Below zero (novel)

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Below zero ( Less Than Zero ), the first novel by Bret Easton Ellis , which for the first time in 1985 by Verlag Penguin was released. Ellis published it while still a student at the age of 21. In its year of publication, it sold 50,000 times.

content

The spoiled 18-year-old student Clay is flying from his college in New Hampshire to visit his parents in California over the Christmas break to visit them. His ex-girlfriend Blair picks him up from the airport and takes him home. Clay finds it difficult to find his way back to his old life. Many of his friends have become estranged from him, he himself is constantly demotivated and listless. He goes to friends' parties or clubs almost every day, where he also does loads of drugs and has promiscuous sex with both women and men. His relationship with Blair is getting worse while he still had feelings for her. His mother is permanently under the influence of psychotropic drugs . His friend Julian is now addicted to cocaine and prostitutes himself for the pimp Finn, in whose debt he is indebted. At a party, a friend of Clays brings a snuff movie with him, but it doesn't bother anyone but Clay and Blair. Another time Clay visits one of his friends and finds a 12-year-old girl tied to a bed, who is raped by the men, and he is the only one present who expresses moral concerns. A few days later he heard on the radio that the body of a young girl had been found in Los Angeles. After Clay can no longer connect to his old life, he decides to return to New Hampshire. It remains to be seen whether he will ever come to Los Angeles again .

style

Bret Easton Ellis often uses stylistic elements of repetition, "People are afraid to merge on the freeway" is a recurring quote, similar to "Disappear here". Clay and those around him are described as nihilistic , superficial and addicted to pleasure. Almost all of his friends are models with short blonde hair; One chapter describes how a boy with long, brown hair is almost unconsciously avoided by everyone. As in Simply Irresistible and American Psycho , the characters are constantly under the influence of drugs and are resistant to violence and pornography.

background

  • The book's title, Less Than Zero , is a reference to a song by Elvis Costello . There are several allusions to Elvis Costello in the book. B. Several posters of him in Clay's room.
  • Ellis originally wrote Less Than Zero as a thesis for the creative writing course at Bennington College, Washington, but his professor was so impressed that he motivated him to publish the work as a novel.
  • Ellis' book The Informants consists of several short stories, one of which is about an exchange of letters between a student and a certain Clay , possibly the same as in Unter Null .
  • In January 2008, Ellis announced in an interview that he was working on a sequel to Less Than Zero , which will also be titled Imperial Bedrooms after an Elvis Costello song . In the sequel the same characters are expected to appear as in Less Than Zero , but the story takes place in the present; so the characters have aged. The book was published in June 2010.
  • Ellis began writing “Unter Null” at the age of 16 and admitted that under the influence of Speed ​​he wrote a 4,000-page draft, although the final version is only 182 pages long.

Reviews

  • Literaturschock sums up the book positively and propagates its high stylization to cult status:

“'Unter Null' is developing into a cult book. The young Americans find themselves again in BE Ellis' story of Clay and his friends in Los Angeles in the 80s, these children of rich but bored parents who hardly give their glamorous life between parties, sex, drugs and violence a kick, let alone because can make sense. "

  • Unique-Online about the mood that Unter Null conveys:

“'Below zero' is the temperature of the interpersonal relationships between the actors. Below zero is a metaphor for how college kids feel when they watch a little girl tortured on a snuff video. Below zero, this is a book that fascinates and disturbs. Bret Ellis' swan song to the world of great appearances, in which being degenerates into a mere cliché. To a vague idea, to a never-ending trickery game of bloodless extras. And we will have to ask ourselves: who is to blame? "

swell

  1. ↑ http://www.literaturschock.de/literatur/belletristik/gegenwartsliteratur/unter-null
  2. ^ Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis. Penguin Random House, accessed September 3, 2016 .
  3. ↑ http://www.now-on.at/magazin.artikel.php?artikel=1112  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.now-on.at  
  4. ↑ http://www.literaturschock.de/literatur/belletristik/gegenwartsliteratur/unter-null
  5. ↑ Book review: “Less than Zero” - October 30, 2008