Clay, the narrator of Bret Easton Ellis’ (1964) novel Less Than Zero (1985), drifts through the narrative in an extended series of perpetual presents. He is the epitome of Paul Virilio’s (1932) terminal citizen (Virilio, 21), existing through the mediation of input and interaction, eschewing community and communication in favor of serial physical contact, and constantly seeking the acceleration of heightened stimulation in a downward spiral from promiscuous sex with any willing partner to the experiences of death and dying. Ellis captures Clay’s descent into the zombie-like terminal state in the opening phrase of the novel, “People are afraid to merge” (Ellis, 9).]]>
Clay returns to Los Angeles after his first semester away at school. Clay’s otherness is established on the opening page of the novel. Ellis contrasts Blair’s “clean, tight jeans and her pale-blue T-shirt” with Clay’s general state of disarray. Clay has mud on his jeans, a stain on the sleeve of his damp and wrinkled shirt, and a tear on the neck of his sweater which he notes is out of sync with the west coast (Ellis, 9). Ellis further reinforces Clay’s status as other with repetitions of various characters commenting on Clay’s paleness and appearance of unwellness. Blair begins the fortification of this image as she leaves Clay at his house and is followed by Trent and both of Clay’s parent’s. “What’s wrong?” “You look pale” (Ellis, 10). Finally, Clay sees himself lacking a tan.
In the opening of his essay The Third Interval, Virilio quotes Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852), “Without even leaving, we are no longer there” (Virilio, 9). Clay’s transition to blond, tanned, Los Angeles zombie begins with two themes that merge in the narrative. Foremost is Clay’s relationship with Blair. The reader learns over the course of the novel that Clay and Blair have been together in at least the semblance of a dating relationship. While talking to Blair on the telephone, Clay pulls a shoebox of photographs from his closet that contains the artifacts of a high school couple – Clay and Blair together at prom, together at Disneyland, and together at the beach (Ellis, 71). In a flashback sequence, the reader learns of an extended stay together at one of Clay’s parents’ houses in Monterey (Ellis, 59-61). However, Blair discloses early in the narrative that Clay did not call her during his four month school absence (Ellis, 22). Though Clay interacts with Blair throughout his vacation in Los Angeles, it is attraction based on mutual rejection (Virilio, 103) and the coming together at a distance (Virilio, 107).
Clay’s primary diversions are sex and drugs. Intercourse is used as a mechanism to permit contact without communication, and drugs are used to regulate and mediate his experience. Clay resists the potential complication of interacting with his bed mates by fleeing once intercourse is completed. Griffin propositions Clay at Blair’s party. Clay goes to Griffin’s house and sneaks out after intercourse. He collects his clothing strewn from the bedroom to the entry with the exception of the scarf Blair had given him (Ellis, 37-9). Sex allows Clay to feel something that seems real; but, Clay is not interested in the reality of communicating, cooperating, or coping with his partners. He carefully verifies that he has his own underwear while carelessly leaving behind the scarf which might bind him to Blair.
Clay takes Blair to his friend Daniel’s party. Blair realizes she doesn’t know anyone at the party and insists that she and Clay leave. She whispers provocatively in his ear and lays her hand on Clay’s thigh. Clay becomes aroused, but holds out for Blair to suggest they go back to her house. Again, after intercourse, Clay dresses and hastily leaves (Ellis, 57-8). It is as though any extended proximity with Blair will result in potentially uncomfortable communication. Though Clay is willing to spend hours on the telephone with Blair, he is unwilling to connect at an unmediated level beyond sex with anyone. In fact, though Blair tells Clay she is naked, on her bed, and home alone, Clay will not suggest sex. A necessary aspect of the physical act is that Clay makes no propositions. For Clay, sex is a reminder of mortality and interpersonal connection is the road to a sensationless purgatory.
A spectral snapshot condensing Clay’s relationship with Blair follows in Clay’s recollection of an extended trip to the Pajaro Dunes in Monterey. In a way, this trip is akin to a honeymoon. They make the traditional nuptial distancing where, at the start, they explore, drink, eat, and make love together (Ellis, 59-61). It is significant that Clay recalls the sexual act in this instance as “making love.” Intercourse in his present is treated like his use of drugs – a necessary activity to facilitate physical feeling. The beginning of the Monterey trip promises connection with Blair. However, the precedents of his parents’ marriage and societal norms pull at them with tidal force. Clay finds himself outside while Blair is inside, inside while she is outside. As the trip draws to a close, they don’t communicate with each other, but Clay will watch the silhouette of Blair talking on the telephone, playing solitaire, walking on the beach. Clay sees the rift separating him and Blair, but he refuses to take any action to prevent it.
Early on during his school vacation, Clay meets Blair, Alana, and Kim at Du-par’s. Conversation between the girls turns to a catalog of who is sleeping with whom. As the list expands fractally, Clay mentally notes whether he thinks he has or has not slept with the people cited, though he is rarely certain. As if choreographed, the girls reveal that Blair has slept with Warren. Blair glances at Clay repeatedly hoping for a reaction, but is met only with his nonplussed façade (Ellis, 27-29). The physicality of sex is vital to Clay, contact without connection, and he holds no double standard for Blair. The rules governing Clay’s existence allow anyone to have consensual intercourse.
Clay’s third sexual tryst exemplifies the logical conclusion of his promiscuity. Clay is propositioned by an unnamed, blond, sixteen year old girl. He goes to the girl’s house, but finds sex is not what she has planned. Each time he tries to touch her, he is deflected (Ellis, 119-22). She has taken Clay’s mandate to new territory – contact without contact. They undress and face each other. She insists he wear a pair of sunglasses. In this instance, the sunglasses are mediation of reality toward her fantasy rather than a filter through which Clay views the world. They simultaneously masturbate. Again, Clay dresses and leaves.
The secondary theme centers on Clay’s awareness at some level that Los Angeles is to him as the Jacuzzi at his mother’s house is to the goldfish his sister purchases (Ellis, 114-5). The atmosphere is too hot, too poisonous for his long term survival and he is looking for a way out. Clay is primarily preoccupied with a billboard he first sees on Sunset while fleeing from his tryst with Griffin. The advertisement simply reads, “Disappear Here” (Ellis, 38). Later, he goes to a sorority slasher film with Blair and Kim. Rather than watch the movie, he spends most of the time transfixed by the Exit signs (Ellis, 97). Clay’s quest for a way out accelerates wildly, until he reflects the Saint-Pol Roux poem quoted by Virilio, “Going faster is playing with death, Going even faster is getting off on death” (Virilio, 111).
The counterpoint of sex is death for Clay. Though he is both fascinated and repelled by death and its causal violence, Clay’s repulsion diminishes with his accelerated transformation into a tanned, Los Angeles, zombie. When Clay is fifteen and in Palm Desert, he recalls driving at night after a party with his two younger sisters. They come across a Toyota on the side of the road, its engine engulfed in flames. Clay slows to take a closer look, thinks better and speeds away. He wonders why no one has stopped to help without considering offering help himself. In his mind’s eye, he sees a burning child on top of the engine. He looks for either confirmation or denial in the newspaper, but finds neither (Ellis, 76-7).
At Kim’s, the party goers find Muriel locked in a bedroom. Muriel eventually lets the group in and proceeds to shoot up heroin she has been heating over a candle. Clay is transfixed by the lines of needle marks on Muriel’s arm, by the penetration of the needle, and by the injection of molten death into her arm. Here Clay begins his embrace with the proximity to death and his mortality. His hands shake as he lights a cigarette and witnesses (Ellis, 85-6).
Driving home Blair hits a coyote crossing the road and panics. Clay gets out of the car and watches the life drain out of the dying animal. Though he states he does not want to get out of the car, he relishes this near death experience, spending ten minutes watching the consciousness disappear and blood pool. This brush with mortality heightens Clay’s physical desires and results in rough, wanton intercourse with Blair. He reports, “I’ve never wanted her more” (Ellis, 142-3). The coyote’s death is the thematic crossing point that supplants sex with death as Clay’s primary device for mediation with the reality of Los Angeles.
Though Clay is fascinated with death, he quickly establishes limits to his interaction with mortality. When shown the body in the alley en route to Rip’s apartment, Clay is clearly fascinated with the remains of life (Ellis, 185-7). However, the snuff film, to which Trent has obtained access, is an excess in which Clay is unwilling to indulge. Clay expresses no issue with the sadistic intercourse aspects of the film, but follows Blair out of the house when the torture and murder elements become apparent. The film is death and murder mediated in the same fashion as the simultaneous masturbation is earlier in the narrative. However, in this instance, contact without contact is unbearable to Clay. He observes Trent’s arousal after the film as well as Blair’s distance from both himself and the film. Clay is caught between rejection and acceptance of the film (Ellis, 153).
Finally, Clay is able to take minimal action when presented with the unmediated re-enactment of the snuff film in Rip’s apartment. Rip has abducted a 12 year old girl who has been abused to the breaking point. She is tied to the bed and blindfolded, completely transformed into object-woman. Trent responds with the renewed excitement of realizing the snuff film. Clay, however, realizes that something in his world has to be too much, too far, and leaves (Ellis, 188-90). Redemption might have come through taking action to save what was left of the hostage girl, but Clay stops short of this, content to arrest the inertia of his downward spiral. He realizes there is nothing left of interest for him in Los Angeles, and turns the corner to return to school. Though he is convinced of his inability to be home in Los Angeles and though Blair asks him not to go, he assures her he’ll be back. His stays in Los Angeles have become a kind of Russian roulette to affirm his life.
Selected Bibliography
Ellis, Bret Easton. Less Than Zero. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.
Virilio, Paul. Open Sky. London: Verso, 1997.
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