. He’s got an allowance from his rich father, a steady supermodel girlfriend, and lots of free time which he fills with scattered projects like snack food commercials, charity fashion shows and half-baked band practices. One day, he gets a call from a mysterious diplomat who invites him to make some quick money. Victor’s mission is: travel to London, find a love from his past, and bring her back to the USA.

The second half of the novel begins as Victor sets off for Europe, and effectively unravels the plot and characters set up in the first half. Once Victor arrives in London, he finds Jamie, along with her boyfriend and rich, supermodel friends, who also work as – terrorists. Victor is still in love with Jamie, but as his understanding of the complicated situation he’s gotten himself into grows, so does the violence, danger, the surrealistic nature of the writing.

Devices

Ellis employs several literary devices in the second half of the book, some of which I’d never encountered before. First, he profiles a loose network of characters which are connected across his books. Alison Poole, Sean and Patrick Bateman, Lauren Hynde and even Victor himself make appearances not only in Glamorama, but also in the novels The Rules of Attraction, The Informers and American Psycho. Ellis shows just how small the world that he writes about is; these stars and models seem to have the entire world at their feet, but their community is quite small, almost incestuous.

Surrealism is demonstrated in several ways in Glamorama, such as by the film crews that enter in the second half of the book to direct Victor’s life. Easton gives no explanation for them, not even when a second crew comes in to challenge the first. I have read some magical realism, like Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Margherita Dolce Vita by Stefano Benni, but I wasn’t very familiar with surrealism in literature before reading Glamorama.

Then, there’s the surrealistic presence of flies, the increasing cold, and the smell of feces, all of which grow stronger as the novel progresses through the second half. It reminds me of Sartre’s The Flies, in which the town suffers under a thick blanket of flies to signify its moral vacuity. Or, do these devices foreshadow that Victor is getting closer and closer to his own death?

Significance

Now we come to the fun part – why I love the book. This novel holds a special place for me because it marked my first read of Transgressive Fiction – wherein the characters try and wrestle with moral emptiness (whether they know it or not) by acting in unorthodox ways. I enjoy all the layers of Glamorama -  from the superficial name dropping of celebrities in the opening, to the descent of a barely coherent plot. It’s got all the glitz of pop culture while easing the reader into heavier themes, asking that you make connections between the novel’s two halves. I’ll leave you with one more thought, since this review is becoming a literary work in itself… What shapes our attitudes to both terrorism and pop culture? The mainstream media.

- The Reader

[Image reproduced from tangentlabs.co.uk. Permission provided under the Fair Dealing Act]

After I read my first Charles Bukowski book, I picked up this one whilst on vacation. This novel was written by Bukowski later in life. It is semi-autobiographical and follows Henry (Hank) Chinaski, a semi-celebrity, writer and alcoholic.  As opposed to the portrayals of Chinaski in Factotum and Post Office, Hank Chinaski can subsist from the fruits of his pen, which leaves him time for more recreational pursuits, namely numerous semi-satisfying and debatably successful relationships with members of the opposite sex.

Bukowski’s autobiographical character is both involved with and interested in women, but not neccesarily fulfilled by them. It’s almost as if, once he’s fulfilled his basic needs for food & shelter, he begins to realise both the pleasure and the fruitlessness of the mating process to fulfill any of his higher needs.

There are all kinds of women in this book, several of which reflect actual women Bukowski knew in his life.  There’s the unstable and aggressive Lydia Vance, who is based on Bukowski’s actual ex-girlfriend (and writer) Linda King. There’s the adoring fan ‘Tanya’ who throws herself at her mentor. Tanya was based on a real life woman who published her own (differing) account of what happened between the two under the pseudonym ‘Amber O’Neil.’ Finally, there is the vegetarian-restaranteur who Bukowski eventually marries named ‘Sara,’ and based on Linda Lee Beighle.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this novel is not for the faint of heart. It has no obvious structure in terms of a beginning, middle and end. It begins somewhere in Chinaski’s life, and ends at some seemingly random point in the future. The women who come into his life pass in and out, sometimes returning and other times not.  Bukowski’s writing is as usual frank, unforgiving, unpretentious and at times graphic. But ultimately, if one is to contemplate postmodern living in Western literature, the one thing one definitely cannot be is faint of heart.

I recommend it.

–The Reader

[Image reproduced from bookcoverarchive.com. Permission provided under the Fair Dealing Act]

“All I want to do is get my check and get drunk.”

This was the first book by Bukowski I’d ever read, and I’ve never read author quite like him since. I’ll start by saying that I can usually identify with how Bukowski’s main character (Henry Chinaski, a semi-autobiographical version of Bukowski himself)  feels, but I can almost never identify with how he acts and reacts to the world around him. His attitude is very similar in my eyes to that of 90s grungers who listened to alternative rock bands like  Nirvana and decided to protest the world’s problems by ‘opting out,’ or through apathy. In fact, one Bukowski’s tombstone is in scripted ‘Don’t Try.’ Maybe that is why he still resonates with readers worldwide to this day.

The book has structure, but not an obvious one. It follows Chinaski, a quiet young man in Los Angeles in the mid 70s, as he drifts between menial jobs, has short and ill-fated affairs with women, and meets with various people, including his parents.

One striking thing about Chinaski is that he is always and constantly himself, no matter how life fluctuates around him. Much to their shock and chagrin, he speaks frankly to his parents and employers, lovers and landlords.

To his employers, he asserts:
“How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so? “

As for his potential lovers, he gently ruminates:
“She was desperate and she was choosy at the same time and, in a way, beautiful, but she didn’t have quite enough going for her to become what she imagined herself to be.”

I do love to read Bukowski. He gently refuses to present a false front or to deny himself the things he enjoys, which as he readily admits, include leisure and alcohol. I admire his honestly and willingness to live as he chooses, though I personally can’t agree that living a life of rootless destitution and developing a dependence on alcohol is the answer to the discrepancies and complications of the modern human condition. I’ll have to keep looking and reading for that.

–The Reader

[Image reproduced with permission from Jim Barker's photostream on Flikr.com]