The day I met Bret Easton Ellis. 16/07/2010

The week building up to the 16/07/2010 was possible thee most stressful week of my whole life. This is because I was heading off to London with Emily to meet our literary hero Bret Easton Ellis, not once but twice- for his signing and for an interview he was doing for Grazia. I was quietly frightened that I was going to fall over in front of him, or something as ridiculously stupid. But I must tell you that it turned out to be the best day of my entire life.
The public perceptions of him being pretentious, cold and too-cool for anyone are all, I can inform you, wrong. He was warm, talkative and just as equally excited to see me and Emily as we were to see him. The moment I realised that he wasn't the person I had read about was...wonderful. Me and Emily were first in line to get our books (Imperial Bedrooms) signed. I remember standing in front of his table, feeling very awkward. He looked at me through his sunglasses, for a moment looking just as unsure as I, but then his face broke out into a smile. He slapped the table with both of his hands and said "Well! Shall we get started then?" Happiness and excitement flowed out of me. I handed my book over to him and exclaimed how pleased I was that he had wrote a sequel to Less Than Zero. I remember him glancing at my name written on a sticky not inside of the book. I remember him saying "So Hayley... To Hayley..." But the BEST thing I remember was saying "I hope you don't mind me asking... but can I have a hug?" His reaction being- "A hug? Of course! (Emily informed me he said this next bit) I get hugs? I never get hugs!" Being bear hugged by my hero was unbelievable. Seriously.
While he signed Emily's book he told us how late of a night he had. He was all smiles and unguarded excitement.
Later we attended the opening of Grazia Book Club, where he was interviewed. There were lots of lovely free things: cup cakes (which Bret remarked on and was a little concerned about considering the role they played in Imperial Bedrooms), champagne, and free bags full of little treats. As he sat down to be interviewed he glanced and smiled at me and Emily (we caught this on camera). During his interview he was very patient with people who persistently asked him questions about morality despite him explaining he wouldn't answer them(because, he said, he felt he did not have justify himself anymore). He was funny, charming and looking incredibly cool with his suit and his thick-rimmed glasses. He was thoughtful and very intelligent.
After his interview me and Emily approached him to ask him questions (who was his favourite character, his answer being Clay. Then he asked us who his favourite character should be) and he offered to have more photo's taken with us and even asked whether they were taken properly.
I cannot emphasise enough how endearing and warm he was.

"People are afraid to merge."

Less Than Zero (1987, dir Marek Kanievska) is an abomination! If you have read the book by Bret Easton Ellis you will hatethe film. For one thing they got the protagonist, Clay, all wrong- the film made him clean and caring, when in the book he's hooked on cocaine and doesn't really care very much about anything. (One thing that irritated me the most was that he was always snacking on sweets.)
They only focused in on Blair, Clay and Julian. Doing that missed a lot of significant sub-stories out like the land slide, or the mutilated dog, Clay's family and his past, the pornography, the corpse in the alley... Incredibly frustrating. I know people always say the book is better than the film, but the film was just totally different from the book. Oh and they missed out epic and significant quotes like "Is he for sale?" and "People are afraid to merge." and "Disappear Here." The only quote from the book that they did put in (the wrong place and time) was "Julian gives great head. And is dead."


The only character who was wonderful in the film was Julian (played by Robert Downey Jr). I LOVE Robert Downey Jr (he makes an excellent Tony Stark) but he was just perfect for this role. Julian was witty, sad, withdrawn and helpless. It saddened me when I heard that playing this role helped fuel Robert Downey Jr's old drug addiction. I'm pleased that he got out of that.

"...there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory..."

One of my favourite books of all time would most certainly have to be Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho. I think Ellis is blossoming into one of my all time favourite authors. I read Lunar Park over Christmas, it terrified me and pretty much broke my heart. I'm currently reading Less Than Zero; protagonist is almost there... It's difficult to explain but it's pretty evident that Ellis has made Clay 'less' on purpose. Every time that Clay slips up (emotionally) I want to hold on to his every word.
But, as I said, American Psycho is my all time favourite. It's hilarious, satirical and horrendously violent and pornographic. I think what I loved most about the book was that Patrick Bateman was constantly on the verge of absolute madness, and every time he was tipping over the edge, about to slip, you were on there on the edge with him begging him to come back.

Once I've finished Less Than Zero I'm going to dive into The Informers (in courtesy of Emily, my good friend). Me and Emily are both very excited about Ellis's next novel- Imperial Bedrooms, a sequel to Less Than Zero. The first line of Imperial Bedrooms has been released:

"They had made a movie about us."