- Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Picador; 1st edition (12 Jun 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330440012
- ISBN-13: 978-0330440011
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 179,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Lunar Park
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More About the Author
Product Description
Independent on Sunday
‘Zipping along with that seemingly artless prose of his, it’s his most ambitious, least gory, most human novel to date’
Review
"Addictive. . . . Sublime. . . . Exquisite. . . . Stirringly executed. . . . A phantasmagoria of love and loss, a fusion of hallucination and wisdom."-"The New York Times"
"The deftness with which Ellis handles an entertaining and suspenseful plot, as well as a sophisticated play between truth and fiction, real selves and imagined selves, is impressive. "Lunar Park "is not only enjoyable and consuming, but insightful."-"San Francisco Chronicle"
"John Cheever writes "The Shining," . . . A strange triumph. . . . Here is a book that progresses from darkness and banality to light and epiphany with surprising strength and sureness."-Stephen King, "Entertainment Weekly"
"A mesmerizing read. . . . Genuinely frightening. . . . "Lunar Park" is a story about the momentous pain parents inflict on their children. . . . The worst violence is internal and emotional, and in its beautiful closing pages, this rich, deceptively complex novel argues that's the most damaging violence of all."-"The Miami Herald"
"The deftness with which Ellis handles an entertaining and suspenseful plot, as well as a sophisticated play between truth and fiction, real selves and imagined selves, is impressive. "Lunar Park "is not only enjoyable and consuming, but insightful."-"San Francisco Chronicle"
"John Cheever writes "The Shining," . . . A strange triumph. . . . Here is a book that progresses from darkness and banality to light and epiphany with surprising strength and sureness."-Stephen King, "Entertainment Weekly"
"A mesmerizing read. . . . Genuinely frightening. . . . "Lunar Park" is a story about the momentous pain parents inflict on their children. . . . The worst violence is internal and emotional, and in its beautiful closing pages, this rich, deceptively complex novel argues that's the most damaging violence of all."-"The Miami Herald"
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'Lunar Park' is a strange book - perhaps the oddest that Bret Easton Ellis has published. In effect, it re-imagines the novel of contemporary nihilism that Ellis pioneered in 'Less Than Zero' and 'American Psycho' as a tale of paranoiac domestic horror in the manner of 'Poltergeist' - a family threatened in its own home by unnatural forces.
As one might imagine, Ellis is wholly aware of the precedents, and the novel is seamed with references to contemporary horror cinema that acknowledge the second-handedness of his theme, while undercutting criticism by introducing an element of knowing postmodernist play. This is greatly reinforced by Ellis's adoption of the classic doppelgänger motif; his protagonist is a writer haunted by his own fictional creations. But Ellis doesn't stop here: instead he redoubles the atmosphere of paranoid suspicion by making this character himself a doppelgänger, a 'Bret Easton Ellis' who shares some details of the author's biography but whose fictional life then departs in significant ways from the 'real-life' template - for whose ultimate veracity we have only Ellis to trust.
The result is a book that isn't wholly successful as literature but that holds an odd fascination. In this it resembles nothing so much as the tales of H.P. Lovecraft, which have something of the same dynamic of remorselessly accumulating dread, and the same implication of an existential horror that lies unvoiced beneath the surface effects.
Ellis has made something of a motif of the wholly unreliable narrator, and here he goes further than before, offering the reader a drug-addicted and alcoholic celebrity writer as the only real source of information within the narrative. The resulting hall-of-mirrors leads only inwards, until the reader is struggling with multiple levels of 'reality' in which real people, fictional characters and the spirits of the dead all seem to have similar ontological status. This makes 'Lunar Park' at times more difficult to follow than the earlier books, whose narratives for the most part lack these complications.
Readers who know and like Ellis will persist with this, although it does lend some credence to the notion that the writer is steadily cannibalising his own talent. For readers new to Ellis, I would strongly suggest starting with 'Less Than Zero' and 'American Psycho'. Not only does 'Lunar Park' refer frequently to these earlier books, but by reading them in sequence one may glimpse a seriousness in the later novel that might escape a completely uninformed reading.
As one might imagine, Ellis is wholly aware of the precedents, and the novel is seamed with references to contemporary horror cinema that acknowledge the second-handedness of his theme, while undercutting criticism by introducing an element of knowing postmodernist play. This is greatly reinforced by Ellis's adoption of the classic doppelgänger motif; his protagonist is a writer haunted by his own fictional creations. But Ellis doesn't stop here: instead he redoubles the atmosphere of paranoid suspicion by making this character himself a doppelgänger, a 'Bret Easton Ellis' who shares some details of the author's biography but whose fictional life then departs in significant ways from the 'real-life' template - for whose ultimate veracity we have only Ellis to trust.
The result is a book that isn't wholly successful as literature but that holds an odd fascination. In this it resembles nothing so much as the tales of H.P. Lovecraft, which have something of the same dynamic of remorselessly accumulating dread, and the same implication of an existential horror that lies unvoiced beneath the surface effects.
Ellis has made something of a motif of the wholly unreliable narrator, and here he goes further than before, offering the reader a drug-addicted and alcoholic celebrity writer as the only real source of information within the narrative. The resulting hall-of-mirrors leads only inwards, until the reader is struggling with multiple levels of 'reality' in which real people, fictional characters and the spirits of the dead all seem to have similar ontological status. This makes 'Lunar Park' at times more difficult to follow than the earlier books, whose narratives for the most part lack these complications.
Readers who know and like Ellis will persist with this, although it does lend some credence to the notion that the writer is steadily cannibalising his own talent. For readers new to Ellis, I would strongly suggest starting with 'Less Than Zero' and 'American Psycho'. Not only does 'Lunar Park' refer frequently to these earlier books, but by reading them in sequence one may glimpse a seriousness in the later novel that might escape a completely uninformed reading.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an absolutely stunning novel: a laugh-out-loud social satire mixed with a surreal and genuinely scary horror story. Its ambiguity is entirely intentional. As with the Glamorama reviews, I'm amazed how many readers here have completely missed the point. When Ellis creates 'shallow' characters they are MEANT to be shallow. When he creates bizarre story shifts that defy logic, they are MEANT to do this. These are not failings of the author, but examples of his incredible command of language, his huge imagination, his devastatingly effective sense of humour, his bottomless capacity for parodying the worlds he scrutinises. Lunar Park was never meant to be a 'straight' novel with a standard plotline, as should be obvious from page 1. Go along with its playful mischief, its inspired gothic surrealism and its extremely dark humour and you will be in for a real treat. This is an all-time classic: one of the best 20 novels ever written. I'm off to read it again now.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I may be bias as Ellis is my all time favourite writer but i could not put this book down.
Like his previous novels, Lunar Park is intelligent, slick and cinematic and as usual the subject matter is painfully personal to the writer. I agree with other reviewers that at times it did feel like i was reading a Stephen King story but the overall tone is classic Ellis.
The only minus point i can think of is that i can't imagine it being as gripping and involving for a person who has never read any of his previous novels. If you're a fan, however, then it has to be a must read.
Like his previous novels, Lunar Park is intelligent, slick and cinematic and as usual the subject matter is painfully personal to the writer. I agree with other reviewers that at times it did feel like i was reading a Stephen King story but the overall tone is classic Ellis.
The only minus point i can think of is that i can't imagine it being as gripping and involving for a person who has never read any of his previous novels. If you're a fan, however, then it has to be a must read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
this is not horror
this is not a horror novel... it is quite simply a great novel, from a great writer. Yes there are flaws but there are also dizzying heights that other writers never reach. Read more
Published 6 months ago by william
Good!
The physical aspects of this book are really nice, from the hardcover and underneath picture to the box case it slides it to that protects the book. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Rich1987
Awful, don't believe the hype
I read American Psycho many years ago, and I came to Lunar Park with high hopes after reading other customers' reviews. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Jose Sanchis
unexpected masterpiece
I really wasn't prepared for the marvellousness of this novel.What starts as an interesting insight in the mind and pointlessness of the author's life, filled with generous doses... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Nikolaos Oikonomidis
Not terby repeated I hope
I felt cheated when I read this load of contractual tripe. Mr Easton Ellis himself declared that he just tried to write a simple horror story. Last resort of a tired mind methinks. Read more
Published on 9 Sep 2009 by edmundo
Ellis's most humane novel to date!
I finished this baby this morning and I am absolutely uplifted by this
as well as inspired.I have only read two of Bret Easton (Less than zero
and American psycho) Elis's... Read more
as well as inspired.I have only read two of Bret Easton (Less than zero
and American psycho) Elis's... Read more
Published on 21 Aug 2009 by Mr. A. J. Ralph
Disappointing
The start of this was very promising, the first chapter being a fake autobiographical musing of the author's descent into drug addiction which launches us into BEE becoming a... Read more
Published on 3 July 2009 by David Hampson
Not a classic
Coming off the back of reading the underwhelming `Glamorama' (thematically interchangeable in many aspects with `American Psycho', the vacuous wealth, labels, lingering... Read more
Published on 26 Jun 2009 by leeboywonder
masterpiece
im a massive fan of ellis so i may be biased, but i believe this to be his greatest novel to date, i love the idea of the fictional autobiography which plays on ideas of what the... Read more
Published on 10 Sep 2008 by yakattack!
Egotistical drivel
After reading American Psycho and been very impressed I was recommended this by a friend. Biggest reading disappointment so far. Read more
Published on 5 Sep 2008 by Mr. Phillip J. Darley
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