Rating: Classic.

I discovered the novel Less Than Zero in eighth grade. I was a middle schooler in Arkansas; the characters in the novel were affluent college students in L.A. I dreamed of a life of excess. For the moody, apathetic characters in Less Than Zero, it was a reality.

I had just moved on from the rudimentary teen angst of Holden Caulfield in Catcher In the Rye and craved for something darker, bleaker, cooler.

That novel was Less Than Zero. Throughout the novel, the reader sees the main character, Clay, and his friends drive through the streets of L.A. going to parties, lounging around resorts, sometimes talking about music, sometimes too aloof to talk at all. Although not much happens in the novel by way of plot, the author makes up for this with narrative.

Clay in Less Than Zero may be the most apathetic, minimalist narrator in all of literature. If anything, the novel is the story of Clay distancing himself from his loved ones and reality itself, fading into the background of the polluted city. Clay’s friends are not much different than himself, and their interactions create the memorable, angst ridden dialogue I still love to this day.

For example:

“What do you do?’ she asks, holding out the vest.
‘What do you do?’
‘What do you do?’ she asks, her voice shaking. ‘Don’t ask me, please. Okay, Clay?’
‘Why not?’
She sits on the mattress after I get up. Muriel screams.
‘Because… I don’t know,’ she sighs.
I look at her and don’t feel anything and walk out with my vest.”

But it gets better.

“…where are we going?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘just driving.’
‘But this road doesn’t go anywhere,’ I told him.
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘What does?’ I asked, after a little while.
‘Just that we’re on it, dude,’ he said.”

*

When Less Than Zero was released in 1985, much of the hype surrounded the author, Bret Easton Ellis, instead of the book itself. Ellis wrote most of the novel in high school and published it while he was a sophomore in college. Many reviewers compared Ellis himself to the characters in the novel.

Two years later, Less Than Zero was turned into a poorly made film, featuring Robert Downey Jr. I have only seen the first 20 minutes of the film, disappointed in how it turned the cool apathy of the novel into Hollywood melodrama.

Now in his fifties, Bret Eason Ellis released a sequel to Less Than Zero called Imperial Bedrooms in 2010. The new novel catches up with the now middle aged characters of Less Than Zero. The characters’ angst and moodiness continue into the updated novel, but instead of mystifying awe, I began to feel apathy and annoyance toward the characters I had loved in Less Than Zero.

 Brett Easton Ellis has shown us that some people never truly grow up. Everyone goes through phases of angst like the relatable characters in Less Than Zero, but to live a lifetime of teen angst would be torture.