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"Before you know it as the years go by, you're just like other people you have seen, with all those peculiar human ailments. Just another vehicle for temper and vanity and rashness and all the rest. Who wants it? Who needs it? These things occupy the place where a man's soul should be." -- Henderson the Rain King

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Less Than Zero

"Teenage angst has paid off well, now I'm bored and old..."

Lucky book #13 was Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero, a Holden Caulfield-inspired coming of age tale set in the drug-infested 80's L.A. scene.

The book was pretty good though I'd recommend reading Hubert Selby's Requiem For A Dream or Jim Carroll's Basketball Diaries first. Both are similar in theme but slightly stronger in execution. What I'll remember most about Less Than Zero though is not the actual book, but rather my experience reading it on my way back from Vegas.

Picture sitting in a plane on the tarmac at Vegas' McCarran International. The stewardesses have just sat down in preparation for take off when the seemingly normal guy quietly reading next to you suddenly gets a massive nose bleed. Yeah, that bloody nose guy would be me. I have no idea how it happened. I don't think I've had a nose bleed since I was like 5, but for some reason my stupid nose decided that leaking like a sieve might be fun. Anyways, the lady next to me starts freaking out, everyone turns around to stare, the stewardess rush over with piles of small ineffective napkins and meanwhile I'm just wishing I could disappear into my seat. Good times. Thanks a lot nose, I owe you one.

While I'm tempted to blame the whole Vegas Nose Bleed Catastrophe on the dry Nevada air (hey I'm from Seattle where we practically breath H20), part of me wonders if it was some kind of subconcious sympathy nose bleed caused by reading all of the cocaine sniffing scenes in the book. Even sitting here writing this now the thought of sniffing anything is making my nose kinda itchy.

So net, net it sounds like my advice here is avoid this book, it'll give you nose bleeds and that ain't cool. If you choose not to heed my advice Wikipedia has a little more about the book here. Proceed at your own risk.

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2 Comments:

Blogger gamze said...

whenever i find myself stuck and can't finish a book, i turn to brett easton ellis. it does get pretty repetitive after a while, and i find that i start confusing the books or not remembering what they were about after 2 days but still i think he has a distinctive style. and about the nosebleed, i once sat next to a moroccan pilgrim on a flight from istanbul to paris, i was sleeping and the minute i woke up and lifted my head i saw this bloody piece of flesh fall from his nose. he spoke french, the cabin crew didn't, everyone freaked out and i had to do a great deal of translating because the poor guy had words in english, turkish and french thrown at him at hysterical speeds. as far as i recall, he wasn't reading any ellis.

5:58 PM

 
Blogger Jamie said...

I agree that Ellis has a distinct style. Kinda dream-like I suppose. Everything seems a bit surreal while you're in the middle of it and then when you wake up everything's just a bit fuzzy.

Sounds like Moroccan dude has my nose bleed story beat by a mile. If I had started speaking in a foreign language I'm pretty sure the lady next to me would have went right out the window. We were in an Exit Row after all...

12:01 AM

 

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