Review: Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
Posted on January 12, 2010
by Adam Burgess
1 Comment
Glamorama
is a twisted, disgusting, brilliant parody of all that was the early-1990’s. This book is Valley of the Dolls
meets Naked Lunch meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers
meets James Bond
. Don’t think the combination is possible? Think again. Ellis demonstrates a superb understanding of cultural critique and is creative enough to satirize with seriousness and hilarity simultaneously. If you can get through the first two hundred or so pages of idiotic dialogue (another stroke of narrative brilliance, really, but still hard to wade through), you will be rewarded. Mid-way through the novel, the story takes an unexpected and inexplicable turn. Truly, the twist is never reconciled within the novel and the reader is left feeling literally mind-fucked. No one is who they appear to be, no one works for whom they appear to work (sometimes the characters themselves don’t even realize it). Everyone gets blown up, drugged out, beaten, sodomized, and the smell of feces permeates the latter portion of the story (which takes place in France – coincidence or another cultural critique?). I don’t understand the confetti, I don’t understand the camera crews or the many, many scripts – but am I supposed to? “The better you look, the more you see.”
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