synopsis:
'Glamorama' ventures deep inside the world of celebrity, a world that jet-sets from coast-to-coast, from champagne flute to vial of cocaine, all the while sacrificing humanity for image. The reader follows the protagonist as his life spirals out of control, as he goes from model/icon/club-promoter to unwitting witness to an international terrorism ring. The result is pure Bret Easton Ellis - a world that is at once ironic and glamorous, enviable and terrifying. at a certain Ellis's artfully-drawn satires continue to reflect his uncanny power of observation toward contemporary society.
For the first 100 pages or so, 'Glamorama' maintains a screwball-comedy pace with puns, jokes, and rapid-fire dialogue. The 'hero', Victor Ward, is a hollow shell of a person whose only purpose is to dress the right way, listen to the right bands, date the right person, and eat at the right places while doing the right drugs, though you get the sense that Victor finds no personal pleasure in any of these things. The story then proceeds to add a few more dimensions, both figuratively and literally. We meet Victor's dour father, a U.
S. senator considering a presidential bid. As a public official he is deeply embarrassed by his son's tabloid lifestyle. In short order Victor finds himself involved with a shadowy government agent and an overseas mission to locate and bring home one of Victor's former girlfriends, a film starlet who may be involved with terrorists. The satire is rich: the clueless Victor is suddenly set down in the middle of an espionage thriller.
The strangest turn taken by 'Glamorama' is an absurdist postmodern leap that is entirely new to Ellis's fiction: a film crew makes an appearance midway through the book and they never leave. In fact, 'Glamorama' evolves into a looking-glass alternate reality in which Victor is simultaneously living the book's story and acting in a movie version of the story. It's a fiendishly clever and complex literary plot, with Victor adrift in a media-saturated nightmare of escalating violence. He unwittingly joins an international terrorist cell - while, at the same time, acting in a movie about an international terrorist cell - comprised of bomb-throwing fashion models.
Ellis never shies away from detailing the carnage that ensues from deadly explosions in a crowded Paris cafe, or a train, or a 747 in flight. The novel's most gruesome locale is a basement torture chamber used by the terrorists to punish and/or execute anyone who gets in their way. Here is where 'Glamorama' revisits the graphic horrors of American Psycho, reconfigured this time around for a commentary on real-world violence versus the comfortable distance we are used to from CNN and newspaper accounts of geopolitical struggles. The ideology of the terrorists is never specified and Ellis demurs from offering anything like the critique of right-wing politics that kept American Psycho focused in its outrage. (Psycho-killer Patrick Bateman makes a sick-joke cameo appearance in 'Glamorama'. Several of the characters in 'glamorama', including Victor himself, also appear in Ellis's 1987 book 'The Rules of Attraction').
on this book:
'glamorama' is a scathing satire of life in the fast lane for the up-and-coming and "quasi-famous." There is a coldness and callousness in Ellis's prose that he perfected in his last novel, American Psycho (for which he was lambasted by critics, yet it is now required reading at Yale), which is best represented in the sex scenes of 'Glamorama'. The sex scenes are stripped of poetry and feeling in favor of graphic detail. It is pure pornography, and it is flawlessly delivered. the protagonist seems no more interested in the sex in this book than he does a chic pantsuit by a very famous designer.
Ellis utilizes pop culture in this book in such an extreme way that most readers will be lost in his references. From song lyrics to tireless name-dropping, 'Glamorama' forces the reader to be 'in the know'. ellis's goal is to be as caught up in the moment as possible.
Detractors of Ellis's writing (of which there are many) criticize his obsession with seemingly superfluous details and his lack of imagery. 'Glamorama' will not make fans out of these people who have already made up their minds; however, it does go farther than any book in his oeuvre in experimenting with narrative and meta-narrative. ellis once said about 'glamorama' that he wanted to write a book about conspiracies, but in the end the book itself became a conspiracy.
