Glamorama
First edition
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| Author | Bret Easton Ellis |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Chip Kidd (designer) |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Satire |
| Publisher | Knopf |
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Publication date
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December 29, 1998 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 546 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 39534365 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3555.L5937 G58 1999 |
Glamorama is a 1998 novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis. Glamorama is set in and satirizes the 1990s, specifically celebrity culture and consumerism. Time describes the novel as "a screed against models and celebrity."
Ellis wanted to write a Stephen King-style ghost story novel, which would eventually become Lunar Park; finding it difficult at the time, he began work on the other novel which he had in mind. This was a Robert Ludlum-style thriller, with the intention of using one of his own vapid characters who lack insight as the narrator.
The novel is a satire of modern celebrity culture; this is reflected in its premise, which features models-turned-terrorists. A character remarks, "basically, everyone was a sociopath...and all the girls' hair was chignoned." The novel plays upon the conspiracy thriller conceit of someone "behind all the awful events", to dramatize the revelation of a world of random horror . The lack of resolution contributes to Ellis' artistic effect. The obsession with beauty is reflected in consistent namedropping; this satirizes (the main character) Victor's obsession with looks, and perhaps is indicative of the author's own attraction to glamor.
Ellis drops names in Glamorama so often that Entertainment Weekly describes "Nary a sentence... escapes without a cameo from someone famous, quasi-famous, or formerly famous. In fact, in some sentences, Ellis cuts out those pesky nouns and verbs and simply lists celebrities." Namedropping and commoditization have a depersonalizing effect (a world reduced to "sheen and brands"); as the reviewer for The Harvard Crimson observes, "When Victor undergoes a transformation to a law student, we know he is different because he now wears a Brooks Brothers suit and drinks Diet Coke. London and Paris become nothing more than a different collection of recognizable proper nouns (Notting Hill and Irvine Welsh in the first case; Chez Georges and Yves Saint Laurent in the second)." A writer for the New York Times observes "much of his prose consists of (intentionally) numbingly long lists of his characters' clothes and accouterments... out of which his loft-dwellers somewhat hopefully attempt to assemble something like an identity". In speech, his writing demonstrates the ways in which his characters, too, have internalized the language of consumerist advertising and marketing. According to the Lakeland Ledger, Glamorama is something of a Through the Looking-Glass allegory and a cautionary tale navigating the perils of dissolving identity.
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