Lunar Park.

I thought I'd try the latest Bret Easton Ellis novel.
I was looking for books and although I was looking for kind of light books, to read easily, 1 of the usual quotes on the cover was referring to it as "extremely funny". I actually doubted that very much.

I have read American Psycho from the same author and the 1st adjective I would NOT give to this would certainly be "funny". And from what I know, the rest of Ellis' work is pretty heavy. American Psycho was quite a difficult experience, not to say traumatic.
Thinking of it maybe I just took it the wrong way. I can actually remember watching the movie "C'est arrive pres de chez vous" (Man Bites Dog in it's English version), which uses the same kind of black humour and actually hardly finding anything funny in there. My cousin who was watching with me was laughing his ass off, so it kind of helped me see, but I couldn't really see beyond the shocking side of what was presented to me. But on the 2nd viewing, then 3rd and so on, I got what was funny... Now I love it! ;)

So maybe if I re-read American Psycho, I could see it from a different perspective. But still, feeling nearly physically ill when reading a book (as I did with this one) didn't happened to me on many occasions... It's quite strange, when you think of it, I mean reading a book is already quite cerebral exercise, you have to make sense of all letters and words and sentences, as opposed to watching TV or a movie, where you just get the images straight in your face. So to read something that "tough", is really to put yourself consciously through this pain. It's a lot easier to stop reading than stop watching. You'd have to be a bit masochistic... The drive there was to see how som sense could be made of all this senseless violence and sex and drugs. This emptiness. It's still an experience, what can de made of it? And as painful as I felt it was, I think it was worth it. It's great book. Anyway.

So this "extremely funny" quote I found quite out of place, but I thought it could point at a book a bit more lighter from this acclaimed author. A bit more easier to read.
Well lighter wasn't really the word. Easier to read definitely. My, I was hooked and couldn't take my eyes off it, chapter after chapter.
This is a expertly written story, that tackles a number of themes, mainly fatherhood and father-son relations but also fame, boredom, ego, creation, forgiveness, love... All that wrapped in a sort of tribute to Stephen King (I thought of The Shining on several occasions, I have no doubt this was intended), with a seemingly "normal" word (although it's Ellis' trade mark twisted upper-class world we're talking about here) that slides progressively into horror.

It kind of makes me regret my lack of litterary culture there, because I'm sure I've only scratched all the book's references and metaphors. It especially references a lot to te author's previous books, which I haven't all read (although I have been warned that Ellis should be read in order!!). But then again the point is more to make something for yourself.

It's the kind of book I would like my friends to read and appreciate so we could discuss it. There's a lot there. From a plot point of view, it's a very entertaining puzzle of a book. If you start on the themes here, you'll be there for ages.
I guess that at the point I am in my life a lot of that resonnates quite heavily with what I have on my mind.

It's ultimately quite despaired, as with his other books. Even more so because Ellis is putting himself (or at least a stand out of himself) on the line here. It's a bit like Fargo (the Coen borthers' movie) which tells you at the beginning that all of it is true. You watch with an all different perspective. Here it makes you wonder how much of it true, maybe it makes it more "human". Although in the end, it doesn't really matter... True or not, it's what you make of it that counts.

Ellis is presenting himself as one of his characters, lost in drugs out of boredom, selfish, a loser (although a succesful one). He ends up grasping for redemption, but with no hope of ever getting it.
A way of saying that you actually have to lose everything (with no hope of getting it back, giving it up in a way) in order to really realise what really matters.

All that in a horror novel. Because it's always creepy and it gets really scary. It explores the theme of the author haunted by its creations and the way to exorcise them. How can you get rid of something you actually created yourself...? When you invent lives, can't you get lost between your creations and reality?

And all this clicks into place, making a story underlined with a complex canvas of ideas that manages to be entertaning and deep.
To me this is an important book.