Demagogues and disinterest

In an article reprinted in his collection Junk Mail, Will Self strives to dissociate Bret Easton Ellis from his creations, most notably Patrick Bateman and the superficial, vacuous, amoral individuals who populate Glamorama. It's a fallacy to identify a very real author with his or her characters. True enough, generally speaking - you have to allow for the power of imagination and creativity.

And yet in this horrific car crash of an interview with the New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner, Ellis comes across awfully - as someone who seems to think that the horrendous things that Donald Trump says and does aren't as bad as the liberal outrage that they provoke. What's more, his belief in the value of "standing in the other side's shoes and looking at this from the other side" has echoes of Trump's remark that there were "very fine people on both sides" at the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, and also of the warped logic that "balance" means ensuring that fascists are given a platform to debate with anti-fascists and climate change deniers are handed as much airtime as climate change scientists.

What's particularly infuriating is his claim to be "not that interested in politics", and his inference that those who are bothered by Trump are "hysterical". The sense of dismissive apathy would be bad enough were it not for the fact that the interview was prompted by the publication of White, a new book of essays in which Ellis repeatedly touches on the contemporary political climate in the US. "Politics is ridiculous", he declares. "Maybe don't write a book about it", observes Chotiner with admirable acidity.