schizophrenia and fragmentation in less than zero
A significant segment of Frederic Jameson’s (1934) theorization of postmodern culture centers on several elements of postmodern style, including pastiche, schizophrenia, nostalgia, and surfaces. These elements are illustrated at length in Bret Easton Ellis’ (1964) novel, Less Than Zero (1985). In the novel, the protagonist Clay drifts through four weeks of winter break from his eastern university. The narrative opens with the phrase, “People are afraid to merge…”(p9) and a rough description of the narrative’s world as Clay’s high school girlfriend Blair, picks him up from the airport. The opening paragraphs establish the novel as an extended series of snapshots obsessively focused on surfaces, fragmented relationships, and unregulated excess.
The narrative style of Less Than Zero establishes an immediate sense of nostalgia through its stylistic referencing of Jack Kerouac’s (1922-69) On the Road (1957) and the structural referencing of J.D. Salinger’s (1919) Catcher in the Rye (1951). Clay’s voice carries the reader through Less Than Zero in much the same way and at the same speed as Kerouac’s narrator Sal. Both narrator’s relate the flow of events in a matter-of-fact manner. The structural similarities of the narrative arc between Ellis’ and Salinger’s works further reinforces this sense of the familiar past.
Ellis taps into Jameson’s concept of shallow surfaces from the first paragraph. Characters, starting with Blair, are described by the facades of clothing. This emphasis on the commodities of the characters lives most often downplays both the makers of the objects and reduces the characters to automata parading through the narrative in the latest fashion. How the people who surround Clay look is paramount, with no time or interest spent on who or how these people are as individuals. The reader is left with a sense of stale inertia wherein the characters do very little.
Jameson’s use of schizophrenia as a marker of postmodern style is evident in the conversations between characters. Conversations between Clay and his LA friends is ambiguous if not semantically null. Blair’s comment regarding the inability of people to merge repeats thematically through the narrative. Characters speak to each other, but most often say nothing of import. Conversations and words have lost meaning.
Another recurrent phrase, “wonder if he’s for sale,” permeates the narrative. Not only are the objects of daily life given preferential treatment, the characters are each available for purchase in various ways. From Julian’s act of selling himself as whore for the compensatory exchange of money and drugs to Clay’s willingness to feel being bartered for visions of death, everyone has a price within the story. Everyone becomes a commodity to be traded, bought, and sold.
In addition to the physically clipped and fragmented nature of the narrative, all of the interpersonal relationships are broken into disconnected pieces. Parents do not function as parents, dealing with their children at multiple removes. Kim and Blair, for instance, track the current locations of their parents in the Hollywood tabloids; Clay’s father recommends the use of astrology in order for Clay to get his life on track; and, both Julian’s and Daniel’s parents are completely absent as they each descend into the quagmire of LA life. The characters have bought into the reification of aimless lives mediated by excessive drug use as normal.