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Bret Easton Ellis
Oct. 23rd, 2015 03:49 pm<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
INTERVIEWER
Many critics took Less Than Zero almost literally, and were shocked by your bleak account of life in L.A. for young rich kids. And yet the most “shocking” scenes in the book, such as a bunch of surfers gang-raping a twelve-year-old girl, seem implausible. It’s hard to believe that these burned-out kids—spoiled and alienated, certainly, but hardly psychopaths—are capable of such violence.
ELLIS
On the cover of some editions of Less Than Zero there’s a quote from Michiko Kakutani’s review in The New York Times—“One of the most disturbing novels I’ve read in a long time. It possesses an unnerving air of documentary reality.” That’s the only nice thing she said about it. In fact, that’s the only nice thing she’s ever said about any of my books. I “disturbed” Michiko Kakutani. My novel, which was intended to be a novel and not a documentary, disturbed her.
Look, you could very easily argue that the rape of the twelve-year-old girl is an implausible scene, but for me it seemed to matter a lot at the time. The moment in that book that meant the most to me occurs after Clay says to Rip, “Oh God, Rip, come on, she’s eleven.” Rip says, “Twelve.” And then Clay pauses, mulls that over for a few seconds, and says, “Yeah, twelve.” For Clay, the girl being twelve and not eleven is relevant. The distinction makes sense to him and to the society he’s a part of. To me that’s the most important moment of the book. That’s Clay.
-- Bret Easton Ellis at The Paris Review (2012)
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INTERVIEWER
Many critics took Less Than Zero almost literally, and were shocked by your bleak account of life in L.A. for young rich kids. And yet the most “shocking” scenes in the book, such as a bunch of surfers gang-raping a twelve-year-old girl, seem implausible. It’s hard to believe that these burned-out kids—spoiled and alienated, certainly, but hardly psychopaths—are capable of such violence.
ELLIS
On the cover of some editions of Less Than Zero there’s a quote from Michiko Kakutani’s review in The New York Times—“One of the most disturbing novels I’ve read in a long time. It possesses an unnerving air of documentary reality.” That’s the only nice thing she said about it. In fact, that’s the only nice thing she’s ever said about any of my books. I “disturbed” Michiko Kakutani. My novel, which was intended to be a novel and not a documentary, disturbed her.
Look, you could very easily argue that the rape of the twelve-year-old girl is an implausible scene, but for me it seemed to matter a lot at the time. The moment in that book that meant the most to me occurs after Clay says to Rip, “Oh God, Rip, come on, she’s eleven.” Rip says, “Twelve.” And then Clay pauses, mulls that over for a few seconds, and says, “Yeah, twelve.” For Clay, the girl being twelve and not eleven is relevant. The distinction makes sense to him and to the society he’s a part of. To me that’s the most important moment of the book. That’s Clay.
-- Bret Easton Ellis at The Paris Review (2012)
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