So, this book is quite insane. For one, it's fucking hilarious but also crazy violent. Some of the scenes are absolutely disturbing, but what's more disturbing about the whole thing is that you want to laugh because it's so over-the-top, but there are plenty of genuinely funny moments that don't have anything to do with murder and gore. The dialog in this book is priceless. Ellis does a great job at perfectly illustrating people's facial expressions and tones of voice, which I think is really important when writing a story. His description of his surroundings is incredibly detailed, but that's also part of the theme of the book. Bateman is an ultra pretentious, trendy and materialistic snob and describes in painful detail what everyone is wearing and what's in his office and apartment. When I say "painful," I don't mean you get tired of it, but it's just the surface of what kind of a lunatic he is. It's almost as if he's tormented by having to incessantly describe and point out everything in his own head. I laughed out loud at several moments in this book.

Of course, in regards to the movie, it really is nothing like the book. I do have to give the filmmakers credit for making the movie in the way they did. They took lines people said and certain scenes and spliced them together throughout the entire thing. It's actually pretty impressive how they did that and whoever wrote the screen play had to have read the book several times in order to get everything together. The movie follows the book in sequence of events about 10% of the time and of course, MUCH was left out. I mean, after a certain point in the book, you're thinking, "good fucking lord, what is he going to think of next?" Sick.

One thing I have to mention is that I'm positive Ellis is a fan of Hubert Selby Jr. This book reminded me so much of The Demon, but without the humor and sarcasticness. The Demon is set in New York City and is about a rich Wall Street type who goes insane. The Demon however, is disturbing in a completely different way. I strongly suggest that anyone who has read this, read The Demon.

For those who have read it (Steel) ... spoilers below:


















Ok, so what was going on? Was he dreaming the whole thing? He mentioned at least twice very subtly about "I'm dreaming this" but usually was in the middle of a conversation. And several things seem like they would only happen in a dream, especially toward the end when he's describing the color of the sky as it keeps changing color and the one scene where he's having some kind of psychotic episode, walking around the streets of Manhattan. Not sure if you noticed this, but there was a moment in one of the chapters towards the end where the writing style switched abruptly from first-person to third-person, but then went back in the next chapter. That was a great little inclusion to add to him losing it. But so much of it just seemed like he was dreaming. I mean, all the dead and decaying bodies and parts in his apartment and even though he does mention the smell, everyone on his floor would have noticed.

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kitteh

I think it's deliberately ambiguous and is using the "unreliable narrator" device. I've read this book maybe five times, and there's so many conflicting details - some undeniably show it has to be "real", some undeniably show it has to be fantasy - that I don't think whether it's real or not is the issue. If you read Lunar Park you get a feel for the inspiration behind this character. Bateman is a true "psycho", and he's telling the story, so it's just about getting lost in his craziness and delusions.

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Make your own path as you walk, and if you ever find footsteps before you turn away from them and continue to walk into the wilderness, where no man has been before you.
- Varg

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit.
- Beethoven

ive read this book 3 times. love it so much.

i agree with stele here that it is open to interpretation. i think he gets away with it all in the end, using his stature and class to go on living, like how the movie portrayed it.

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winter is coming

I need to pick this ome up and add it to the 170+ books that I've already got around the apartment and will eventually get to.

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Blargh...
http://www.recordnerd.com/lists/Chaoseum

See I think that's part of the gag, that he doesn't have any stature at all, at least not to anyone he cares about and that's partly what makes him insane. He can't get a reservation at the hippest restaurant, but his brother can and an old girlfriend he hasn't seen in years, is dating the chef there. He keeps being mistaken for other people meaning that he's so interchangeable with everyone else and does nothing to stand out. His girlfriend is sleeping around with one of his friends and the girl he's cheating with is engaged to a gay guy, lessening the "conquer" of her. He's so obsessed with following trends and fashion (the chapters about Huey Lewis, Whitney Houston and Genesis show that he's convincing himself that he's finding some deeper meaning in hollow, trendy pop music only because it's popular at that time), that he can't cope with it when he's outdone by others, which the Paul Owen character exemplified: the business card, the tanning bed, the Fisher account, etc.

I wonder if Ellis has every done an interview about it? I think a lot of it is real and the majority of it is a dream or some kind of drug-fueled hallucination. If I had to guess, I'd say that he really did kill the guy he thinks is Paul Owen, but the rest is mostly fantasy.

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kitteh

Yep. I think what makes the character so insane is this conflict between the hopeless quest for fictitious "stature" and the character's underlying morality. Yes I know it's odd to call Bateman a moral character but I think the author's voice comes through in the way Bateman seems to know that all the status symbols he's pursuing are just bullshit. The characters surrounding him are completely oblivious and don't question anything.

Read Lunar Park dammit! I don't know if you know what it's about, but without giving too much away it's semi-autobiographical so he gets an opportunity to talk in the book about American Psycho. Pretty interesting.

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Make your own path as you walk, and if you ever find footsteps before you turn away from them and continue to walk into the wilderness, where no man has been before you.
- Varg

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit.
- Beethoven

Hmmmm, intersting points. Although I do believe Jesse you may be trying to look too deep into it.

I am probably the only one however who found this book a sometimes tedious, tongue-in-cheek violent fantasy/satire. Bateman is a wonderfully absurd character, but the obsession with fashion detail, the over the top sadistic violence, the maddening character thoughts...it's so wild and backhanded it borders on such that it is hard to believe. Often I found myself not accepting what was happening as really happening so much as being told as a story, like someone was trying to maybe bullshit me a little with a fantastic yarn.

Good book, but I don't see myself reading it more than once...kinda a yeah i did that, but don't need to again. I would like to give another BEE novel a try someday though.

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You turn me on when your heart is pounding
It's ecstasy when I hear you scream
I flash a knife to your paralyzed eyes
And only I will watch you die
Psychopath - on the loose

I probably am. It just seems like there's an answer right there staring at me.


Ok! Less Than Zero was going to be my next book of his though.

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kitteh

Ellis has said on many occasions that it is meant to satirize 80's shallow materialism. The fact that Bateman is so faceless and interchangeable, I think, has more to do with that. People mistake identities because they focus more on what the person is wearing than the actual person, etc... A hyperbole, sure, but an effective one.

To me the two funniest parts of the book are when they are all talking to each other on telephones trying to decide what restaurant to go to, and when Bateman cuts one chick's head off, gets a raging hard-on, and plugs the head onto his cock and walks around with it

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Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun. - Ash.

When a whore is too ugly to be a stripper and too lazy to be a prostitute she becomes a dominatrix. - Dick Masterson.

This is my Signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My Signature, without me, is useless. Without my Signature, I am useless

Oh it's definitely a biting satire.

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You turn me on when your heart is pounding
It's ecstasy when I hear you scream
I flash a knife to your paralyzed eyes
And only I will watch you die
Psychopath - on the loose

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/47587-american-psycho-at-20-catching-up-with-bret-easton-ellis.html

Interview with Ellis on the 20th anniversary of American Psycho.

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kitteh

just finished the book a few minutes ago, i read it in 4 days, pretty good for me. loved it.

im pretty sure it's happening the whole time, certain details just seem hazy and crazy because the dude is on Halcion and Xanax all day. the woman who refurbishes Owen's apartment, the wanted poster downtown, basically confirm that he is a bloodthirsty lunatic.

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suspected hostile.... target acquired

My favorite chapter was "Whitney Huston".

By the second "Girls" chapter, I knew this was going to get nutty. Loved the book. It's black satire if anything. I've read other Ellis books and they are in a similar style of critiquing not only genres, but what is mod. The Bateman family shows up in a few others - Patrick's brother is in The Rules of Attraction. I have never read it, but I believe both of them appear in Glamorama.

Any time anyone wants to read my 25 page paper on Sacrificial violence in American Psycho and The Wrestler, let me know

I finished this last week.



It was pretty good but basically Less Than Zero-lite. Ellis is very good at creating utterly reprehensible characters.

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kitteh

^ I didn't like that one much. Also didn't like Imperial Bedrooms much. You read Lunar Park yet?

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Make your own path as you walk, and if you ever find footsteps before you turn away from them and continue to walk into the wilderness, where no man has been before you.
- Varg

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit.
- Beethoven

No.

It seemed like he was trying to recreate the feel from Less Than Zero and it just felt forced. Plus it was a bunch of short stories which is just playing it safe all around. I don't have much interest in Imperial Bedrooms and it doesn't have the highest ratings anywhere either. I didn't think Less Than Zero needed a sequel.

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kitteh

Yeah a lot of his stuff feels that way to me too. I don't like Rules of Attraction much for the same reason. Aside from American Psycho, I think Glamorama and Lunar Park are the best because they actually tell a story as opposed to vignettes of degenerate assholes.

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Make your own path as you walk, and if you ever find footsteps before you turn away from them and continue to walk into the wilderness, where no man has been before you.
- Varg

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit.
- Beethoven

I really didn't care for Less Than Zero all that much either. It was an okay read though.

I really liked the rawness of it.

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kitteh

i think i'm going to read that this year.

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"prison ain't so bad, you can make sangria in the terlet. 'course it's shank or be shanked''"

Ellis contemplates a sequel to Psycho:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/13/bret-easton-ellis-american-psycho-sequel

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kitteh

i like how weird he can get when he steps out of his 'degenerate asshole' motif. glamorama and lunar park are also my favorites aside from american psycho. looking forward to the glamorama film.

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suspected hostile.... target acquired

I started to read Lunar Park but it's like an autobiography or something and he talks about books of his I haven't read yet, so I'm shelving it for a while.

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kitteh

its not much of an autobiography, its still mostly fiction despite how it reads in the first few chapters.

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suspected hostile.... target acquired

Yeah the references to the other books pretty much end after the first few pages, and don't really have anything to do with the rest of the book, and it definitely stops being autobiographical

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Make your own path as you walk, and if you ever find footsteps before you turn away from them and continue to walk into the wilderness, where no man has been before you.
- Varg

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit.
- Beethoven

Oh ok, I wasn't sure.

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kitteh