Imperial Bedrooms - Characters

Characters

Much critical attention has been given to the development of the characters from the original book, 25 years on. One review opined that " characters are incapable of growth. They cannot credibly find Jesus or even see a skilled psychologist or take the right medication to fend off despair. They are bound to be American psychos." Their development, some critics have observed, illuminates the ways they have not developed as people; Clay is, for example, "in mind and spirit if not quite in body, destined to remain unchanged, undeveloped, unlikable and unloved." In Less Than Zero, though the characters of the novel compose for some "the most hollow and vapid representation of the MTV generation one could possibly imagine", they remained to other reviewers "particularly sympathetic". Like the novel, its characters were equally cultural milestones, described by a reviewer as "seminal characters" (of American fiction). On the subject of the 1987 film, Clay describes that "the parents who ran the studio would ever expose their children in the same black light the book did". To Bill Eichenberger, this shows how "the children have become the parents, writing scripts and producing movies, still imprisoned by Hollywood's youth and drug cultures – but now looking at things from the outside in." Eisinger comments for the New York Press, that while "they're in careers now and new relationships and different states of mind... their preoccupations are just the same."

Clay, the protagonist of Less Than Zero, "once a paralyzed observer, is now a more active character and has grown to be a narcissist". Clay's narcissism emerges, according to Ellis, because Ellis as a writer "wasn't that interested in the other characters, and neither is Clay." For the author, his became "an exploration of intense narcissism." In 2010, Clay is now a "successful screenwriter" with the "occasional producer credit". He returns to LA to help cast The Listeners (reminiscent of Ellis' involvement with the 2009 film adaptation of his short story collection The Informers). Now 45, and no longer a disaffected teen, Clay is described by Details as "arguably worse than American Psycho's Patrick Bateman"; Ellis says that he "wouldn't disagree" with this because Bateman's crimes are ambiguous. In terms of Clay's psychology, Ellis notes his preponderance for a "masochistic. cycle of control and rejection and seduction and inevitable pain", which "is something he gets off on because he's ...a masochist and not a romantic." The Los Angeles Times notes how Clay "shares biographical details with Ellis", a successful party-boy, who in 1985 was "often conflated with his fictional counterpart." Ellis asserts to the contrary, "I'm not really Clay." As opposed to his portrayal in Less Than Zero, Imperial Bedrooms makes it more abundantly clear that Clay is as manipulative as those around him; he is, in Ellis' words, "guilty". As in Less Than Zero, Clay has "stuck to thinking and feeling as little as possible", "fending off the enemy of emotion with regular doses of alcohol and sedatives such as ambien, living with a kind of psychic "locked-in" syndrome." As in Zero and Psycho, the novel also poses the question of Clay's reality, The Independent asking "Is Clay really being followed or is he being dogged by a guilty conscience for crimes committed, even when they are crimes of inaction?" Over the novel, "Clay shifts from damaged to depraved"; a "final scene in Imperial Bedrooms of unremitting torture... enacted by Clay on two beautiful teenagers who are bought and systematically abused" demonstrates "Clay's graduation from a passively colluding observer to active perpetrator... who either indulges in torture or fantasizes about it."

The novel is written in the first-person, from Clay's perspective. Clay, who "felt betrayed by Less Than Zero", uses Imperial Bedrooms to make a stand or a case for himself, though ultimately "reveals himself to be far worse than the author of Less Than Zero ever began to hint at." Clay still bears similarities to the earlier character in Less Than Zero; according to one reviewer, "not all that much is changed. Clay is a cipher, an empty shell who is only able to approximate interactions and experiences through acts of sadism and exploitation." He is also, in many ways, a new character, because the opening of the book presents that the Clay of Less Than Zero had merely been "just a writer pretending to be him". When asked why he "changed" Clay from "passive" to "guilty", Ellis explained he felt Clay's inaction in the original novel made him equally as guilty; it had "always bothered" Ellis that Clay didn't do anything to save the little girl being raped in the first novel. The Independent notes "his passivity has hardened into something far more culpable, and nefarious." According to Ellis, "In LA, over time, the real person you are ultimately comes out." He also speculates "maybe the fear turned him into a monster". Ellis remarks that he finds the developments in Clay "so exciting". One reviewer summarized the character's development, "The nascent narcissist of Less Than Zero... is now left in a "dead end". The novel is Ellis' "deeply pessimistic presentation of human nature as assailable... an unflinching study of evil."

Blair and Trent Burroughs share a loveless marriage. Blair remains, according to Janelle Brown, "the moral center of Ellis' work", and Trent has become a Hollywood manager. The Oregonian notes "Although Blair and Trent have children, the children are never described and hardly mentioned; their absence is "even more unsettling than the absence of parents in a story about teenagers, underlining the endlessly narcissistic nature of the characters' world." Julian Wells has gone on to establish a very exclusive escort service of his own in Hollywood. While in Less Than Zero, Clay felt protective of Julian, who had fallen into prostitution and drug addiction, in the new novel, he attempts to have him killed. The "grisly" dispatch of Julian late in the book, and Clay's casual mention of it early on, were part of a "rhythm" that Ellis felt suited the book. He speculates whether "the artist looking back" becomes a destructive force. He hadn't planned to kill off the character, just finding that while writing "it felt right". Rip Millar occupies both terrifying and comic relief roles in the novel. Vice describes him, hyperbolically, as "like the supervillain of these two books". Uncertainties about the character's "specifics" originate in Clay, who "doesn't really want to know, which makes it kind of scarier".