American Psycho
Since I had the day off (and I could barely walk on account of the soreness) I spent several hours finishing off Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho. I found it… disturbing, to say the least. At one point today, I actually said aloud to the cat: “But I thought porn was banned in Australia?” According to Wikipedia, this book is “classified R18” in Australia and should be “sold shrink-wrapped” only to those above 18 years of age. (The state of Queensland bans it entirely.) Um, I bought my used and well-thumbed copy for $1.50 from a CHURCH BOOK FAIR. Did they not know what they were selling me? Or is it a conversion tool, meant to scare unwary readers into a religious epiphany? Because that might work.I was expecting more obvious black humor (from the glimpses I had of the movie trailer, I guess), and I spent most of the first half of the book waiting for him to, you know, actually kill somebody. He kept mentioning it to his oblivious friends, and I started to think maybe we wouldn’t actually “see” any of the violence. It was all just business suits and brand names and Genesis discographies. Yeah, then it kicked in. And each attack got worse and worse. Towards the end I was just skimming whole pages, because this is SERIOUSLY SICK STUFF. Like, the sickest you can think of. I’m still trying to work out for myself whether I think the message Ellis is trying to get across is worth wading through such muck. My googling has turned up this page of critical responses from when it was published, which helps put matters into context. This article sums up my own response pretty well. I knew that feminists hated the book, and I thought I was prepared for something “politically incorrect,” but this book crossed a line that even my “liberal-ness” finds difficult to defend. This book made me feel horrified and horrible, and I almost wish I hadn’t read it.
Just keep that in mind when you spot it on the discount table at your next church book fair…
5 responses
This book made me feel horrified and horrible…
But isn’t that the point? I mean, I don’t know because I haven’t read it, but I always understood that to be the idea, that the story is a moral tale, right?
Yikes! Glad I stuck with the movie and not the book. ……….SPOILER………………………………..from the movie, the ending gave me the impression that all of it was in his own head, and that he hadn’t actually killed anyone.
I felt the same way about Lolita- obviously, I knew a little about the plot but I was under the impression that it was this great example of literature about a young vixen seducing some poor old sap. Turns out it’s not like that at all….essentially, it’s about a man who kidnaps his step-daughter, keeps her prisoner, and repeatedly rapes her. I’m not normally the squeamish type, but it creeped me out so much that I didn’t finish reading it.
Ah, see, Lolita I actually liked, Eileen. I wonder how much of that had to do with seeing the movie first, and how much I like Jeremy Irons. Maybe seeing this movie (given how much I like Christian Bale) would make a difference.
The problem is that making me feel horrible is *all* it did, Brittanie. Movie about the Holocaust make you feel bad too, but there’s usually some deeper meaning. I’m just not sure in this one. Bateman often thinks of himself as completely empty and vacant inside, and that’s kind of the effect of the story too. (Apparently the movie *does* give the whole thing a point, something about male vanity and macho culture. Which might be interesting, but definitely isn’t the thrust of the book.)
RT: Yeah, there are a few clues that maybe it’s all in his head… but I’m not sure it makes any difference to my reaction. I still had to read and suffer through everything. And the level of detail involved… at the very least, we’re still talking about a very sick human being, even if he is making it all up.
I preferred the movie to the book, Eileen’s comment about it all being in his head, thats what I got from the movie too.
(see you should have bought ‘Magician’ lol!)
mmm I read this book when it came out having read less than zero and another one I can’t remember the name for and it freaked me out a good deal. It is a real horror story and whether of not it’s in his head it really doesn’t matter because you have to experience all these horrible things that he is fantasizing about. It made me cry in parts, which is what happens when i get really upset with violence.
I think Ellis is misogyny masquerading as social commentary. I don’t even know if he’s published another book but I’ll not read anymore anyway. Self preservation.
Lolita was a surprise to me too. I’ve seen the Krubrick movie and read the book one summer, you know, inspired by the whole young girl on the lawn being all cotquetish… it was a surprise but i didn’t find it horrible, I found it far more intresting in terms of the characters and how they develop and how you start to learn more and more about them and how they feel about what is happening to them.
American Psycho on the other hand really doesn’t give you any insight into why this guy is such a revolting person. At least i didn’t get that, but perhaps I had just recoiled so far i couldn’t see the subtle lessons….