Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
|
I think Easton Ellis and McInerney are a bit precious. IMO, the best way a subject like blow is tackled is by describing how dumb it makes the user. It is a fount of many stories that show how quickly people can degrade to asinine behaviors. Ellis and McInerney were all about the heavy aspects -- affluent victims of a decadent lifestyle. Got a bit of a soap opera vibe to it.
Keith Richards' book,
Life, tackles the subject brilliantly, explaining how he carefully avoided buying bad quality stuff, and knew when to walk away from the mirror. ("I'm gonna walk, before they make me run...")
But as far as technical skill goes, McInerney certainly has chops. And Ellis's
American Psycho may cheaply rely on a lot of shock, but is still a very satisfying and brutally humorous satire. Ellis' recent book,
White, about growing up a gay white male in a time when one was required to stay in the closet, is, OTOH, dense, lacking focus, and beyond self-indulgent. He claimed it was aimed at rebuking wokeness and political correctness from an underdog's point of view, but only one word fits as a review: Muddled.
