Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Killer or No?, 29 May 2005
I think it is a common and understandable mistake to assert that Patrick Bateman does not "actually" kill in the book, and to cite as evidence for this the fact that no one is reported missing after their deaths, and that people Patrick has supposedly killed are spotted at parties, etc. In fact, this evidence is misleading. To take American Psycho as part of a major arc of fiction by Ellis, we see that in ALL of his books there are cases of identity-confusion, or in fact the total loss of individual identity altogether. Even within American Psycho itself, Bateman is often mistaken for other people, and other people mistaken for Bateman or for other other people! This is simply because Ellis is satirising the fact that all 20-something Wall Street wannabe Yuppies in the 80s looked and sounded the same - they all aspired to the Gordon Gecko look (itself an image that started as satire and achieved aspirational iconic status much to its creator, Oliver Stone's, horror). So when people tell Patrick they have seen his "victims" alive and well at restaurants after their supposed deaths, the suggestion is that they are truly dead, but will never be missed because they were never identifiable or memorable individually anyway. It is a soulless universe where lives are as interchangable as ties or handbags. As I said, this continues a major theme in Brett Easton Ellis' other novels Less Than Zero and Rules of Attraction, where again people often claim to have seen characters in places we know they have no been because of this identity confusion (in these cases the blond, tanned, slim, muscular, vacant Californian pretty boys are the "clones"). This theme continues through Glamorama and into the wonderful short story collection The Informers, to the point where a father does not even recognise whether a figure through a window is his son, his son's boyfriend, or any one of a million such "boys". Better evidence for Bateman's violence being as imaginary as his success is the mythical/movie-like escape from imminent police capture. This echoes Bateman's addiction to cheap action movies and cable TV shows, and shows his narcissism and self-aggrandisement in equal measure. This is a great book, one of the true greats. That is why it is loved and hated so ferociously. And as a reviewer says above, if a book is so dark it forces you to feel repulsed or even look away, it has achieved a state very little art still can in our desensitised times. Power like that is very hard to achieve in print.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
fantastically written, but hard to read, 25 Aug 2001
Only very few people will be gripped by this book in the same way as other comparable novels (Fight Club springs to mind with its similar satirical twinges, and with it being on the side of my screen), mainly due to the often monotonous tone of the lengthy passages reffering to all manner of trivial thoughts running through the protaganists mind. Many of the previous reviews complained about this, calling it boring, and an over-used technique. They are, of course, wrong, and I, of course, am right. These repetitive monologues are the defining force in hammering down Bateman's shallow, and often confused persona, as well as satirising the eighties yuppie perfectly - creating a character that believes he knows what good taste is, believes it to be incredibly important to have it, thinks he has it, thinks that other people thinks that he has it, and yet is misleading himself completely, and in doing so, tells the reader exactly how superficial (sp?) people in situations similar to Bateman's were. Unfortunately, despite being, in my humble opinion, a classic of modern fiction in telling a truly tragic tale in a unique manner, in doing so the book has become a very daunting prospect. The first time I read it, the first few hundred pages bored me completely, and only the murders actually held my attention particularly well. However, coming back to it with a will to really take the book in (btw watching the film Wall Street before hand is a help in understanding the true nature of Bateman and the eighties) helped me to appreciate it more fully. I can't say that I understand the book completely even now, unlike some of the others I am not convinced with the wholly fantastical ending, or even the true relevance of Patrick's relationship with Evelyn. A previous reviewer said that he read it while on the train. I do not recommend this. Sit down in a quiet room and focus all your attention on the book (cliched maybe, but you'll apprectiate it). It may well suck you right in.Some find the content of this book amazing, some disgusting. I say it is both, but the literary panache will take some beating. An excellent book.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hm., 31 Mar 2005
I read this book before I read any reviews. I saw it on the shelf in Waterstones, opened it up and began reading from the restaurant scene, where our hero is drawing someone's intestines and says to his girlfriend that it's a 'watermelon'. So I bought it. It was incredibly long, tedious at times and was a real grind to read - but I suspected it would get better and it did. That is, if gory description is your thing. It is mine, only because I've never come across an author who has written it so beautifully. There was none of the 'PC' subtlety that exists in so many books, and I think that worked well for this novel. When I talked about aspects of it with a friend she said that the reason there are so many dull and repetitive scenes is because Ellis is trying to wear us down; my mind literally began to throb about half way through the book, and I think that is how the main character is feeling too - Numb, bored, out of touch, frustrated. If you consider the descriptions in the book and how you are feeling while reading it, you get a pretty accurate idea of what Ellis is trying to convey. I think a lot of people have missed this because they expect a book to be exciting, to have their hearts racing all the time -- which is a fair expectation. But that's why American Psycho is so clever; It's heavy handed, and so is the world. It's raw and obscene, and so is the world. But most people say 'That's life' to the world and rant and rave about a book. I don't agree with those who say it is childish or adolescent. Far from it. I think there is a psuedo etiquette flying around, which says anything that describes gore is automatically tasteless, when that isn't the case. If the context is considered as well as the very much apparent point of the novel, then the gore fits very neatly in to place. I was totally repulsed by it, and I'm glad - because it means I'm reading a book powerful enough to have a physical effect. Not a lot of writers can do that.
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