American Psycho

'American Psycho' is a satire of the 1980's (among other subjects) centered around narrator Patrick Bateman who is the yuppie-to-end-all-yuppies. Though the humor is as dark as possible, it's true to Ellis and true to the story. I cannot find any failure whatsoever with this book. For readers who complain parts are "boring" or "gross": I would tell you that this is not accidental. Bret Easton Ellis is such a brilliant writer, he is able to manipulate the reader with very little effort. It is a gift with which very few authors are blessed. If you're reading Ellis and you feel bored: he has duped you. If you're reading Ellis and you find a scene so gruesome you're forced to close your book: he's duped you. Let me assure you Bateman's pages-long ridiculously verbose meditations about things such as a Whitney Houston album were never intended to excite anyone. 'American Psycho' is as beautifully written as it hilarious and disturbing.

'American Psycho' is, by far, my favorite novel of all time. It's also an effective litmus book in that if someone tells me they don't like it/ didn't get it, we're probably not compatible.

American Psycho is Bret Easton Ellis' grotesque comedy about the decadent underbelly of Wall Street culture in the 1980s, as experienced firsthand through protagonist Patrick Bateman. The book is the only example I have read of controlled and literate obscenity. Few books demand their readers to both laugh and cringe in disgust. Ellis accomplishes this by combining a Zeitgeist protagonist (as Fyodor Dostoevsky does in Notes from Underground), a comedy of manners (consider a very twisted Jane Austen), and the 1980s American height of materialism and capitalism.

The novel is not as overwhelming as all of that sounds, because Ellis is a fantastic teacher. He eases you into the themes of the overall satire he is attempting to compose, so that when the first shock comes, at least you have been partially primed for the graphic imagery it conjures.

One of the novel's constant jokes concerns excruciating details about the brand names of the material possessions in Bateman's vicinity and, sometimes, his judgments of the people who own those possessions. Ellis does a great job helping the reader plow through the barrage of high-end designer labels and features of new-fangled gadgets by writing the novel in an exuberant and often manic first person, present tense narrative. Almost all fiction is written in past tense, and it's refreshing for Ellis to try something few attempt, and to do it well.

I found that reading the book out loud makes the humor rise from the page, especially during the scenes when Bateman endlessly catalogues the contents of his purchases from an upscale store or the respective entrées of his friends while they dine at a trendy restaurant. I did not read the gruesome scenes of rape, torture, and murder out loud, however. I admit that I didn't want to get too close to those words.

I initially thought that the book was too long. Almost everything that is going to happen occurs within the first 250 pages of the book, and the rest of the novel (with the exception of the final 30 pages) is comprised largely of variations on the themes. In short, I started to get slightly bored, and I thought maybe the book wasn't as well written as I had thought. Then I realized that Bateman, too, was getting bored and it hit me: I've become as desensitized as the protagonist. It's then that I understood clearly one of the novel's powerful understatements: Any of us has the potential to be Patrick Bateman. Certainly, such a notion isn't likely to be rendered real, but it does mean that Bateman is operating within the scope of humanity; granted, he's at the division between human and demon. It also means that the length of the text is perfect.

In the end, Ellis wants his readers to understand that life reduced to overpriced suits and food, designer drugs and bottled water, un-spendable amounts of wealth, ultra metrosexuality and obsessive health consciousness, and mind-numbing and soul-crushing careers are in fact the polite and fashionably correct equivalents of rape, torture, and murder. The reader is left to decide what to do about it.

I'm guessing that this book was suppose to be about Bateman living in a society where everyone is fake. But all I got out of it was whole chapters on Whintey Huston and several pages out of fashion magazines. Along with the graphic scences and odd writing style, this book is very hard to get into.

Truthfully this is a brutal book about a psychopath. It is also a compulsively readable book. I find violent movies and violent books repulsive as a rule, but sometimes I come across one and give in and read it. And then put it down as unbearable because the story or the character is not good enough to outweigh my revulsion at the topic. I guess I have a nervous stomach or a vivid imagination. I know the genre has it's fans and I don't want to denigrate that.
American Psycho was an exception for me. I put it back on my wish list to remind myself that this is a book I plan to re-read. I also want to read other books by Brett Easton Ellis.

American Pycho is not your check out/super market thriller/horror. It's a thriller meant for people who seem to have a serious chip on their shoulder about the 80s and the thoughs who are young urban professionals. And it is defiantly not a book for people who have short attention spans.

Ellis writes in the form of 1920 satires, where that narrator describes things to death. Mind numbing detail about things that on the surface don't have anything to with the story of homicidal maniac Patrick Batemen, and obviously because of this type of narrative the book is extremely slowed paced.

90 of the book is Bateman describing his day, going to the health club, returning videos, trying to score decent drugs and get a table at the most chic resturant in town

However if one understands what Ellis is trying to do, this type of satire fits right in. Bateman is hopelessly obsessive with his appearance and is constantly measuring himself up to his peers, if he feels annoyed or extremely angry at any of them he will not hesitate to kill them. His serial rape and murder of various women has no real set pattern. The detail enriched narrative focusing on fashion and chic restaurants and clubs is right for the story about a psychopathic materialistic yuppie