Posting this after posting and deleting a few times. I'm not sure a forum is a good platform for discussing literature, it quickly reduces to 'what is better?' 'is it good'. 'is Tolstoy worth the hype?' (to whoever, asked - its a long old romp and worth time if you have it. I found the two post scripts concerning the writing of history to be valuable, they've stayed with me for years. I've recommended them to be read alone in the past.)
Re. Ellis. Is the shallowness or emptiness an achievement? Is being boring, (fantastically boring, for Ellis is a fantastic bore if you've listened to him) reducing violence to surface and sheen like Sade (see Sade in Dialectic of Enlightenment by Horkheimer and Adorno), to be applauded?
He fits into a very American publishing tendency to laud the void - Delillo, Hardwick, Tao Lin, Ben Lerner, Chris Kraus... cheap post-modern gestures that offer little other than emptiness. Philip K Dick explored emptiness, but it was always to post another question - what is reality, what is human, what is experience, what is empathy etc. Beyond providing a mirror of vacuity I'm not sure what Ellis seeks to offer (Comparisons with Houellebecq anyone?) I've read all his books except one.
Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison are, as ranking is de rigueur, 'better'. Surely, in the information age, a book's merit is to make the reader feel a connection, a sustained sympathy rather than to re-enforce emptiness and distance? This can be done with a narrative concerning isolation or emptiness. Felicia's Journey, Remains of the Day, Robert Cormier.
Just finishing David Copperfield at the moment.