On a Churchill quote and Brett Easton Ellis
“Never give in; never give in; never, never, never, never, never–in nothing great or small, large or petty–never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.” –Winston Churchill. Endurance matters in life. Environments can be hostile, and sometimes you just have to keep going. Some people are also just evil, morally wrong, or horribly stupid, frankly.
A few more comments on Brett Easton Ellis’ memoir/essay collection called White, referenced in a blog last year. I know he is controversial for the graphic nature of his writing, but I think Less than Zero was very impressive as a novel from a 19-year-old. I have read some of his other fiction and thought it was good in a cutting-edge, cynical, and modern way. I also spoke to him briefly at a book signing in D.C. a few years back.
Speaking of his controversial novel American Psycho, he says the first chapter titled “April Fools,” “hints that what one is about to read isn’t exactly reliable narrative, that maybe it’s all a dream, the collective sensibility of consumerist yuppie culture seen through the eyes of a deranged sociopath with a tenuous grip on reality.” He considered the novel the outcome of a surreal time in his life in the late 1980s. Ellis said at the book reading I attended that he did not especially like the movie version of this novel. I disagree. I have read the novel, and think the movie also conveys the sense that it is unclear whether Patrick Bateman, the eponymous psycho narrating the book, is actually committing his violent atrocities or just dreaming them up. The ending of the movie is especially effective about this ambiguity, in my opinion, and Christian Bale was well-cast as the main character.