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| Plot Summary of Less Than Zero |
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"Clay, the narrator, comes home from college for his Christmas vacation. He goes to parties, hangs out in bars, hangs out in malls, drives around in his car, sleeps with his girlfriend, and ultimately realises that the Los Angeles he knows is an empty and vacuous place, populated by young people stripped of their moral consciousness. "
Mark Storey, Resident Scholar
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" The narrator, Clay, comes home to Los Angeles for Christmas after having wasted his first year at a college in New Hampshire in a lifestyle of drugs and sex that is similar if not the same as the life he left behind in Los Angeles, so in the opening section of the novel we are presented with a futilistic outlook in which an inescapable moral decay has spread from coast to coast.
The novel is a journal of Clay's wanderings in the city and in the loop of wealthy teens who are bored with life. Clay feels a chill in the hot desert wind and counts down the days until he will be through with his Christmas vacation and leave his friends behind again. Clay's friends elite but interchangeable in that nobody stands out as a unique character. We are to glean from the novel that their lack of personality is a product of their lifestyle of excess. The party scene of these friends is appealing at first glance with the swarms of beautiful people eager to please and infinite ways to have a good time, but the party scene gets old after a while and boring to read. The novel is most upsetting with the depiction of eighteen year olds who can have anything that they desire but use this power in sole purpose of drug consumption and sex.
Los Angeles is a scary city full of violence, which Clay witnesses firsthand with his friends. The city seems to numb their moral senses. The culture is saturated with pop songs, video games and pornography that is empty in content but sought after by teens driven crazy with it all. Los Angeles is a moral, mental and physical wasteland blasted by relentless, hot desert wind and sun.
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Winston Lamb, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Less Than Zero |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book?
- depressed
Time/era of story
- 1980's-1999
Kids growing up/acting up?
Yes
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Age group of kid(s) in story:
- college
Wild kid(s)?
- druggie culture (& crime)
Loving/sexing?
- girl chasing
Main Character
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- student
- wealthy
Age:
- a teen
- 20's-30's
Eccentric/Mental
Yes
Eccentric:
- eccentric
- mentally ill
- deluded
- emotionally unstable
- wild
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
How sensitive is this character?
- hard edged
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- very athletic
Main Adversary
Identity:
- none
- society
Age:
- a teen
Profession/status:
- unemployed
Eccentric/Smart/Dumb:
Yes
Eccentric:
- deluded
- wild
- mentally ill
- emotionally unstable
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- almost none
How sensitive is this character?
- mean, arrogant
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- very athletic
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 5 (an average amount)
United States
Yes
Desert?
Yes
Desert:
- funny heat-delusions
City?
Yes
City:
- Los Angeles
Misc setting
- fancy mansion
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
- rotating 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
- very explicit references to deaths and torture
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- descript of kissing
- touching of anatomy
- orgies
- impregnation/reproduction
- lesbians!
- actual description of hetero sex
- descript. of female anat. (the big B's)
- descript. of female anat. (the big V)
- descript. of nude males (the big P)
- male homosexuals doing their thing
- rape/molest (yeech!)
Lot of foul language?
Yes
Unusual Style:
- written like a journal/diary/letters
Amount of dialog
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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