When context hides content: a retrospective reading of Glamorama's (1998) reception

Re1 •ista de Estudios Norteamerica 11os. 11. º JO (2 004) , pp. 47 -56 WHEN CONTEXT HIDES CONTENT: A RETROSPECTIVE READING OF GLAMORAMA'S (1998) RECEPTION1 SONIA BAELO ALLUÉ Universidad de Zaragoza This essay aims at study in g the reception of Glamorama (1998), the Iatest novel to date of Bret Easton Ellis, one of the most co ntro ve rsial contemporary US authors. The analysis of this reception and its conclusions goes we ll beyond th e specific case of a single author and constitutes, rather, a reflection of a cultural trend that usually takes place in the reception of literary w orks . This study delves into a series of question s: do contemporary authors' public personae play an important role in the way their works are interpreted? Is there an obsession with considering a literary work in relation to previous works of the same author? Do reviews of literary works deal with literary merit/demerit at ali? These are questions that pop up as we analyze the type of immediate reviews that the publication of Glamorama brought forth in the media, especially newspapers and magazines. The study of this reception will be used as basis to answer these introductory questions and to examine th e role that context plays in th e reception of literary works. The fact that th ese questions arise may support the belief th at literary te xts cannot be studied on the ir own anymore. As Tony Bennett claims, when analyzing a literary work one has to take into account «that everything which has been written about it, everything which h as been collected on it, becomes attached to it - li ke shells on a rock by the seashore forming a whole incrustation» (1982: 3) (Klinger 107). Ob viousl y, context should play an important role in the analysis of literary works but critics should also be aware that its excess does n ot always lead to more complex readings but to more simplistic ones, where the role of literary merit is played ' This paper ha s been written with the financia! help of the DGICYT, research project nº BFF2001-1775. 48 Sonia Baelo Allué down or simply ignored. In film studies, context is also acqu iring great importance, especially when analyzing non-contemporary tilms. For examp le, Barbara Klin ger ( 1997) propases that both sync hr onic and diachronic areas of study should be taken into account whcn analyzing a film and its reception. Synch ronic areas of study may include cincmatic practices such as film production, distribution, exhibition and personnel: íntertextual zones including other businesses and industries, other media and arts and review joumal ism, and social and historical contexts like the economy, law, religion, politics, cla~s. race and cthnicity, gender and sexua l difference, family, ídeology and cross-cultural receptíon. Thc diachronic areas s hould cover practices and zones such as revivals and retrospectives, reviews, academic theory, criticism and history, broadcast, satellite. and cable television, video and Jaserdisc reproduction, fon culture, the biographical legend and cross-cultural reccption ( 1 13-128). This approach is bccoming very popular in film studics and something similar is also taking place in the arca of literary studies, mainly due to the increasing popularity and influence of cultural studics. Cultural studies puts a premium on contextualizing political and intelleclual work, which is something Cary Nclson has reflected in his cultural studies manifesto. Two of its sixteen different points are especially relevant in order to understand how cultural studies approaches the analysis of a literary work: «Cultural studies is committed to studying the production, reception, and varied use of texts, not merely their interna! characteristics» and Cull ura l studi es conceives culture relationa ll y. Thus, thc analysis of an individual 1ext , discourse, behavior, ritual. slyle, genrc, or subcullure does not constitu te cu ltural studies unl ess the thing analysed is considered in terms of its competitive, reinforci ng. and determining relations with other objects and cu ltural forces. (280) Although this type of approach brings forth more complex and sophisticated readings of literary works, there is also the danger that literary critics forget one of their main concerns: the assessment of the literary work value. In this paper I will analyze the way non-l it erary aspects biased the reception of Bret Easton Elli s's Glamorama, to the extent of playing down the literary merit of the work and favoring other types of reading too influenccd by Ellis's public persona and behavior. Yet, this sludy does not claim to be a detailed analysis of the artistic vaJ ue of Glamorama, but a consideration of the nove l's reception and the problems that such type of reception may bring forth in the analysis of Jiterary works. Bret Easton Ellis is a very controversia] contemporary US writer. Up to the present he has written five novels which have gained him a reputation for being an enfant terrible of American letters. His books have always received mixed reviews ranging from those who consider him «the voice of a generation» to those who see him as a simple by-product of marketing hype. Maybe because of Elli s's alluring personality and lifestyle his novels are rarely jud ged for their Jit erary merit, and they When Context hides Content: A Retrospectíve Reading <if Glamorama' s ... 49 are seen instead under their sociological significance oras reflections of Ellis's public persona. This attitude has led to some absurd situations, especially in 1991 after the publication of his very violent novel American Psycho. The protagonist of this novel, Patrick Bateman, is a racist, sexist, xenophobic yuppie serial killer who tortures and kills men, women, children, and animals. His friends and acquaintances ignore this fact and consider Bateman a model of success by the standards of the 80s greedy ascendance of the yuppies. Bateman, in his two-faced personality as yuppie and serial killer, is the ultimate consumer in a society obsessed with appearances and money. The publication of American Psycho brought Ellis the panning of the critics, public vilification, a boycott against the book on the part of feminists and even death threats, due to which he had to cancel the advertising campaign of the book.2 The reviews of American Psycho rarely dealt with the book itself and concentrated instead on its author, who was seen as a reflection of Patrick Bateman. This situation led Ellis to explain that he had nothing to do with the serial killer of American Psycho. In an interview for Ro/ling Stone he stated the obvious: «to put it as sirnply as possible: Thc acts described in the book are truly indisputable vile. The book itself is not. Patrick Bateman is a monster. T am not» (Ellis in Love 49). Time has blurred this controversy and has even recovered American Psycho as a work of literature that is taught at universities and is considered one of the most representative US novels dealing with the 80s. Through the analysis of the reception of Clamo rama ( 1998) we will see to what extent Ellis's previous status as a controversia] writer has hindered critics from judging his work. Glamorama deals with the superficial world of fashion and fame. Jts main character is Víctor Ward (née Johnson), who is a 27-year-old model-cum-actor-cumclub prornoter who is immersed in the shallow world of celebrities where appearances are ali and only the beautiful count. The novel has two very different parts. In the first one Víctor is trying to open a club in New York, thus, in this section readers follow Yictor in the 48 hours previous to the opening of the club. His activities include constantly having Xanax, reviewing endless lists of celebrities that will attend the opening of the club, arguing with his girlfriend - a famous supermodel called Chloe-, having sex with his business partner's girlfriend (Alison), interviewing DJs, doing a photo shoot, being interviewed for MTV, having sex with his business partner's lover (Lauren) and finally attending the opening of the club. At the club his simultaneous affairs with Alison and Lauren are discovered and, as a result, he is beaten up by his partner's goons. This first part is written in Ellis's unmistakable style: first-voice narrator, short sentences, quick dialogues, long lists of brand names and a toneless narrative voice. Ellis's characteristic use of mass and popular culture is seen in the way Victor seerns to talk through the language of songs, filrns and advertisements. Thus, we read how he constructs sentences using song lyrics like: «Hey Anjanette, what's up pussycat», «Take your passion and make it happen» (18), «So what's ' For a complete analysis of American Psyclw's reception and the role that censorship played see Freccero 44 -58 and Zaller 317-325. 50 Sonia Baelo Allué the story moming glory?» (78), etc. There is a continual confusion of reality and fiction, to the point that there is a film crew filming everything that happens; real and imaginary people become interchangeable and are reduced to lists of names. Thus, long lists of brand names, which have always bcen present in Ellis's previous fiction, are here replaced by long lists of celebrity names: the new «brand names» of our culture. When checking who is coming to the party we hear Víctor ask: «Beau! How are the As shaping up? [ ... ] Carol Alt, Pedro Almodóvar, Dana Ashbrook, Kevyn Aucoin, Patricia, Rosanna, David and Alexis Arquette and Andre Agassi, but no Giorgio Armani or Pamela Anderson» (8). People have become commodified and their exchange value is equivalent to their celebrity status. In the second part of the book Ellis constructs a plot that is actually a deconstruction of a conspiracy thriller. He transports stale genre clichés into a postmodern meta-narrative construct. In a labyrinthine plot Víctor is paid by a mysterious man to find an ex-girlfriend, now a model-curn-actress. He finds her in London and discovers too late that she has been ensnared in an intemational terrorist ring formed by glamorous models willing to plant bombs in Louis Vuitton bags. At this point his life becomes a script recorded by an ever-present camera crew who seems to be filming everything, thus, the reader <loes not know if Víctor is a character in a film or if he is seeing visions after having too much Xanax. Th e terrorist acts may or may not be part of a movie since reality and fiction are constantly blurred and people are not who they seem to be. Victor, who does not know whom to trust, ends up trapped in Italy where he realizes that a doppelganger of him may be in New York living his life. For Ellis the connection between the fashion world and terrorism líes in th e fact that fashion has been a form of torture for women for decades and so is becoming for men. It is a kind of emotional violence, equivalent in a way to the actual violence caused by terrorism (Ellis in Clarke 95). Ellis seems to favor in his fiction these kinds of extreme allegories since he used a similar one in American Psycho, where he connected the consumerism of objects carried out by yuppies with the literal consumption of people done by serial killers. This is not the only connection of Glamorama with other novels written by Ellis: Víctor Ward and Jamie Fields were characters in Ellis 's The Rules of Attraction (1987), and Patrick Bateman has a carneo role in the book. Glamorama is a very interesting piece of literature full of postmodem devices in which the shallowness of the world of celebrities and its cornmodification is richly portrayed. In spite of all this, the book has not been seriously analyzed or even reviewed. The many reviews that appeared after its publication were mainly concerned with criticizing Ellis's lifestyle and comparing him with the protagonist of the novel. This attitude of critics can be traced back to Ellis's beginnings as a writer, when he was considered a «Brat Pack» member. During years Ellis's name has been linked to two other fellow writers: Jay Mclnerney and Tama Janowitz. The three of them became famous in the 80s with the publication of their first books, which became instant best sellers. These books were Mclnerney's Bright Lights, Big City (1986), Janowitz's Slaves of New York (1987) and Ellis's less than Zero (1985). When Contex1 hides Content: A Retrospective Reading ofGlamorama'~· ... 51 The three writers had in common their youth and al so the fact that they attracted a young audience who saw part of their lives reflect ed in this fiction. They depicted sex, drugs, alcohol, money, music, power relations and Wall Street, showing a clear preoccupation with their time and place. The books were seen by sorne critics as light, empty and cornmodified, a criticism that intensified after the publication of their second novels which were widely dismissed. For critics like Jeffrey Giles (1987) the members of the «Brat Pack» were writing disposable books and were only speaking for themselves and their jaded friends. Other critics like Terence Rafferty have also insisted in the disposable quality of their books, since he considers that they do not have story, plot, character, pattem or rhythm: th ey on ly have m ar keting. His claim is ccrtainly questionable because many postmodem n ove ls lack traclitional depictions of character and plot but are not considered disposable because of that. Rafferty even claims to know why these novels have been published: «t hey contain large, even toxic, doses of the elements that stimulate sales: lots of sex, lots of drugs, brand names on every page, and a cy ni cal tone that's perfect for readers who want to lap up the decadent behavior and then feel righteously shocked at its emptiness» (144). In this line David Lehman even believes that they offer the intellectual nourishment of a well-rnade beer commercial (72). In the last years this generation of writers has been reconsidered and vaJued by serious scholars such as El izabeth Young and Graham Caveney in Shopping in Space: Essays on American «Blank Generation» Fiction (1992) and James Annesley in Blank Fictions: Consumerism, Culture and the Contemporary American Novel (1998). Ali of them agree that these writers were dismissed by critics because they became celebrities too young, partied too publicly and did not hesitate to increase and use their celebrity status to promote their books. Taking this critica! context into account, it is understandable that the dissolute past of Ellis, togeth er with his youth, fame and s uc cess has fascinated critics more than Glamorama itself. In fact, a large nurnber of magazines a nd newspapers chose to intcrview or profile the author rather than review his book. This was he case of the New York Post (Mazmanian 1) or the Washington Post, which profiled Ellis twice commenting upon his literary career and mentioning the plot of Glamorama bu t without any further analysis or review (Grove Cl; see C2). Curiously enough, the cult of personality is pr ecisely what the book cr iticizes. However, even though this is something criticized in the book, it is also something th at Ellis still uses in real life to promote his books. Sorne months before the publication of G/amorama, in the summer of 1998, Ellis willingly participated in a documentary about his life and books. lt was called «This is not an Exit: the Fictional World of Bret Easton Ellis.» The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London hosted the film prem.iere, which was actually a television program -BBC's South Bank S howand sorne weeks later it was released on television. In the US the film opened in April 2000, timed for the imminent release of the film adaptation of American Psycho and the paperback version of Glamorama. The fact that Ellis has participated in a documentary about his life is not per se censurable; the problem was the kind of attitudes and behavior that the documentary 52 Sonia Baelo Allué showed. As Ian Parker cornplained in The Observer, a serious writer was treated as a pop culture object. He is shown in a nightclub and shopping but we do not even see a word processor or anything related to his life as a writer (13). Not without reason The New York Times considered it a «tlaccid infornercial» (Van Gelder E32) since the fictional scenes resernble trailers for the movie adaptation and advertisements rather than serious critica) analyses of Ellis's work. Ellis himself has acknowledged that the tone of the documentary was not the right one, even confessing «I am a victim of rny own vanity and narcissism» (Ellis in Health 11 7), or that flattery blinded his judgment (Raven 4). Considering Ellis's public persona rnany critics saw Glamorama as a reflection of the novelist's problems as a celebrily. In the Observer Ellis claimed that Glamorama was «about my feelings being famous [ ... ] in many ways this book is a criticism of what's going on in my life» (Ellis in MacDonald 4). In the sarne interview he also talked about those feelings as a famous person: I'm kind of happy hearing that I contradict myself, because it just tells me, in sorne weird way, that I'm really human. You know, it helps when you have a life where you'rc photographed, wherc people are making a documentary about you ... it makes me feel more real, more threc-dimensional, that I do otherwise. (4) This is one of the problems he sees and criticizes in his book, the fact that celebrities' «basis for being is just as an irnage, or as a surface, th en you're not flesh and blood to people -and that's what celebrity does to people: it flattens them out, and we never know what they' re really lik e» (Ellis in Clarke 9). Glamorama is thus a book written by a celebrity author that criticizes the superficial celebrity world, a world that Ellis researched by immersing himself in the fashion world, going to shows and meeting designers (Clarke 86). Knopf printed 100,000 copies of this very ambitious book which had a 16-city author tour (from Los Angeles to NY), a national marketing campaign, adve11ising on websites, even a 3-D poster. As a result, Ellis certainly captured the attention of the most important newspapers and magazines, which have strongly panned Ellis's latest novel. James Wolcott (1998) for Vanity Fair attacked Ellis nearly in personal terms a month bcfore the novel was published. In the same article he also commented upon Jay Mclnerney's Model Behavior (1998), since, as it has airead y been pointed out, Ellis and Mclnemey are always linked together as part of the «Brat Pack.» Wolcott's review starts by saying: «An obsession with models is something most men outgrow unless they're knuckleheads» (71), implying quite obviously that that is what Mclnerney and Ellis are. He believes that Ellis nurses an «angry feeling» for models because he feels a decper aversion to women, who are tortured and killed in his fictional universe. To support this statement he claims that in the docurnentary broadcast on the BBC's South Bank Show Ellis half confessed his homosexuality, thus, he infers there might be a hornoerotic componen! in his hatred for women. He even accuses both, Mclnerney and Ellis of building up models to When Co111ext hides Comen/: A Retrospective Reading <ifGlamorama's ... 53 make a li women feel inadequate, whicb is precisely what Ellis tries to denounce in the book and wbat the fashion world may do, not Ellis. The New York Times reviewed Ellis's book twice. The reviews on the New York Times usually exert an important influence on the sales of the reviewed books and on the academia's general opinion of them. For Richard Ohmann, «lhe single most important boost a novel could get was a prominent review in the Sunday New York Times -better a favorable one than an unfavorable one, but belter an unfavorable one than none at all» (202). The ones Ellis received were certain ly unfavorable and also quite personal, in line with Vcmity Fair's attitude. Michiko Kakutani opened fire by saying that «Bret Easton Ellis doesn't need the National Lampoon to turn him into a parody -with G/amorama, he's done it bimself. This glutinous bodgepodge of a book takes all the most glaring flaws of Mr. Ellis's recent work [ ... ] and tries to pass them off as a novel» ( l ). For the same newspaper Daniel Mendelsobn also accuses Ellis of not having evolved much in his novels and of being celebrity-obsessed. He thinks that Ellis knows far more about the celebrity world than mere joumalistic curiosity requires: «he reminds you of those Southern judges who simp ly had to watch bours and homs of dirty movies in order to determine that yes, they were pomographic» (8). Scott Reybum for New Statesman also suspects that Ellis actually takes the world of mate modeling seriously and he is indulging in wisb-fulfillment (49). Craig Lindsey even carne as far as to say that one could not help but see Ellis's reflection when Victor checks himself out in the mirror or describes such trivial goings-on as bumping into a famous face at a club. For him Glamorama does not reveal the shallowness of fome and celebrity, but the shallowness of its author (23). Ellis himself has declared that bis interests in fiction concern mainly shallowness, vanity, narcissism, and finding the truth in surfaces (Ellis in Heath 119). However, it is unfair and far-fetched to establish that an interest in surfaces in fiction also implies that the author is a superficial person in real life, or that this subject matter makes the novel superficial or worthless. As Ellis himself has declared the book should speak for itself: «I grew up thinking Look at the art, not the artist. The artist's marital problems, drug pro bl ems, wild ni ghts out -they mean nothing. It 's the books, th e films, the records that l connect with emotionally» (Ellis in Blume 3). Elli s's willing participation in advertising campaigns and documentaries has led Mendelsohn to conclude that Ellis's novels are adverti se ments for himself, thus, Glamorama becomes another artifact of the culture it pretends to criticize. For this critic, the o nl y people who wi ll enjoy these novels are those whom the novel clandestinely celebrates: the actors, models, celebrity writers and so on. Henry Hitchings for the Times Literary Supplement certainly reaches the sa me conclusion s in ce he believes that the existence of the novel «Va lidates and perpetuates the evi ls against which it ostensibly rails [ ... ] the peo ple who will enjoy this no vel most, almost impervious to the darkness of its design, will be the very people it attacks» ( 19). Hitchings and Mendelsohn might be ri g ht since in the pages of The New Yorker we read that Donovan Leitch, the Manhattan perennial «lt» boy has proud ly claimed that the book is based on his life (Wallace 30 -31 ). Certainly, he is married 54 Sonia Baelo Allué to a supermodel, he is a club promoter, he plays in a rock band and has played in a movie, just like Víctor Ward in Glamorama. The fact that he is not ashamed of being a mirror image of such superficial character may bring sorne doubt into the success of Glamorama's message. In the same way, one of the few good reviews that Glamorama received carne from the pages of Vague (Kourlas 96) where it was acknowledged that the book was a wicked parody that would undoubtedly unnerve sorne, but it had ali the positive aspects of Ellis 's fiction «brimming with unsettling details, ironic dialogue, and black humor» (96). Even those reviews that were posi tive adopted a very aggressive attitude towards Ellis. This is the case of Walter Kim for New York who stated that «Bret Easton Ellis would not know a good novel if he wrote one himself. The proof is that he has written one himself» (49). In spite of this «positive» initial statement, he quite incongruously explains that «In a one-man race to the literary bottom Ellis completes in a single book, alone, a process of degradation that ought to have taken years and seores of books by a whole generation of writers» (49). It seems that Kim really likes the first part of the book where Ellis makes art out of vacuous night crawlers and brand names. However, he detests the seco nd part where Ellis tries to make a point. Even so his final words recommend reading the book since «there's enough high amusement in Glamorama, enough illegitimate literary fun, to more than make up for its tedious tilt toward meaning>} (50). By contrast Jeff Giles for Newsweek considers Ellis a good entertaining writer line by line but « if he knows what all this means he's not saying» (93). It seems he misses sorne interpretation on Ellis's part, precisely what Kirn despises in the novel. Dennis Cooper from Spin still has a third interpretation to offer since he believes that Ellis's noncommittal tone and his refusal to state the obvious -that his characters' behavior is inexcusabl eis his greatest strength ( l ). To sum up, both Kirn and Giles despise Ellis, the former because Ellis gives an interpretation of his intentions in his work, the latter because Ellis gives no interpretation at ali; whereas Cooper believes Ellis gives no interpretation and that is what makes his writing especially enjoyable. These contradictory reviews may illustrate one of the dangers of lelting co ntext overflow and overwhelm the interpretation and analysis of novels. The authorial intentions are difficull to guess and understand. thus, it is the author s' wri tt en wo rk , their novels, that should receive th e critics' main attention in order to prevent cri ti cs from falling victims to narrow textual analyses and losing trace of other contextual aspects. The reception of Glamorama has clearly been distorted by Ellis's reflection on his work. The novel has bcen panned using as main argument his lifestylc and status as a literary celebrity. Jf we retake now the questions lhat were posed in the introduction to this paper, in the case of Glamorama Ellis's public persona has piayed an important role in the way his work has been interpreted. His previous works, especially the controversia) Am erican Psycho, have established a set of expectations about how the novel should be interprcted which have blinded critics, preventing them from seeing other new aspects and approaches. On sorne occasions the literary mcrit of Glamorama has been denied or ignored to focus instead on When Co111ex t hides Comem: A Retrospective Reading of Glamorama' s ... 55 more co ntexrual aspects, which, although interesting as comp lementary studies, have substituted a proper analysis of the lit erary work itself. Glamorama is a novel that deserves a serious analysis in spite of its au th or a nd its context. This is not to say that we should erase contextual analysis of literary works. Writer s' biographies, t heir previous literary work, the books' publishing campaigns , the cu ltural and historical context or the social approaches are all welcome to under stand a literary work but they can n ot substitute for the analysis of the work. The fact that cultural studies cuts across div erse social and political interests drawing from whatever fields are nece ssary to produce knowledge (Grossberg et al. 1 -1 6) is some t hi ng positive that enriches literary anal yses as long as we do not forget that we are still dealing with literature and as long as we do not for get to analyze the novels thcmselves. WORKS CITED Annesl ey, James. Blank Fictions: Consumerism, Culture and the Contemporary Amer ican Novel. New York: St. Martin's Press, 199 8. 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