Lunar Park
4.1
86
5
1
Paperback(Reprint)
USD
16.18
$16.18
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780375727276 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 08/29/2006 |
| Series: | Vintage Contemporaries Series |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Sales rank: | 156,577 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.16(w) x 7.99(h) x 0.85(d) |
About the Author
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Lunar Park
4.1 out of 5
based on
0 ratings.
86 reviews.
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I read Lunar Park when it came out years ago and it stands out as one of the best books that I've read in the past 10 years. It was genius -- bizarre, dark, fantastical. But, oddly enough, completely relatable.
This is is Ellis's best novel. And, why I will always pick up any novel he writes in the future.
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it's likely that brett easton ellis' identity will forever be defined by his novels, 'less than zero' and 'american psycho.' but, 'lunar park' is his literary masterpiece. it's everything dark, tortured, and lost, that he ever put down on paper. this time, the fear and horror don't come from people desperate to lose themselves...but from a man desperate to find and free himself. it's the closest thing to uplifting, he's probably written. &if you can get through to the end, there's much to be learned in his truth and honesty.
plus, i just like the way he's constantly evolving the role of narrator...tres postmodern.
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In Ellis' latest novel, he moves completely outside his comfort zone in every way to deliver a story that is as touching as it is shocking.
The narrator and protagonist is Bret Easton Ellis, but not the Ellis of this reality. He's a wasted lush who seeks to rebuild a failed relationship with the mother of his bastard son (a fictional actress). As he moves into suburban life, he fails to adjust and put away his bachelor ways of carousing and substance abuse. However, the stakes are raised when the spirit of his dead father invades upon their quaint home, presumably taking the vicious form of Patrick Bateman. Literally haunted by his past deeds and fictional creations, Ellis is forced to confront his broken past and try harder as a father and husband... not just for his own emotional well being, but for the total survival of his family.
Lunar Park deviates from virtually every formula Ellis has used in the past. Ellis' comfort zone is rich, beautiful, emotionally devoid characters who fail to evolve or learn from their lifestyles. We often get virtually nothing in terms of an emotional landscape from his characters, but Ellis (the character) has an intense emotional range and manages to confront a lifetime of familial angst in order to deal with the ghost story he faces. Ellis' novels are also typically grounded in realism (though they are often surreal), but in this one, we are presented with a supernatural thriller. The dry repetitions and lengthy descriptions of past works are also abandoned, replaced by a practical depth that his former narrators are generally not capable of. In almost every way, Lunar Park is an abandonment of the formulae that have made Ellis successful. This is, in my opinion, one of the great successes of the novel.
While I highly recommend this novel, I would suggest that anyone interested in Lunar Park read American Psycho first, at the very least. The events of that book bear heavily on the plot of Lunar Park. The main character (and catch-phrase) of Less Than Zero are also an important detail worth understanding before attempting Lunar Park, as well. However, if you have some background with Ellis, you will find Lunar Park both very different and at the same time intense. As an author, Ellis has made himself completely vulnerable in both character detail and narrative goals and in my opinion, has written a novel that's as fascinating as it is unique.
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Undoubtedly one of the best books I have ever read. It is funny, gripping, creepy, sad, and melancholy. I listened to it first and now I am reading it to catch the parts that I may have missed. I can't wait to read more of Mr. Ellis' books. I really liked the video scene with his father from the email and the scene where Harrison Ford as a young actor was calling for Mr. Ellis. These parts had me shivering and I was really creeped out. I can't wait to see what else Mr. Ellis comes out with next!!! Thanks for the wild ride Bret! an avid reader
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This is the best Ellis novel yet. I enjoyed this novel immensly. Perfectly captures the nightmare of modern life, real and imagined. This novel will make your heart ache and race at the same time.
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Lunar Park is the sort-of autobiography of its author, Bret Easton Ellis, warped within a funhouse fiction mirror. The book begins with an engaging recount of the author's professional past, and then an onslaught of terrifying psychological and actual events take place over a Halloween holiday weekend. Those who have read his earlier five books will be best prepared to pick up the continuous -- and brilliant -- use of self-referential detail that adds to the literary weight of the novel. Ellis has fused sophisticated postmodern fiction techniques with contemporary horror and the result is one of the best American novels of 2005.
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Intruiging at first, then gripping, then genuinely touching at the end
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This is a truly inspiring book for an author that is bearing his soul for his art. Ellis is at the top of his game here and the allusions to Hamlet (amongst others) and the inclusion of the 'Jayster' are amazing. It's a must read.
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Ah, the lost art of self-deprecation. Fans of Ellis will most likely enjoy LUNAR PARK. I also think, however, that fans of horror will also enjoy it a ton. Being a fan of both, I have to say this novel is probably my favorite of his. Its been a long time coming and, for me, it was more than worth the wait. I hope it hasn't been too late. Ellis's previous novels are disturbing, but they usually escape being categorized as horror. LUNAR PARK, despite its classification as literature, absolutely earns itself a place among the top works of horror. Interestingly, this is Ellis's least graphic and gruesome work. If you enjoyed books such as LESS THAN ZERO or the novel KATZENJAMMER by McCrae, then this will be right up your alley.
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His best.
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Maybe now the critical tide will turn and he will be given proper recognition as an American prose stylist and writer of great substance.
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Interesting but challenging read. Postmodern story that combines fiction with real celebrities in a mix that gets crazier over time, making it harder to know where even manufactured truth ends.
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I can't say I enjoyed this at all--and as someone who found Glamorama, American Psycho, and The Rules of Attraction, I was disappointed to see such a disjointed, poorly conceived offering from an author I had previously respected. Hyperbolic representations of excess that were edgy and thought-provoking in his earlier works here come off as tiresome and cliched, and the attempt at horror was more confusing than entertaining or gripping. In the end, I have to agree with a friend of mine's description of this novel as "masturbatory."I'm glad Ellis is apparently coming to terms with his feelings towards his father; I just wish I hadn't paid to read his self-therapy.
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Crazy, can't put it down, and trippy.
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After reading American Psycho, I might have set my expectations a little high before reading Lunar Park. Lunar Park has its moments, but it is disjointed and unpolished. The dysfunctional family and Ellis' past that haunt him and converge are interesting themes, but the book feels corny most of the time. It's not a boring read because of Ellis' story-telling ability, but I won't be re-reading this anytime soon. That being said, the ending to this book is absolutely epic. My eyes were watering as I sat in my school's amphitheater on a Saturday afternoon finishing up Lunar Park. When a piece of writing can bring tears to your eyes, that's some pretty powerful stuff.
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Terrible book. The book isn't funny enough to be intended as satire and it is impossible to feel strongly for the main character one way or another. Bad Stephen King mixed with Philip Roth. Avoid.
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Begins with a confessional/history which is so unapologetic that it is completely without charm. It's like every addiction memoir but without invoking any sympathy, if retold in Vanity Fair.Then came the story, the recounting. It was dreadful. Seemed like someone who needed the cash but couldn't stay sober enough to write a coherent chapter. BEE sacrifices Jay McInerney in the story, and it's completely gratuitous. I kept reading out of a sort of lurid fascination with how poorly I imagined BEE's career will go after this. (I was puzzled, however, that the NYT had given it praise, which I knew from the cover blurb.)Then the story picked up speed. The last 1/3 of the book was a compelling, if confusing and over-reaching, story. I thought it was a bit high-minded but it flowed well enough that I didn't care. I can tell I'll carry the story around with me for a while, thinking it over.
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Here's the thing about this book. It is by no means Ellis's best. That being said, I was a little pissed after I read it because I finished the damned thing in less than a day. From the first page to the last, Lunar Park is an all-absorbing thrill ride, full of satire, fantasy, horror, comedy, and the rest. I really don't know how anyone could be able to put this thing down. I wish I had, because now I'm waiting another six years for his next novel. Ellis seems to have taken many literary devices from the horror genre, including leaving the reader off on a cliff at the end of certain chapters, and not returning to that scene until several chapters later. Think Chuck Palahniuk meets Stephen King. But it's Ellis, and that same hard-hitting American Psycho voice comes ripping through, with satirical descriptions of main characters and much fuss over the smallest nit-pickings. I read this book almost two years ago and it's still on my mind. The genre and set up inspired a short story I'd been working on at the time. It became my first to be published. Anyone who hasn't read this book, I strongly recommend it. And all you have to lose is an afternoon and early evening one Saturday. Because I guarantee you'll finish it as fast as I did.
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Having read and loved American Psycho, to hear that Ellis was writing a fictional autobiography that would being up his characters from that book, I was excited to read. Unfortunately, the book was not that great and read more like the E True Hollywood story of a recovering star. Than there was the thing with the killer Furby doll. Eh, not for me.
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***This is not so much a review per se as a defense of Lunar Park***I completely disagree with Steve Almond's assessment of Lunar Park in the Boston Globe (Aug. 14, 2005), a novel Almond labelled as the worst novel he'd ever read. I don't counter Almond's understandable though misinformed diatribe by saying it's the best novel ever written, though I would conclude it is arguably a better book than any book Steve Almond has written. Lunar Park is a work of metafiction, not self-aggrandizement as has been purported by the "scholarly" snobs in their elitist witchhunt out to fire & grill yet again contemporary literature's Lucifer--a Marquis de Sade of their own making. But don't confuse Ellis for de Sade. For two things, de Sade was a superior stylist and an amoralist; while Ellis, remember (no slouch for style), is first and foremost a moralist, and Lunar Park, believe it or not, is as much, if not more so, a morality tale as his maligned classic, "American Psycho". Having read "American Psycho" helps the reader fully appreciatie "Lunar Park," as the former novel looms large in the latter's plot development. The bleak, nihilistic undercurrents of Ellis' earlier work are mostly abandoned in Lunar Park, replaced with currents of self-deprecation and humor. The humor, while black, is still humor, a sure sign of Ellis' own maturation as a writer; and, perhaps too, his coming to terms both personally and professionally with his deceased father. The unrelating-father-too-distant-and-emotionally-neglectful-to-attach-to-his-rebelliously-reacting-son-striving-for-his-father's-acceptance-and-love story, of course, goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks in literature, though I can't recall a more beautiful or poignant (descriptives never before associated with Ellis' writing)...resolution...to the father-son-divide rendered in recent literature in the novel's stirring climax. In the climax, the main character of Lunar Park, Bret Ellis himself, undergoes and begins an emotional rebirth of such breadth and depth we almost forget that, yes indeed, Lunar Park is, in fact, a novel by Bret Easton Ellis! Funny and profound. If you already enjoy Ellis, you'll love Lunar Park. If you're convinced, like Steve Almond, that "sentence by sentence" Lunar Park is the worst thing since Osama Bin Laden, then I recommend you too give this good book a whirl and find out what all the fuss is about.
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Uncharacteristically touching and emotional Bret Easton Ellis- I would say this is him at his best, as much as I love American Psycho in all its definitely unemotional and bloody satire.
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