Book Report :: American Psycho
I’m a fan of Bret Easton Ellis. I like the subversiveness, the excess, the seedy underbelly of the upper class. I dig it. But, when I started reading American Psycho, I was…bored. Seriously, bored out of my mind with the incessant descriptions of what everyone was wearing and the chapters wholly devoted to the analysis of various rock albums of the 80’s.
I couldn’t WAIT for him to start killing people.
And then he started killing people and torturing hookers & bums & dogs and it was HORRIBLE and depraved (I was surprised that an author could - not would, *could*- go there) and truly sick. And I wondered if I would be able to finish it (I REALLY hated the dog stuff).
And I kept reading and, even though the killings got more and more violent and sadistic, the focus on the mundane, the minutiae of etiquette and status and dress still remained and I began to get it.
I began to enjoy the dichotomy between the two worlds of Patrick Bateman and the unraveling of both and the fact that each part of him was necessary to maintain the whole. And the book. And that’s a pretty impressive feat for a writer.
So, while I can’t say I loved the book, I admire the storytelling and it will stay with me.
Oh, Also! It just so happens that I had read another Ellis novel, Rules of Attraction, earlier in the year and in reading American Psycho, I realized that Patrick Bateman is the brother of Sean Bateman from Rules of Attraction. I enjoyed that, too.
