Bret again.

Since his outburst against Foster Wallace [sic], Easton Ellis has been accused of being a green-eyed monster who can't stand another author being hailed as "great". I think he should be more concerned that's he's becoming the literary version of Elton John – someone who can be relied upon to kick off at random targets for no reason.

Barbara Ellen, "What's Made Bret Easton Ellis such a Sourpuss?" The Observer, 9th September 2012

And end up looking like a t**t (litshaming)

 I think Bret just called me a fool, a 'literary douchbag-fool' even (alongside all other people who like Wallace's books, note the lack of Foster as you can get corrected for that in literary circles). I have to admit to never having read any of Bret's books (I have no idea whether he's referred to as Ellis or Easton Elis, only that he's only got one 't'); I found the idea of American Psycho a bit off-putting and have heard about the mixed reviews for the rest of his work. If I'm in the mood for American contemporary literary fiction there are other books that I find more to my taste, although I should probably be a bit more open minded about him. He amuses me with his Twitter comments as he reminds me of a small child calling their parents a rude name in the hope of gaining some attention. I can't take the man seriously as his comments are ludicrously written in order to provoke the maximum amount of controversy and in this case, make him look like a jealous asshole. As Barbara says, step away from the Twitter. I think if I was on Twitter more I'd probably find his ranting a bit more annoying, however. 

According to Gerald Howard, who edited the work of both of them, they envied each other and David parodied Bret's style (in The Girl with the Curious Hair), rather sad that Bret feels the need to still carry around his anger after all this time (as well as the death of Wallace). Don't know what he's so mad about anyway - firstly, he admits that he think that Every Love Story is a Ghost Story is well written, and secondly, why should it bother him that people admire Wallace's writing - just because I like reading DFW's writing it doesn't automatically mean I will hate his. 

I've been reading about people's opinions of his rant on Tumblr, one blogger found that although BEE had gone about it in completely the wrong way, he had a point about people canonising DFW. Although I really like Infinite Jest (as the poster does), I do agree with him. The first time I read any Wallace it was a library book I picked up by a writer I'd never heard of, not some kind of Bible written by a man surrounded by all this emotional baggage and the inevitable eulogizing that comes with suicide. I was drawn to his work through his writing style, and in some ways I wish that I had finished the book without knowing anything about his death, because it does cloud my reading and it can prevent honest criticism (not that I would call what BEE is doing honest criticism, that's not really what Twitter is for, in my opinion). Okay, so resorting to personal attacks isn't great, but then neither is putting someone on an after-death pedestal.

So, at 70% finished I'm reserving judgement, but still hoping to be able to finish the book and then write an honest critique. As a progress report, I'm finding the second part harder than the first but I'm hoping to finish soon.