American Psycho

"American Psycho" is a savage vivisection of society and relationships as portrayed through the depraved exploits of Patrick Bateman. Bateman flourishes in the yuppie-driven mores of the 80's. His wealth and intelligence are the facilities of his deranged obsessions and evil compulsions. Rather than satisfy the blood-lust, Bateman's oblivious victims stoke and embolden his psychotic frenzy.

"American Psycho" is extraordinarily graphic. Sex and violence imagery explode from the pages with Bateman-like fury. However, it is the duality of the character that is truly unnerving. Bateman can be charming, can be ruthless, can be generous, can be vicious, can be insightful, can be shallow, can be elegant, can be disgusting. Bateman's character attracts you with his panache and repulses you with his horrific offensives. It is an emotionally disturbing journey where sanity has no compass.

Ultimately it is clear this Bret Ellis novel transcends time and place. It is an expose of the human condition and how it can be exploited, deceived and imperiled.

I came to this book after thoroughly enjoying the movie adaptation; fantastic movie. In this case I found the book to be a little tedius and quite explicit, at times. I like to consider myself just as decensitized to violence as any North American in the 21st century, but the amount of gruesome detail Mr. Ellis goes into, is too much for my tastes.

2.5 STARS

I know this is a satire.
I know this is supposed to be making a point.
I know that the main character is as sad, yuppie who lives for working out, getting laid, having the best stereo system and, oh yeah, one other thing, killing people in the most sick and sadistic ways.
That being said, I really liked the character but I disliked the style.

Patrick Bateman, our lead, is a homicidal maniac who is a day trader by day and by night he is a coke sniffing, club hopping, music lover who gets off on sleeping around and killing people. To top it all off, this all happens at ground zero of the yuppie era, New York City. This alone would make the book interesting, but Ellis takes it one step further in writing the book in an almost stream of consciousness style. Not only do you know what Patrick is thinking about during conversations with his victims, but you also get a sense of who he is and what makes him tick and what makes him explode.

The character is so well written that he could be real. He is supposed to be the stereotypical yuppie, but it goes beyond that. We get a sense of Patrick with all of his weaknesses, his likes, his intelligence and his lack there of. I literally found myself laughing at some of the things he said and thought and agreeing with him at other times. That is how good the character is written.

That all said, I found the writing style difficult to follow and that is why I gave it only 3 stars. The fact that 1 1/2 pages per chapter at times would be dedicated to what everyone was wearing made for tiresome reading. I know that we are looking into the mind of someone who could stand to take some real strong medication (stronger than what was available in the 80's) but I found that it took away from some of my enjoyment.

If you are a fan of books like Fight Club you should like this book.

This book is written very well. The message is haunting throughout the entire book (yuppies always confusing people because everyone looks the same, super insecurity, and brutal insane killing). The only problem I had to overcome when reading this is Ellis' need to describe everyone's attire. That was a bit over done, but I understand he was reinforcing a valid point of vainess throughout the novel. All and all the book was both scary and compelling; It made you sometimes feel sorry for Patrick (the main character)for his downward spiral into madness.

I would be willing to accept the defense that Ellis's quickie squib is in fact a satire of consumerism, a literary bit of photo realism if there was compelling art here. There isn't, however, and the defense falls apart. Ellis writes as if he had to submit this against a deadline, and he'd wasted his considerable lead time by living off his hefty advance. Ellis does a good job of diagnosing the narcissism of the eighties, but that by itself does nothing for either our understanding or empathy.