American Psycho

Rating:
Summary: Under all the hyperbole...
Review: For all the histrionics this book has inspired, the real shock is in how naggingly average it is. Under the sensationalism and desensitizing comic-book gore, American Psycho is a rambling, overlong, inconsistent, and ridiculously broad bit of satire that goes after some very easy targets. It's very funny in places, I enjoyed the systematic exposure of the narrator's immature fantasy world, and the uniform regurgitative prose really hits a mesmerizing groove at times, but it's utter lack of subtlety or nuance keeps it from inspiring the existential unease that Ellis perhaps intends it to.

Patrick Bateman's entire narrative, from his encyclopedic obsession with clothing and personal grooming, to his increasingly outlandish dining habits, to his hilariously vapid music reviews, to his pornography/daytime TV addled fantasies of sexual violence, is revealed as the idle regurgitation of an utter cipher. It uniformly reads like out-of-context excerpts from GQ, Zagat's, or amateur pornography, utterly devoid of emotion, taste, or individuality. Bateman's Wall Street job is a front for his inherited wealth, his good looks are bland and interchangable, his sex life is frustrating and banal, and even his apparent insanity starts to seem like a lazy fakery. It's established, then, that Patrick Bateman is a contemptible, bigoted loser with awful taste in music, and American Psycho has a great deal of fun detailing that fact.

But what beyond that? The particulars of Bateman's life, views, and supposed exploits are too cartoonish to effectively satire misogyny, 80's materialism, or much of anything else. The outlandishly alien quality of his world prevents any identification with or even sympathy for any of the characters. The self-conciously monotonous prose, while intermittently funny, never evokes the existential void of, say, Nausea or even Less Than Zero. So what we're left with is a largely sterile book with *gasp* not a great deal to say.

Open minded (and tough-stomached) readers may find an entertaining and occasionally sharp bit of satire, or if you're the literal minded sort who likes being offended this'll do, but don't expect anything spectacular either way. Disappointing, really.

Rating:
Summary: The life of a rich and sick individual in the 80's.
Review: Bret Easton Ellis brings us into the world of Patrick Bateman; A 26 year old individual who works on Wall Street, who goes to expensive dinners with fellow co-workers who talk about Evian water, The Patty Winters Show, 'I am wearing Gucci loafers, an Armani suit, and a silk Ralph Lauren tie.' talk, teasing homeless people with his AmEx card asking them if they accept them, having orgies with prostitutes, renting videos, working out at Xclusives, doing coke, and slaying innocent people for his own sick and demented pleasures.
He seems like a normal person in the first 100 pages, but once you get past the first BORING 100 pages, then get ready for some of the graphic violence you have never even imagined! What is going through this man's head is just plain sick, and he has a very racist mind when it comes to other races. Patrick Bateman in other words is very crazy; he is not just another crazy killer; no. Patrick Bateman protrays a normal yuppie in the 80's, but beyond the Gucci loafers, and good looks is one of the most sickest minds ever created by a American author. I am not saying that this is the most boring novels ever written, it is the most original novel to come out in decades. Even the gory scenes would sicken the fans of Stephen King and any other horror purist out there; Rob Zombie and Scott Ian of Anthrax would love the gory scenes in this novel. The thing is that this is not a horror novel, it does not fall into the horror category, it falls into a category of one that Bret Easton Ellis created when he wrote this conversational novel over ten years ago; it came out in 1991, but his former publisher decided not to print it because of the scenes soft of like Mel Gibson's 'The Passion Of The Christ' where it depicts Jesus having his hands nailed to the cross. It is depicted in this novel where Bateman does crucify a prostitute on this floor thanks to his nail gun.
So is this novel just full of violence? yes, but it also depicts life in the 80's and how we live in a destructive culture, and that we are not a destructive species.

Rating:
Summary: materialism, morality, and murder
Review: After looking over a number of other people's reviews, there are a lot of references to people missing "the point" of this book, but no one seems to want to say what the point is, or maybe my attention span isn't long enough.

In my interpretation, this book is essentially a critique of the materialism of the 1980s, of a society that focuses too much on surfaces, on the image alone and not what's underneath. Thus, the obsessive references to what people are wearing, how much money they have, where they work, etc. etc., essentially their place in the social pecking order.

The main character, a psycopathic yuppie murderer, is a product of such a society in the sense that he can get away with senseless murder, rape, whatever he wants, simply because he has the requisite "image," simply because he has the correct superficial appearance, because no one in such a materialistic, image-conscious society will look at what's underneath--i.e. whether he's even a decent human being.

The book is not without problems.
(1) It's very repetitive, obsessively making materialistic references.
(2) It's also not for the faint of heart, obviously. However, the interpretation of this book as a bunch of senseless violence and gore and sex is a superficial reading of the book, because it's not only about that, as indicated above, although Ellis is clearly broadening his audience by including all that.
(3) Maybe most dammingly, Ellis has a knack for [intentionally] making his caracters void of humanity, and this book is no exception. So if you're expecting to empathize with the characters or find character development or a shred of humanity in anyone, you're looking at the wrong book. But if you want to get a message about society hammered into your head, read on.

Rating:
Summary: THE book of my life
Review: I've said on numerous occasions that the book I just read might be the best book that I've ever come across to. But always, afterwards, and after reading yet another book, I've taken my words back.

Not after reading American Psycho. I think I just met the greatest single novel I've ever seen. It's such a fine piece of literature it makes me mad with jealousy.

There's not a single aspect in American Psycho that doesn't please me. Ellis is a marvellous writer and the main character Patrick Bateman is truly captivating. Despite all his racist opinions you actually dig the guy, until he commits yet another barbaric act of murder. And then you feel pity, you are afraid of him, you hope that he doesn't repeat what he's just done, only to find out next time will be worse.

What many critics have failed to do is to see beneath the gory and porn-filled surface, to see the satire, the strong criticism of the 80's yuppie lifestyle, the community which init's all surface no feeling -ideology allows monsters such as Bateman to exist.

AP consist basically of descriptions of horror, sex and expensive products--which some people have found simply boring, I loved it--and dialogue often so funny you can't help but laugh aloud.

There was not one moment I didn't like American Psycho. At times I was disgusted as hell, but all of it fits into the story perfectly and seamlessly, and as a whole AP is something I'll probably read again in no time.

Which is my personal record, by the way, as there are few books that I've read twice...

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious
Review: A great, effective book. Ellis tailors his style perfectly to fit the task at hand. While the endless repetitions of Armani, Blass et al. felt overdone initially, I eventually fell into the rhythm and found myself surprised and amused to see Bateman applying the same attention to detail when committing dismemberments and dissections. In a way, such a single-minded hyper-functional style is the finest expression of the ultimate moral emptiness of the book's plot and it's emphasis on appearance over content.

Something which seems to be overlooked in other reviews is how goddamn funny the book is. I had to take care where I would read the thing, since it's a touchy enough matter to be seen reading American Psycho, to say nothing about laughing out loud at it. Ellis is a brilliant writer of dialogue, and the dynamics between the mergers and aquisitions crowd and their incessant bickering about all things GQ make for undeniably comic scenes. And Bateman's incredibly out of place rave about Phil Collins and Genesis is probably the most innovative piece of black comedy I've ever seen.

Yet Ellis employs his humor to heighten the overall sensation of discomfort evoked by the book. There is a certain unease that comes from reading American Psycho generally, but if a reader buys into Ellis's humor, they also must reckon with the realization of what it is they have been laughing at.

A sick and brilliant exercise in form, function, and comedy.

Rating:
Summary: Yeah...
Review: I recently read this for the third time and I still think it is a great book. It makes me wonder what happened to this guy. He wrote a few very good books and then he just disappeared. Maybe because of all the protests? I don't know. Anyone who is offended by this book must be pretty stupid. Just because he wrote a book like this doesn't mean he is a pervert or a psychopath. It just means that he is a great writer and that he can create interesting characters from the most pervered and sadistic pparts of his subconscious and make them into very memorable characters like Patrick Bateman. Anyway, this book is excellent and I highly reccomend it to anyone who thinks that hey are strong enough to handle It I suppose. (P.S. avoid the movie..it is awful)

Rating:
Summary: The numbing of the American youth
Review: I greatly fear that many people will dismiss Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho off hand because of the notoriously sadistic tendencies of its main charachter Patrick Bateman. Although filled with gruesome depictions of murder, torture, and rape, American Psycho is not a tale about a crazed mass murder tormenting the Upper West Side as the Hollywood movie may depict. Rather, the book takes us within the mind of an extremely disturbed individual, a man brought up in a seemingly stable household (Ellis insinuates throughout the book that Bateman comes from old money) yet grows into a homicidal maniac devoid of emotion and feeling. Left calloused by the harsh, competitive environment that emerged with Ronald Reagan in the eighties and the stark inequality of wealth that followed, Bateman is alienated by his surroundings. He is devoid of all emotion and feeling. The world in which he lives is a cold, heartless one. Although cliched, its citizens are encompassed by an endless, mindless marathon to accumulate more "things" than their neighbor, their thinking is egocentric, driven by greed and appearances. Although Bateman is the extreme, all of us, especially those who have grown up in the last twenty years have been desensitized by the numerous images of hate, violence, beatings, and western-like shootouts that grace our television screens each night. Hollywood has glorified infidelity, made pill-popping sexy, and instilled in us a defense mechanism to numb our senses and emotions to the extent that we will not allow ourselves to be affected by any iamge, any event, or anyone in fear of disappointment or heartbreak. We no longer find refuge in a loved one or a quiet Sunday by oneself. Everything is fast-paced, short-lived, and vivid. The result is a world in which Patrick Bateman lives, a world in which we all live. We are on a quest to accumulate material possessions, finding relief from our stress through mindless shopping and violence. Our environment has calloused us to our surroundings. In order to cope with reality we must avoid it at all costs.

Rating:
Summary: Dressed to impress on a trip to nowhere
Review: Bret Easton Ellis is a master at describing the anomie of end of the 20th century, but nowhere is that anomie more disturbingly brought to life than in "American Psycho". The book raised a firestorm when it was due to be released; feminists condemned it as misogynistic trash, and when it was finally published, it was in a trade paperback version because the publisher which was to publish the hardcover version pulled it to avoid all the controversy. All hell will probably break loose when the movie comes out, if it is in any way true to the book. Ellis gives us Yuppie Manhattan in full effect, where the only things that count are money and designer labels; real people are faceless nonentities with interchangeable names, everyone seems to have a Peter Pan complex, dreading the inexorable approach of the big 3-0, and the defining characteristic of the time is it's all-encompassing materialism. The anti-hero of "American Psycho", Patrick Bateman, is a serial killer with a penchant for torturing and murdering young women in a quest to give his empty existence some meaning. Bateman is perfect on the surface; he's young (26), handsome, expensively dressed, lives in a trendy condo on the trendy Upper West Side, makes six figures on Wall Street, and can reel off designer names at the drop of a hat. He can glance at anyone for a split second and tell who designed each item of his or her visible apparel. Bateman's life is so devoid of meaning that he thinks all this superficial knowledge actually matters. He can't love anyone, including himself; he treats friends, lovers and acquaintances with equal contempt; and he is totally devoid of compassion, tenderness, remorse, warmth, or anything remotely resembling a conscience. If he has a date with a young woman, it may or may not end in his torturing her to death; as he comments early in the book, "This is simply the way the world -- my world -- moves." The book was indicted mainly on account of its shock value, and some of the murders are so revolting that you'll want to reach for the Alka-Seltzer. But murder and mayhem aside, the spiritually empty, shallow and soulless people portrayed in "American Psycho" pretty much represent the spiritual emptiness, shallowness and soullessness of the 1980s. Ellis overdid the blood and gore, and... the relentless recitation of designer names does become wearying after the first fifty pages, but again, this only serves to emphasize the numbing emptiness of Bateman's inner self. "American Psycho" is a telling portrait of an age of material excess when nothing that really matters, mattered.

Rating:
Summary: Let me "axe" you this . . .
Review: One review I read of this book ranted about Ellis's ability to play on the morbidity and gross-out factor of the current American mind. I find this even more disturbing that the actual book. Do you think anyone would spend the amount of time and energy it takes to create something as detailed and horrific as this book, only for purposes of "cashing in?" I've known several authors and not one of them would do that. You think long and hard before you put something to print, knowing full well that it will follow you around for the rest of your life. That said, this book is not for everyone. But what it IS, is a modern masterpiece that will surely change the face of literature as we know it. The book establishes the characters as faceless noveau-riche (one person is constantly mistaken for another) and we see life directly through the eyes of Bateman, who's slowly sinking into the depths of life as a psychotic murderer. He describes all things in minute detail from his clothes, music, workout routine and equipment and the people he associates with. Conversely, he also describes the brutal rape, torture and murder/dismemberment of his arbitary victims and trys to draw conclusions of what life really means from all this. The reader is purely along just for the ride here and I for one enjoyed this perspective. Notwithstanding the ending (viewed as a disappointment by most reviewers), I thought that Ellis presented a compelling story and one that needed to be told. Indeed, these personalities are undoubtedly ensconced in our society and continue to wreak havoc daily (read any big city newspaper crime section) and by describing Bateman's life the way he did, Ellis shows that this portion of society continues to exist. I think that this is the underlying message here and to me it becomes clear fairly early in the book. The only other book I can think of that is so graphic (and that's only in one chapter) is McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood" where the infant is raped. The rest of the book is funny, off-setting that scene so that by the time you get to it, you're completely blown away. But "American Psycho" achieves that kind of intense and showy stuff most of the way through. It's one big metaphor and should be thought about long and hard. Bottomline? Read this book, but go into it knowing that you're bound (hopefully) to be disturbed.

Also reommended: A Clockwork Orange and Bark of the Dogwood

Rating:
Summary: A Depiction of Vacuous Materialism at it's Worst
Review: Patrick Bateman embodies the epitome of American materialism and consumerism. Furthermore, he is proof that one can have it all, monetarily speaking, and yet still have insatiable desires. Alas, money is definitely not everything. He's a mere pawn at the hands of corporate America whose existence is truly devoid of real substance. When not working on wallstreet, club hopping, or buying designer label items, Patrick Bateman lives an alternate lifestyle. During the day, he seems like any other normal man trying to make a living in Manhattan. His personal life, however, is extremely morbid and quite gruesome.

Ellis takes the reader inside the mind of the worst kind of serial killer. One who's cool, calm, collected, and yet randomly and intermittently irrational when succumbing to his desires. It's never quite clear to the reader what Bateman's motives are, nor is it at all evident that he understands his motives himself. This certainly serves to enhance this blatantly disturbing experience. Furthermore, the melodramatic first-person narrative is overtly passive, making it all the more unsettling.

The author does a wonderful job in this novel of depicting some of societies shortcomings. Our materialistic society is so wrapped up in fashion and technology that it's disgusting. In addition, we live in a world where violence is so commonplace that we've become numb to so much of it. Ellis uses Bateman's torturous murders to mirror these trends. With each killing, Bateman becomes more and more violent and gruesome. The same old style fails to excite him, and new techniques need to be persued.

This novel is definitely not for the easily disturbed, as it is probably the most horrifically disgusting and disturbing book I have read. I can certainly understand why this book was so incredibly controversial when it came out. However, it is also a great piece of modern literature. My only complaint is that Ellis drills into the reader's head the concept of materialism. Bateman's descriptions of attire can make for rather tedious reading, and at times made me want to put the book down.

Also recommended: "Exquisite Corpse" by Poppy Z Brite and "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger