The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis REVIEW
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- Not much beneath the surface (and even the surface isn't that sleek).
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I don't recommend you buy this book.
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It's a great book, and I love this kind of "negative review" by an uptight reviewer, because it only makes me love the book even more.
same here. sort of a surprising review but my love for Ellis remains undimmed.
Thank you for being so honest and so clear. It does sound like a very tedious and unpleasant experience.
this is just the best book by bee (if you like his writing style). great novel and the last 150pp were a true page turner book 😮
I am about 70% into the book. My first and probably last Ellis. It is not a bad book per se. But all the criticism he does is sound.
Just finished this book, last week. This review is very close to EXACTLY right on.
This was the first Ellis book I've ever read, and enjoyed it over all - I mean, I was able to get through the 600 pages without trouble. But I agree with most of your criticism, namely that it's pretty trivial and kind of overlong and repetitive. I get that he wanted to paint a detailed picture of L. A. at this time, but even if one takes that into account, this book could have been cut down to two thirds of it's actual lenght at least.
I have American Psycho on my tbr as well because that's his big classic, curious to see if that one is better. If this novel is representative of Ellis overall literary merit, I can understand why a lot of critics never took him all that seriously.
Less Than Zero, Rules Of Attraction and Glamorama re masterpieces.
@@thebasedgodmax1163 What about Imperial Bedrooms and American Psycho? Are they worth reading?
@thebasedgodmax1163 less than zero and Glamorama, sure (I absolutely love Glamorama, one of the most fun books I've read) but calm down on Rules of Attraction, quit tossing that word around for every goddam thing just because you like it. Rules of Attraction was bad and boring. I quickly gave up on it, and I'm a big fan of Ellis. As for @ Fragwall - American Psycho is of course his most famous and arguably best book, and one of the major American Novels of contemporary times. As for Imperial Bedrooms (Less than Zero's abysmal sequel) it was such a bore. And some of his worst writing. And I fucken hated it, despite the (kinda) clever framing device?
@@nl3064 you should consider this thing called "opinions". when you discover not everybody holds the same opinions as you the world becomes a magical place.
@@GeorgeMillerUSA haven't read Psycho, I enjoyed Imperial Bedrooms but it's his weakest I've read.
Thanks for the honest thoughts!
he serialized it on his podcast and it was good there
I will go and search. Thanks.
I'm glad someone finally made a video on this book. I read it at the beginning of the year as soon as it came out, and no one has talked about it. Too bad you didn't like it. I actually had a lot of fun with much of it, even if parts of it were cartoonishly over-the-top and the ending was lackluster. I'd place it in the middle of his bibliography.
And I agree, there's not much substance to the book, but given the themes you adressed, that hollowness fits right in.
Also, shame you haven't read Glamorama. 😕
The Secret History is dedicated to Bret Easton Ellis hehe. : )
I like Ellis in limited bursts. I am interested in the autobiographical elements of this one, hoping it gives a window of sorts into his then closeted sexuality, which he's tended to project into other dissolute characters before now.
The treatment of "Bret's" (the narrator's) sexuality, and the way he approaches his homosexual love for/attraction to some of his peers, would have been one of the novel's brilliant sides (it is handled very honestly and shown in its complexity and contradictions) if I had had the sense, at any point in the book, that the book was trying to tell me something about this complexity. Instead the usual Ellis treatment (numbness, uniformity of style) doesn't really open up this experience to me; I didn't feel the connection, if it makes any sense.
Agreed
I am not a skittish reader by any means, but i absolutely could not finish American Psycho, it terrified me that someone could think like that...i have tried to tell myself to be brave and picked it up 3-4 times but couldn't get past the first 5 chapters ... i guess it must be a true horror story because reading it alone at night filled me with a lot of terror and anxiety. I think it is genius writing, just not for me.
To be honest I had to skip certain passages in American Psycho - they were just so excessive, obviously gratuitous, and self-serving!
I've been meaning to read more Ellis, but maybe I'll skip this one :D
I'm presently reading "American Psycho" (more than half way through) and, at first, I found it very funny, amusing, interesting. But as my reading wore on, I found the novel tedious with the repeated details of fashion/food/restaurants/music and that one scene seemed more or less like another. The violence really didn't get going until 1/3 of the way through the book and it was gratuitous. It's taking me a really long time to get through AP, maybe I can read a few pages a night, then I have to put it down because of the redundancy. The few moments of humor are a bright spot for me. Instead of the book, I'd recommend people stick to the movie which is really good. I also have "Less Than Zero" sitting in my TBR pile of books. I hadn't thought about reading "The Shards" so maybe I'll avoid reading it, based on your review. One horror-ish novel with gratuitous violence (which is quite good) I recommend is Ryu Murakami's "In The Miso Soup". It's about a serial killer who terrorizes the sex district in Tokyo while Kenji (a young sex tour guide) escorts and helps navigate American tourist Frank in and around the Tokyo sex district. That novel has gratuitous violence which works well within the narrative.
The redundancy is the point. The sameness is the point. To emphasize how bored shitless Patrick is, and how everyone and everything blurs together. That's why he kills, as a reprieve from the monotony. That's how I see it, anyway. But even, that, too, gets boring. There's no escape from "a boredom so monumental, it humbles" (I think that's a line in the book?). Anyway, I really loved it. Seems like a lot of people miss the point of so many aspects of the book. 😐
I was intending to write a comment like this one but you absolutely nailed it.
❤❤❤❤❤
Terrific review of an abysmal (seemingly) novel. I won’t waste my time. Thanks for the heads up, it’s a 5 star thorough review. Wow.
if you haven't read it how do you know it's so bad? the point of a critic isn't to decide your opinions for you.
@@thebasedgodmax1163 One of the points of reviews is to curate media for busy people. If you get to know the reviewer and find yourself often agreeing with them, you might avoid wasting your time with something that has five-star book reviews from people who're in the throes of sunk-cost fallacy.
I hated American Psycho and this sounds worse.
Lame. Just very lame.