Friday 2 October 2009


Less Than Zero : an apology

I blogged earlier with what some might describe an ireful tone on Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis. The general gist was who the hell cares. The 80s, been there, done that. Sadly enough I still have some of the t-shirts, including a small collection of original second hand joy division dating from the 70s.

That, however, is not the point. The point is that I was unfair to Bret Easton Ellis for no better reason than I work in an office of retrohead kids who think the 80s was all industrial chic, new romantics and Notting Hill carnival. The new romantic look is back in. Big, bouncy hair that actually doesn’t bounce, off the shoulder tops and stripes. Where did the stripes come from.

I digress. Having now read Less Than Zero I feel that I owe Bret Easton Ellis an apology. Yes, the book is tedious, self regarding and hinges on two moments which finally emerge as so what. But at the time it was new, one of the things you forget with age. The moral and emotional corruption of capitalism invested in children is kind of passé and like the rich still with us, but the ideology of self had to start some place. Post medieval European aristocracy I believe, but it didn’t become available to the culture and society as a whole until the idealism of the 70s had been well and truly bought out. Less Than Zero shows us the early generation of this. Unfortunately the book is as empty and pointless as the kids it depicts. Therein lies the point, maybe even the paradox.

Therein lies also me showing my age. Have a goodun.