White

I really enjoyed this book by Ellis. I'm a fan of American Psycho, the novel and the movie and I've read Less Than Zero or at least most of it. This book was a great synopsis of the PC culture and Wuss Culture that is alive and well today where people get offended by everything and any difference of opinion is shouted down and the person demonized.It's semi-autobiographical, well all of it is really. He talks about his childhood, growing up in the 70's and 80's and how children weren't so sheltered back then and it made them stronger because of it and today's culture is too accommodating to children and the youth so that when they finally do become adults they have a hard time grasping that anyone would disagree with them or not like them. He talks about how this generation was so badly affected by Trump winning the election when in past times people just got over it that their candidate didn't win and got on with their lives with a critical eye on what the person they didn't want is doing.I found myself agreeing with almost all the points he was making in the book and his stories were entertaining and gave us a window into Ellis' life. He even chronicles the time he wrote American Psycho, spanning 1987 to around 1990 where he also lived in the same building as Tom Cruise (as Patrick did in the novel). He talks about becoming a best-selling author at 21 and how that affected him as well. I've read it twice now and I find it a real breath of fresh air compared to the basically neutered culture we're all living inGreat job on the book, Brett. I'm glad I caught you on Tucker Carlson Tonight and found out about your new book. I'm going to start reading some of your other novels because you and Palahniuk are writers who speak to me and tell interesting stories (at least from what I've read from you and most of Palahniuk's work is great, some just good).

The only book I have read about BEE is Less Than Zero -- though at the time I read it was probably too old for it to actually seem provocative (it was, perhaps, 2009?). Nevertheless, I liked that book and bought some others, Imperial Bedrooms and Rules of Attraction, if I remember correctly. I never could get into either of those books; maybe I'd just used up whatever was in the BEE well on that one book I'd read. That happens sometimes.Still, one can't deny the man's cultural influence, he is a celebrity writer of course, one of the few genuine celebrity writers in this year of our lord 2019, when few people can read, let alone pick a writer out of a line-up. On occasion, I might have listened to his podcast, and on occasion I may have also read his interviews. I think I've read more about BEE than I've actually read BEE, if that makes sense. And of course there "American Pyscho," which I have never read though I have seen the movie. The movie is a genuine masterpiece, despite the fact that it was, and still, contemporaneously 'problematic.' So, there is that.And yet I didn't know what to expect from this book. I read some of the pre-publication press and felt that it was a book that might be provocative simply for the sake of the provacateur; that is, it would take the piss out of the millennial generation, "generation wuss" as BEE calls it, but do little less but that. Did I really want to hear someone rant and rave about young people for 250 pages? I can't say it was on my list of things to do.I think it was after BEE got slammed by the New Yorker, caught in like a deer in headlights as he was berated by an interviewer for writing a book about Trump when he, in fact, did not know that much about Trump, or politics for that matter, that I thought: perhaps there is something here that everyone is missing. It's like that with the media sometimes, so maybe the very thing BEE was railing against, this culture of conformity, of not being able to handle points of view that differ from one's own, was actually proving the book's point. Before it was published. That by the very instance of people trying to 'cancel' BEE -- this, years after his actual book "American Pyscho" was canceled (only to be picked up by another publisher) -- the press was doing the author's work for him (note: post-Empire, getting canceled is the new American Dream).So I picked it up. And found myself pleasantly surprised. It wasn't, as the media suggested, a book about Trump, but a book only partially about Trump, in as much as it's a commentary on contemporary culture, a time and place in which Trump is president and so many folks are in disbelief. What little there is about Trump is mostly about people's reaction to Trump, how BEE's friends and associates, business partners and other randoms (i.e. people on Twitter) -- but most especially his ultra-liberal millennial boyfriend -- lost their collective shit over Trump's rise, and what that says about... us.When I say the book is only partially about Trump, you ask what else it's about: well, it's about BEE's upbringing, so it is halfway a memoir, but then it is also about movies -- especially movies -- and so it also a book that reads as criticism, but then there is a lot about BEE's writing experience, what he was going through at different times that different books and films he was working on were created. I found this stuff especially compelling, as it was sandwiched between what, in the end, is in fact a rant of sorts about identity politics, identity culture, victim culture and a cult of permormative rage, if not performative excellence, that BEE sees an entire generation falling taking part in.Another big thing the book is about is aesthetics, and how people have lost -- if they ever possessed it in the first place -- the ability to discern whether something is good or bad based on whether it actually is good or bad. BEE's argument is that identity has replaced aesthetics, and that younger generations no longer know good from bad, they only know whether they agree or disagree. A movie need not be especially good or even interesting so long as one agrees with the point the filmmaker is trying to make.This was a point that I found myself agreeing with wholeheartedly, though I don't know if the examples BEE used are the best ones; even still, I know he used them because they were such big tentpoles (the movie "Moonlight," for example), and one could only make a giant point by using a giant example, something everyone is familiar with. Is it a secret that movies such as those perform well with left-leaning critics because they play on the prejudices of limousine liberals in coastal cities for dramatic effect? No. BEE's argument is that movies like that, while seemingly progressive, are anything but -- to be progressive while making a movie with gay characters would be to make homosexuality beside the point (i.e. tell a good story, not necessarily a 'gay' story). That this is a blind spot here gets into BEE's privilege, which he acknowledges; even still, it's telling that so many of his examples fall on one side of the color line.In the end, the book's point seems to be that you cannot judge a person based on things they write or even what they say, but rather what they do -- BEE doesn't care who you voted for, he cares who you are. Which is probably why he can be on one side of the spectrum (or, in his defense, not on the spectrum at all) while his significant other can be on the other and they can both, at the end of the day, lay down next to one another in peace (or one would hope).Interlaced with that is, as I said, part memoir and part reflections on Hollywood, New York, September 11th, a wide assortment of things. BEE seems obsessed with truth, as opposed to representations of truth, which is why I think a good portion of the last quarter deals with Charlie Sheen's breakdown, a kind of post-mortem on the last time a celebrity actually said and did what they felt, and ultimately paid the price for it (he did, in fact, contract HIV).If I had one criticism, it'd be that while Ellis asserts, multiple times, that he isn't in a 'bubble,' he may actually be in one. Because for all his ranting about the millennial generation, it would seem, at least by reading this book, that only a certain portion of the millennial generation -- affluent, educated, elite -- are what he is being exposed to. Because for every young person who needs a trigger warning before viewing anything questionable, there is another one, lost in some wayward demographic that marketers, media people and most especially writers these days, don't care much about. And they don't give a second thought to any of that stuff. This demo, I'd argue, has always existed and always will exist, and I posit that it's this demo that took to books (and really movies) like "American Pyscho" in the first place.This demo was never left and it was never right, it was somewhere undefined, only interested in things that were interesting, and it's the reason why people like Kanye, and even myself, took any interest in Bret Easton Ellis at all.

Wow, you can tell much of this measured pontificating has been a long time coming, and was thoroughly considered before being so carefully articulated here.Ellis makes some truly valuable and significant arguments, occasionally eloquently but more often hilariously (like, the throw your head back in howling hyena laughter kind, quite frequently I’m not kidding) and as you’re making your way through each one seems to be bolder and fresher than the last.But the points and opinions and prescriptions also dare to defy, lean towards the decidedly unconventional, criticisms which delicately but firmly hone in on and rebuke many tendencies he rightly perceives as problematic or counterproductive which are currently in vogue and considered possessing varying degrees of validity. Which is refreshing as well as astonishing, or was to my perception.If you enjoyed any of his previous novels or film adaptations (American Psycho, Less Than Zero, the Informers) this is worth reading for the wealth of behind the scenes insights at their conceptions and productions alone, not to mention some fascinating and illuminating glimpses into the private life of the author and the Business that entertainment is ruled over by the iron fist of.So great to see Ellis publishing again, here’s hoping he keeps it up in whatever format or medium next strikes his fancy! (Thus far he’s yet to not succeed at producing something memorable and captivating in any he’s braved. The book further makes me want to investigate his controversial Twitter account and podcast as well…)

Bret Easton Ellis é, possivelmente, o escritor vivo que mais admiro - já que Henry Miller, Bukowski e Fante já partiram desta para uma melhor. Assim, quando soube que ele lançou, em 2019, um novo livro depois de quase uma década, fiquei imediatamente curioso para ler, embora um pouco desapontado ao descobrir que se tratava não de um novo romance, mas de sua primeira obra de não-ficção."White" é uma coleção de ensaios escritos por Ellis sobre diversos aspectos da cultura americana dos últimos 30 anos. O início do livro é excelente, quase uma autobiografia, com o autor falando sobre cinema, sobre sua juventude na Los Angeles do final dos anos 70, início dos anos 80, as influências que ajudaram a gestar seu primeiro romance, o aclamado "Abaixo de Zero", lançado quando ele tinha apenas 21 anos.Outro ponto alto do livro é o capítulo sobre sexo e pornografia, e a evolução de como a sociedade lida com tais temas ao longo das últimas décadas.O "grosso" do livro, contudo, e o que fez com que a obra fosse quase unanimemente massacrada pela crítica, são as reflexões que Ellis traz sobre a turbulência e a histeria que tomaram conta da sociedade americana durante o período entre a eleição presidencial de 2016 e os dois anos imediatamente seguintes à vitória de Donald Trump. É muito interessante perceber que lá, tanto quanto aqui, a polarização atingiu níveis tão ridiculamente perigosos. Diversas vezes, durante a leitura, me peguei rindo ao traçar óbvios paralelos entre a situação política brasileira e a americana.Não é necessário concordar com todas as ideias defendidas por Ellis no livro, mas é inegável que ele é um artista com uma visão diferenciada, um cara com uma inteligência muito acima da média. Por causa de suas opiniões, ele hoje é visto quase como um pária pela classe artística americana, um "tiozão isentão e insensível", "cringe" até os ossos. Não que ele esteja muito preocupado com isso; já tentaram "cancelá-lo" há 30 anos, quando sua então editora se viu forçada a desistir de publicar "Psicopata Americano", devido a pressões de grupos feministas. O resultado? O livro foi publicado por outra editora e tornou-se o maior best-seller de sua carreira, e hoje é considerado um "great american novel"."White" é uma leitura interessantíssima, e que só prova que Ellis permanece relevante, com uma capacidade única de enfiar o dedo na ferida, de provocar, de expor as contradições da sociedade.

Bra bok. Rekomenderas verkligen

Bret Easton Ellis non fiction book, for me is very good and he’s telling a lot of truths in this book. Many of them not socially accepted by the SJW snowflake people and media. But still very real.If you enjoyed his novels you’re likely to enjoy this book.

alles bestens

Good book