Bret Easton Ellis's Controversial Fiction: Writing Between High and Low Culture (Continuum Literary Studies, 1)

for allowing me to reprint an initial version of Chapter 10. On a personal level, I want to thank my parents, Abilio and Charo, who have always unconditionally supported me with their love; my brother, Martín, who is the best brother one could ever have; my in-laws, who have encouraged me with their affection, and my close friends, who can always be counted upon. Finally, I would like to especially thank Luis Miguel for his kindness, love and patience. He has given me unlimited personal support when all I did was work. Thanks to him I know there is life beyond books. The Low: Ellis in the Celebrity World Ellis represents a new generation of writers who are not afraid to create a celebrity status in order to make a name in literature, and who in their novels display the dangers and benefi ts of openly combining high and low culture. Celebrity authors represent a midpoint between high culture (literature for the elite) and popular culture (celebrity culture). It is obvious that the role of authors cannot be the same in times of very sharply divided high and low cultural categories as in times of blurred boundaries and a consumer-oriented economy. In this social atmosphere celebrity authors have fl ourished, a phenomenon that some literary critics interpret as a threat to the 'sacred' fi eld of literature. The role of celebrity writers brings forth questions such as the relationship between small printing houses and big corporations, or between literature and the marketplace. Bret Easton Ellis exemplifi es the benefi ts and side effects, the dangers and values, of the celebrity author in contemporary culture. Bret Easton Ellis's Controversial Fiction price of books and the ideological emphasis of a democratic culture made it possible for writers to reach a wider swathe of readers (Cawelti 1977: 165). In the mid-nineteenth century the word 'celebrity' was fi rst used to refer to a famous person, and authors were among the main celebrities because the printed media -books, magazines and newspapers -were dominant. In the twentieth century, the advent of fi lm, radio, TV and popular music was to produce other types of celebrities, those depicted in Glamorama. Literary authors promoted themselves through the lecture circuit and the popular press. The lecture circuit reached its peak in the 1870s and 1880s, providing authors with a source of income. In fact, it developed a system of national celebrities thanks to the press, which reported on the lecturers and sometimes reprinted their speeches, thus creating a number of recognizable names. Charles Dickens's and Mark Twain's tours received widespread media coverage, comparable to that of The Beatles in the early 1960s (Cawelti 1977: 166). In the 1880s the cheap, mass-market, illustrated weekly was created. Later, magazines such as Time (1923-) and Life Magazine (1936-) somewhat transformed the way authors had hitherto been treated. By visiting writers in their places of work and residence, they began to deal not so much with the authors' tours and speeches as with the links between the authors' life and art. They created a new kind of celebrity, closer to that of stage and screen stars. This kind of celebrity, at least in its early and more innocent stage, was regarded as a form of 'egalitarian distinction' (Gamson 1994: 31), or as the 'democratic myth' of celebrity (Marshall 1997: 9). Anyone could be discovered and become a star as long as that person had the gift, the talent or the personality. Authors had the power to embody this democratic myth of celebrity, and, accordingly, magazines were not only interested in what made authors special (their art) but in what made them common (their life and history). However, not just any author qualifi ed to represent the democratic myth of celebrity. Journalists would profi le and interview commercially successful authors, highlighting their sales fi gures, their position on the New York Times bestseller list, the size of print runs and the profi tability of subsidiary rights, for instance. At the same time, these authors were expected to have serious 'literary' aims, which were attested to through their winning major literary awards, participation in commercial book clubs and favourable reviews in the New York Times Book Review and Saturday Review. Commercial success seasoned with literary quality was the successful recipe, Hemingway being a good example of this tension (Moran 2000: 27). For example, John Raeburn sees Ernest Hemingway as 'both a respected novelist and a bona fi de celebrity, a double distinction enjoyed by no other writer of his generation ' (1974: 91). He obtained his initial fame from the recognition of his literary achievements, but he confi rmed and increased his renown by making public his private life. Cawelti also considers Hemingway, together with Norman Mailer, perfect examples of writers who used their celebrity persona as an integral part of their art. In fact, Hemingway's public persona was in certain ways a real-life version of some of the characters in his novels (1977: 171). This is also true of Ellis. After the publication of Less use value). These critics were perpetuating a romantic image of the author as an individual creative genius of original works. For Joshua Gamson, the binary oppositions they were trying to maintain were: surface versus substance; image versus reality; irrelevance versus truth; imitation and copying versus originality and imagination; passivity versus involvement; lifestyle and consumption versus work and production (1994: 6-7). However, if we analyse the contemporary cultural arena, it is apparent that many of these binary oppositions no longer hold true. The fear is now, especially over the last few decades, that mass consumption has completely taken over high culture and authors are now closer to being seen as fi lm stars than as prestigious literary creators. Literature is now part of a consumer-oriented culture and even an active participant in a struggle for its own survival. For Jeremy Rifkin this responds to a more general trend whereby the cultural sphere is being pulled into the commercial sphere. From a production-oriented capitalism that emphasizes saving, capital formation, organization of the modes of production and disciplining workforces, we have moved into a consumer-oriented capitalism. This form of capitalism also includes culture, which has openly become a commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace. This is a culture industrially produced for mass consumption, since the arts have been removed from the museum and put into the marketplace (2000: 143). As Rifkin observes, nowadays the old giants of the Industrial Age (Exxon, General Motors, USX and Sears) are being surpassed by the new giants of cultural capitalism (Microsoft, Viacom, Time Warner, Disney, Sony, Seagram, News Corporation, General Electric, Bertelsmann AG and PolyGram). The publishing industry has also experienced these changes, and, from the 1960s onward, has been increasingly drawn into the sphere of monopoly capital. It has thus been transformed from family-run houses to major publishers owned by multimedia parent companies. The case of Simon & Schuster, the publishing house that, at the eleventh hour, refused to publish American Psycho, is illustrative. It was already part of Paramount Communications when, in 1995, Paramount and Viacom merged, bringing together Paramount's collection of 50,000 fi lms, Simon & Schuster's 300,000 book titles, Blockbuster Entertainment's 500 music stores, Nickelodeon and MTV, as well as several theme parks and television and radio stations. In 1999 Viacom merged again with CBS, which made Viacom the industry leader in the media and entertainment fi elds. In 2005 the two companies split and the former Viacom was renamed CBS Corporation, which included CBS, The CW, CBS Radio, CBS Outdoor, Showtime, Simon & Schuster and most television assets formerly owned by the larger company. As a result, Simon & Schuster is now a division of the media conglomerate CBS Corporation, one of the four largest English-language publishers, but also a small piece in a huge multi media company. This change from family-run houses to media conglomerates has brought about two side effects: planned marketing and pressure for commercial success. Curiously enough, until recently book promotion was seen as ineffi cient. As Joe Moran remarks, there existed the widespread belief that books were all Both literary author and celebrity, Bret Easton Ellis represents a type of contemporary writer who draws from both high and the low culture, using popular culture references, styles and subject matters in a literary fiction that goes beyond mere entertainment. His fiction, arousing the interest of the academia, mass media and general public, has fuelled heated controversy over his work. This controversy has often prevented serious analysis of his fiction, and this book is the first monograph to fill in this gap by offering a comprehensive textual and contextual analysis of his most important works up to the latest novel Imperial Bedrooms. Offering a study of the reception of each novel, the influence of popular, mass and consumer culture in them, and the analysis of their literary style, it takes into account the controversies surrounding the novels and the changes produced in the shifty terrain of the literary marketplace. It offers anyone studying contemporary American fiction a thorough and unique analysis of Ellis's work and his own place in the literary and cultural panorama. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgements 1 Introduction Part 1 Between the High and the Low 2 The Low: Ellis in the Celebrity World 3 The High: Ellis in the Literary Field Part 2 Less Than Zero (1985) 4 The Reception of Less Than Zero 5 The Use of Mass Culture and Mass Media in the Novel 6 The Aesthetics of a Blank, Coming-of-Age Novel Part 3 American Psycho (1991) 7 The Reception of American Psycho 8 The Use of Popular, Mass and Consumer Culture 9 The Aesthetics of Serial Killing Part 4 Glamorama (1998) 10 The Reception of Glamorama 11 The Use of Celebrity Culture and the Novel of Manners 12 The Aesthetics of the Impossible Conspiracy Thriller Part 5 New Paths? 13 Lunar Park (2005): The Turning Point? 14 Imperial Bedrooms (2010): Coming Full Circle Notes Works Cited Index