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A review by pascalthehoff
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The way Bret Easton Ellis plays with the narrator’s perspective makes this an old-white-male author novel worth your while. Overtly an autobiographical novel, The Shards is rather a story in which the author self-inserts himself into a setting from this own personal past, but with so many twists that you can soon tell: this can’t possibly be all autobiographical. But in most aspects that don’t touch the (very extreme) serial killer arc, the line between what’s fiction and what might be real blurs.
Being a young adult is such a unique period, where we have such strong feelings, and so much time for actual living, that I completely understand why an author in his 50s might feel the urge to create himself an alternate youth, with a heightened feel to it.
What I loved most about the novel was also what surprised me the most: Namely the incredible gay horniness, that seeps through almost every page and goes into great explicit detail, but somehow manages to always feel respectful towards the objects of desire. The protagonist’s adoration and lust feel so genuine that it swept me with him, even though I’m usually not one who reads books for that. Maybe it worked because the sex scenes in The Shards were so much better than in basically any other book I’ve ever read. No sugarcoating, no metaphors – these scenes just tell you what’s happening.
The entire serial killer narrative, then, feels almost out of place – though it is the glue that holds the novel and its many complex character dynamics together.
I’ve read American Psycho when I was 18 and back then, I thought extreme gore in literature was exciting and shocking – especially since you „couldn’t even do that in the movies“. Now, ten years later, however, I find descriptions of torn-off body parts, stuffed orifices and the like to be a rather poor attempt at sensationalizing a novel. The gore does add to the overall feel of the novel, but I don’t think it would’ve needed it at all. Though I like how these extreme serial crimes set in a nominally(!) true story subvert the hype around true crime stories (a trend I absolutely detest btw).
There’s a pretty big contrast between the protagonist’s sensitive inner life and his minute perceptions of the world surrounding him on one side and then the cheap shock value on the other. The novel ticks all the boxes with all the details you’d expect from an early 80s LA setting. So much so that it feels like an 80s historical novel. A pretty mesmerizing experience, even if an even stricter editor would have done wonders for the pacing.
Being a young adult is such a unique period, where we have such strong feelings, and so much time for actual living, that I completely understand why an author in his 50s might feel the urge to create himself an alternate youth, with a heightened feel to it.
What I loved most about the novel was also what surprised me the most: Namely the incredible gay horniness, that seeps through almost every page and goes into great explicit detail, but somehow manages to always feel respectful towards the objects of desire. The protagonist’s adoration and lust feel so genuine that it swept me with him, even though I’m usually not one who reads books for that. Maybe it worked because the sex scenes in The Shards were so much better than in basically any other book I’ve ever read. No sugarcoating, no metaphors – these scenes just tell you what’s happening.
The entire serial killer narrative, then, feels almost out of place – though it is the glue that holds the novel and its many complex character dynamics together.
I’ve read American Psycho when I was 18 and back then, I thought extreme gore in literature was exciting and shocking – especially since you „couldn’t even do that in the movies“. Now, ten years later, however, I find descriptions of torn-off body parts, stuffed orifices and the like to be a rather poor attempt at sensationalizing a novel. The gore does add to the overall feel of the novel, but I don’t think it would’ve needed it at all. Though I like how these extreme serial crimes set in a nominally(!) true story subvert the hype around true crime stories (a trend I absolutely detest btw).
There’s a pretty big contrast between the protagonist’s sensitive inner life and his minute perceptions of the world surrounding him on one side and then the cheap shock value on the other. The novel ticks all the boxes with all the details you’d expect from an early 80s LA setting. So much so that it feels like an 80s historical novel. A pretty mesmerizing experience, even if an even stricter editor would have done wonders for the pacing.