Rating: 
Summary: Is it this way?
Review: After reading a large number of reviews on this book, it seems to me that in one sense, at least, the novel functions as the literary equivalent of a gigantic ink-blot test. What you go into it expecting is exactly what you get out. If you read it thinking it's going to be about sex and violence, you will tend to believe in and concentrate on those parts. If you want to be horrified, you will be. However, if you want to find the real meaning for yourself, you will. For me it was this: This book allows us to watch a terrifically warped person slowly unravel around him in the moral vacuum of mid-80's Manhattan elite society. I personally believe all or most of the violence in the book happened in Bateman's head, and only occasionally manifested itself in his callous treatment of those around him. That, combined with his extremely obsessive nature, leads him gently on his spiral down into complete madness. The ironic thing is that this book leads the reader down into madness with Bateman. With only the occasional pause the book pulls the reader along inexorably to Bateman's tragic end. It's definitely not a primrose path, but it's a path we all need to be taken down, eventually.
Rating: 
Summary: Like an axe aimed at your forehead this book makes you take
Review: flight or fight. In terms of the writing, Ellis' prose is taut and lyrical. The subject, very disturbing but also very insightful and enlightening. Ellis has succeeded in providing so much gritty detail of Bateman's perception and interpetation of his environment, that inevitably, Bateman gets lodged in a recess of your own mind and never leaves. This is the irony, since in fact, most of this detail is delivered in terms of designer labels, slogans, inane dialogue, graffiti, etc. Ellis has done what Dostoevsky did with Raskolnikov, he's managed to create that "claustrophobic" feeling in the reader by making Bateman really really real. Certainly, there are weaknesses in Ellis' novel but even these weaknesses add to its strength. One has to be able to distinguish between the internal logic of a book and its external logic. A misogynistic protaganist does not make the book misogynistic. In fact, one of the very purposes of the book is to expose the depravity of such a person and even more than that, to link Bateman's depravity and misogyny to his own chronic and vile weakness, impotence and inanity. Ellis has gone out on a limb with American Psycho, I mean, he's broken new ground in terms of the book's literary value and its social value...truly, it's a book that is as surreal as it is real, unnerving, disturbing, hypnotic, way ahead of its time, and one of the best books I've ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Hemmingway genius
Review: A truly remarkable read ! I read it on a NYC - London and back to NYC flight. As an investment banker, i can relate to the Wall Street clubby feel of the "white picket" surface to Bateman. The grissly torture where Bateman really comes alive was deeply disturbing. Brilliant
Rating: 
Summary: Excessively stylized
Review: All of the characters are characterizations. Their preoccupations, particularly those of the narrator, are superficial and narcissistic. These are people who not only cannot relate to other people, they are people to whom other people barely exist. Each of them wanders through his solipsistic world, seeing, never connecting. Bateman can only exist emotionally when he is torturing, but the isolation of the city and the times is such that his crimes sink without a splash. The book is, in a sense, a satire, and satire is a form with inherent limitations. Satire does not take its people seriously. How then, can we?
Rating:
Summary: Amazing...the only author to tell it like it is...or was..
Review: as soon as i started reading this book, i didnt put it down... This book is an in your face look at popculture of the 80's but terribly exciting.It has everthing there should ever be in a book. Murder, love, money, greed, and wit.
Rating:
Summary: It's bone chilling, but I couldn't put it down
Review: I practically read this book straight through, stopping only to eat plain crackers and sleep fitfully. It actually gave me nightmares--and no book has done that in 10 years--but still, I couldn't stop reading. Patrick Bateman is one scary guy, primarily because he seems so normal on the surface. (Not that any one of us is truly normal.) But get below the surface and you see true psychopathic madness. Bateman doesn't know what's real and what's in his mind and he comes increasingly unglued. Possibly the most terrifying part is that there is really no way to predict who will die and who will live. Perhaps this is because Bateman himself doesn't really know. Typical of one who is so obsessive, Bateman details every bit of his life, from his expensive clothing, shoes, wallet--gazelle skin, music--Genesis, Whitney Houston, and Huey Lewis; and horrifying murder. This one will remain with me for a long time....
Rating:
Summary: I thought this was a great book. Sick but great.
Review: I thought this was an excellent portrayal of the kind of psychotic that the 1980s must have produced. It was chillingly plausible. At first I was impatient with the descriptions of what he wore & what he bought, then totally disgusted & chilled by the violence. Then I realized what a truly great book it is. You were actually inside the mind of a psychotic, one who could easily move around in society, totally lost & totally potent. You could feel his evolution. You could feel the impact of his environment. I had the feeling that many of the episodes of violence he described were either imagined, or perceived through his psychosis, so that reality was obscured for us the way it would be for him. He seemed to be a very well-researched character as every non-fiction study of a serial killer I've read depicted similar levels of egotism & schizoprehzia. I came away from the book feeling kind of filthy for having read it, but also a little wiser. I am certain there are people like this man. It was scary how personal the book seemed. I think Brett Easton Ellis is a wonderful writer, and he scares the *@!*! out of me. How someone could get inside a maniac's head like that & not be one himself I couldn't say. I disagree strongly that this book is not valuable. I think that the fact that it has drawn such strong reactions from other readers proves this. Art informs us, & forces us to look at things in ways we normally wouldn't.
Rating:
Summary: Love it ot hate it - there's only two options
Review: Me? I loved it. It's been a few years since I read it but it's not the type of thing one forgets. Definitely a landmark. BEE obviously doesn't think much of the police's deductive capabilities though - that's a weakness in the story. Love it or hate it - you should read it once. Forget filming it - the imagination is too powerful a competitor for most screenplays. Sanitisation would ruin the value of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: American Zero
Review: With all the hype surrounding this book, I was expecting something special. What a disappointment. The graphic violence is merely a distraction from the real problems that lie at the heart of this book. For example, the male characters are virtually indistinguishable from each other. And apparently to each other as well, for a recurring (and irritating) element in the book is other characters consistently mistaking Bateman for someone else. Characters also behave with maddening stupidity. In at least two instances, female victims return to Bateman after suffering prior abuse at his hands. These women are not trapped in a relationship with him: one is a hooker, and the other is an ex-girlfriend. There is no reason for them to return to Bateman other than the author's plan to slaughter them in some spectacular fashion. The carnage that follows feels contrived, and made me feel contempt for the victims. Someone out there is going to say, "But that's the point: Bateman feels contempt for them too, and Ellis is trying to make you identify with Bateman." Point taken, but am I supposed to identify with one character because of a writer's laziness in drawing another? For that matter, why would I want to identify with a man who describes a victim as "too ugly to rape"? Another fatal flaw in this book is its illogical construction. Bateman tells friends he wants to bash women's faces in; he lovingly quotes Ed Gein's remarks on murdering women; he admits to his companions that he needs to murder - and his friends and colleagues accept his behavior with amazing equanimity. No one seems disturbed to have such an obvious twisto for an acquaintance. Bateman slaughters recklessly, leaves clues everywhere, actually confesses to murders - and somehow manages not to arouse suspicion. His dry cleaner doesn't seem to notice the bloodstains on the suits Bateman brings in. The neighbors in his building don't seem to hear the screams and sounds of struggle that occur on a regular basis, or see the occasional bloodied woman leaving his apartment. (In fact, except for Tom Cruise in an improbable scene, Bateman doesn't seem to have neighbors.) No one even raises an eyebrow when he comes to a costume party covered in blood. Furthermore, at least two of Bateman's murders (including a repulsive one committed at the Central Park Zoo) qualify as high-profile cases, yet they seem to occur in a vacuum. No one notices or cares. This is completely the opposite of what would really happen if such a vicious killing spree were to occur in Manhattan. Bateman avoids detection not because of his superior intelligence, but because the author stacks the deck in his favor. The interchangeable male characters and the book's illogical construction serve to advance Ellis's theme: that in a cold, materialistic society there is virtually no line between acquisitive, sexist yuppie and psychopathic killer. This is what passes for Great Literary Wisdom among certain types of fake intellectuals, but it is not borne out by what we know about how the world really works. Ellis tries to have it both ways: he wants to make a grand statement about modern society, yet the only way he can accomplish this is to create a Manhattan that doesn't faintly resemble reality. Rumor has it that this book has been optioned for a movie. I hope the screenwriter can do a better job of creating a plausible storyline.
Rating:
Summary: Exeter grad becomes Charles Manson wearing E. Zegna.
Review: I have never read a more disgusting novel. Some of the characters sound frighteningly familar, in fact, I think I work with one of them now. With Manhattan as a backdrop, all of Patrick Bateman's good looks, shiatsu massages, Evian, Comme des Garcon facial products, and unbeliveable wardrobe will not be enough to stop him from becoming a monster in his spare time who enjoys tourchering Sharpeis, and all sorts of other human pets. I have no sympathy for him when his Chinese laundress can never get the blood stains out of his $1,200 sheets. Bottom line, I can't finish this book--too gross. The disgusting parts are particularly disgusting, but more than that....everyday conversations with his friends from Goldman, Morgan, DLJ, etc.. are actually worse.
|
