American Psycho

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Summary: PSYCHOSIS AS A METAPHOR FOR HOSTILE TAKEOVER?
Review: Psychosis as a metaphor for greed, lust, selfishness, ego, and the American Dream mutated into Nightmare? I love the idea of a Neo-Conservative young Republican turned psychopath. But these tendencies fit more into the category of sociopath than psychotic. And the line that's crossed is a bit of a stretch. I'd be curious to know whether the data supports successful people harboring any psychotic tendencies. There is no exposition into Patrick Bateman's past. Are psychotics made? Or is there a chemical imbalance? Or both? Did Ellis research any of this? I doubt it. This is still a fascinating and brilliant satire that had me laughing and at times nauseated. I could not put this book down.

REGARDING THE VIOLENCE: Writers tend to write about what they know. If the Authorities have read this book, why haven't they searched under Bret Easton Ellis' house? I know I would. Just kidding. The descriptions of satanic brutality, and destruction of women in this tome are so shocking they made me physically ill at times. No normal human mind could conceive these nightmare descriptions of savaging people, and not be a little bit warped. I hope your in therapy Bret!! And I hope certain sick individuals don't use this book as a guide for some of their own twisted fantasies. This book straddles the line of exploitation.

AMAZING, NONE THE LESS!!

ONLY PEOPLE WITH STABLE PSYCHES SHOULD EVEN ATTEMPT THIS BOOK.

NOW I HAVE TO DESTROY MY COPY SO IT DOESN'T FALL INTO THE HANDS OF ANY CHILDREN.

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Summary: This novel is BETTER than the hype
Review: I'm always amazed at people who attack this novel for its violence and its gore. They call it gratuitous wothout understanding that the violence in central to the themes. In many ways, it reminds me of the way people attack Brian Caldwell's We All Fall Down for including so much horrible gore and violence in his novel about the end of the world. Well, how could you possibly depict the end of the world without the violence? How can you do justice to the theme of spiritual hollowness and the most horrible time in mankinds history without making it seem horrible? this is not a slash and kill novel, but a novel that speaks of deeper truths which it displays through the use of violence. If anything, books like American Psycho and We All Fall Down are the antithisis of gratuitous violence in that their presence is absolutely central to the theme rather than simply existing to titilate.

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Summary: a true american psycho
Review: I have never read any thing like this book.This was a vary twisted story of a man name patrick bateman living out his own american dream ,at least in his eyes. i had never heard of this book before, until i bought it for my sister.Out of sher curiosity one day i decide to pick it up and just read a little.but the thing is once you start to read it you just cant put it down.if you enjoy a sick twisted story line, or pure voilence, i suggest this book for you. a great story that keeps you on the edge of your seat.A good book for a mature audiance. Read it and you will see why they call it,"American Psycho".

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Summary: Disturbing
Review: I read this book out of pure curiosity when I heard that the film version of the book was going to be released in 2000. I knew very little about the book except that it caused quite a bit of controversy. While reading the book, I immediately became immersed in the disturbing yet ordinary (as ordinary as one can be in the public) character of Patrick Bateman. I was intrigued but at the same time appalled by what I read. Many times I had to re-read passages because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Although there is a lot of violence, vulgarity, and frightening behavior, there is some humor that will catch you off guard, especially Patrick's almost obsessive attention to detail and process. It is scary to think that there are people like Patrick out there in the world, but without books like this showing us the darker side of life, we would all be living in a dream world.

This book is clearly not for everyone, but I would recommend it to those who are interested in reading something out of norm that leaves you a little unsettled but also intrigued.

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Summary: Easton's stab at ironic horror
Review: I read this book twice, when first pubished and recently. At the first reading I had to make a decision on whether I wanted to finish American Psycho or just say, ok, I get it, I get it, there's lots of trashy white people that have lots of money and leverage it as power. I get the obsessive irony, the faux humor, the gruesome killings where sometimes said humor is also injected. Having finished the book it left me cold. Nihilism for the sake of it doesn't work for me. Worse, if I read another Gen-X book I might go postal.

But there are things that make American Psycho either annoying or enthralling based on your perspectives. The almost numbing attention to detail. If there's a item of clothing it can not be called a sweater, nor a red sweater, nor a tailor made fit in a classic design, a sweater trancending time with it's burgandy warmth and form fitting shoulders.

Even the last example of description, a intentionally poor style of writing makes Ellis' description and attention to detail as viewed through his anti-hero's mind seem terse. It's about a nut and his skewed look on life, I get it, I get it. And every so often let's throw in some gruesome violence to punctuate that point. Let's once again do a Bret Easton Ellis deconstruction on wealth in the hands of the children of yuppie scum. I get it, I get it!

The violence in American Psycho is some of the most disturbing I've read although that is actually a compliment. At times the uber-degeneracy is wildly creative. The problem is there are no sympathetic characters, just a bunch of self involved drifting souls that live hedonistic lives and are depraved or indifferent. Ok Bret, I get it!

After many years I revisited the world of Justin Bateman and still find the satire of spoiled kids now spoiled whining adults annoying. Ellis is a good writer and makes his case well in American Psycho. I knew people like the ones populating American Psycho and Ellis' prior novels.

What I don't like in his writing is his two dimensional characters, characters that could easily be him. American Psycho's themes are old and the book's approach is creative but there is nothing to connect to here, nothing close to a sympathetic character and nothing resembling anything beyond a melting down narrarator's perspective on the cheapening of life, vacuity of emotions or any view close to human. Even psychopaths have their moments, but not in this over the top book.

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Summary: Clever, but not a revelation.
Review: The most delightful aspect of American Psycho is the fact that it makes fun of the very people who elevated it to cult status and discussed its relative merit at their cocktail parties. Ellis' caricatures of numbed, shallow yuppie life are apt and hilarious without being vulgarly so. His hypothermic writing style and his weakness for namedropping and lists of all kinds make the novel as slick and deliberately two-dimensional as an ad in a glossy magazine. The juxtaposition with violence so extreme it's surreal (Un chien Andalou on cocaine) works just fine in hammering the message in. But here's the problem: how much is this message really worth? We are all disconnected and increasingly emotionally depleted? Sex and violence are our last strenuous attempt at achieving emotional intensity? Duh. This is clever and well-made shock theater, not a revelation. The violence does to us what it's supposed to do, but the lowliness of what Ellis actually has to tell us renders it gratuitous. If you have to make us sick, please attach a bigger idea.

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Summary: Blue Balls
Review: This book had an amazing feel, charactors, and pacing. However, as the real problem lies in that there is no real plot to it. I kept on waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. This book is the literary equivelent of getting blue balls. Also, a lot of plot twists didn't make very much sense.

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Summary: A Way Out
Review: ...that's all Pat Bateman wanted, a way out of his excessive lifestyle. People can trash this book and put a label on it as crude and disgusting. But beneath the bare bones of this book, is an hilarious satire of the 1980's Wall Street style. The main character of this book spends his time at the almost fanciest places in New York and day-dreaming about murdering innocent people. By doing this he creates a "way out" of his terrible life style. Bateman was a harmless yuppie filled with perverse thoughts and greed. Fuled by the "always having to be the best" attitude in society, he tries to use this as an exit from his real life, all he really needed was as the beatles once said "all you need is love". Beneath the bare bones of Pat Bateman was a man who could not take it any more, someone who tried to standup, but then decided screw it. Maybe if he played catch with his dad ad a kid this wouldntve happened. This is how I'm going to live, renting movies, getting into the best restaraunts, oredering the most bizarre food,having the nicest clothes, and thinking about killing people, all of this he uses as a means to get out. We get a look at how people dont even listen anymore and only care about their thoughts or they pretend it did'nt happen. Beautifully written and with such a great author as Ellis, you have nothing to lose, except your lunch, beware of disturbing sexual descriptions. In the end we get a unique look at the 80's from a wanna-be serial killer.

Rating:
Summary: A shorter novel would have sufficed
Review: I find it hard to join the group of people who consider this Ellis' best novel; not that I am an Ellis expert but this would not be anybody's best effort. At first I found the book to be expert satire about the go-go 80's, but as the book went on, I grew weary of the endless clothing descriptions, the graphic sex and the just as graphic violence. I got the point early on in the novel, and frankly as the book goes on and the clothing descriptions do not end, it starts to show a lack of imagination. I never thought it would be possible to be so bored by a book with such a premise, but I did. Strictly for hardcore (no pun intended) fans.

Rating:
Summary: Good book, if you can handle it
Review: I am by no means squeamish. I've read some of the darkest and most disturbing novels ever written (I prefer them, actually), and I tend to gravitate towards the macabre in every aspect of life. It doesn't help my sleep or my opinions on humankind, but this relentless investigation of the ugliest corners of the human spirit has at least made it possible for me to stomach some of the more gruesome photographs and descriptions of catastrophe I've come across... Or so I thought.

American Psycho is, without a doubt, the most sickeningly gruesome book I have ever read. It relentlessly describes the most disturbing and disgusting acts I have ever heard of in perfectly analytical and brutal prose, to the point that I truly wanted to stop reading the book because of it - and, to some degree, I still wish I hadn't read it.

The problem is, American Psycho is a very good book on several different levels. It's engrossing, well-written, and serves as a fairly apt metaphor for the shallowness of the eighties (or the upper-crust businessmen of any decade, for that matter). The story is fairly easy to sum up: Patrick Bateman, a New York executive with a six-figure salary and a designer lifestyle, is secretly a homicidal maniac in his spare time, and as the story progresses he spirals deeper and deeper into his own madness and bloodlust. His acquaintances (he has no real friends) are all so completely materialistic and absorbed by outdoing each other on every level that they are totally oblivious to the fact that Bateman is psychotic, even when he makes it fairly obvious to them. This aspect of the story is often very amusing and serves as a respite from the horribly revolting and graphic murders that occur with increasing frequency throughout the book.

From purely a technical standpoint, Ellis is an excellent writer. While you may get sick of the constant and exhaustive description of every brand name item of clothing every character wears, it is relatively easy to skim over these parts as the book goes on, and they are an important reminder of the two obsessions in Bateman's life: death and status. The dialogue always has a clever snap to it that that emphasizes the moral vacuum each person operates in without overdoing it to the point of being redundant or ludicrous. In fact, the best compliment I could give Mr. Ellis' writing is that it makes you want to continue reading the book even though you truly don't want to know what horrid form of torture and execution is waiting for you next.

All of this being said, I really can't come to a conclusion as to whether to recommend the book or not. Anyone who was ever even slightly squeamish in their life, ever, would do best to give this book a wide berth, as would anyone who would rather not read a book that gives them nightmares or makes them sick to their stomach. Still, if you can manage to make it through the lurid murder scenes, you'll find this book to be quite good and one that you will think about for long after you've read it, whether you want to or not.