American Psycho [Paperback]

American Psycho is a harsh commentary upon a society dominated by materialism and devoid of emotion, passion, caring or love.

Pat Bateman, the anti-hero of the book, is a suave, sophisticated Wall Street Yuppie. He seems to have it all, the good school, Harvard, the right job, plenty of money, great clothes, a beautiful apartment. He is handsome, fit, rich and is courted by beautiful women.

But from the opening of the book you realise that here is a man who is not living. He exists. And he exists vicariously through brand names, expensive restaurants, personal products. His life is simply a litany of consumption. He is in fact a non-person. Frequently his associates mistake him for other people, and he has trouble telling his associates apart. They are all a homogeneous and indistinguishable set of "in" people.

Bateman describes the murder of a prostitute in the same clinical voice as he uses when he describes the records of Genesis, or the features of his VCR, or how he makes love to his girlfriend, or the clothes and food in the local restaurant. All life is lived in a cold passionless clinical state of semi-awareness.

The lack of a real life is tearing Bateman apart. He searches for a passion, a reality of some kind. In his mind he plays out the murder of beggars, prostitutes and colleagues in vivid detail. But the lines blur. How much is played out in his head and how much is in his mind. Is the Chinese Laundry washing his blood soaked shirts? If not why does he still see stains? At times his violent fantasy world seems to be crossing the border into his daily reality. But how far is this happening?

The only times you see real emotion appear are when Bateman has to interact at a real level with others. He hates live music, why? Live music is emotional in a way records can never be. He is consumed by getting restaurant reservations. He fears having to stand in a crowded restaurant lobby, subject to the vagaries of random people, a situation where he has no control. He is far more comfortable dissecting bodies in his apartment.

So. Is he a murderer, or is it all in his head. At some point are we all a bit like Bateman?

I've read various Amazon readers' American Psycho reviews over the past couple years and find that most of them either loved or hated the book. Most of them get that the author is using satire and most of them can describe for you a nice summary, including the crux of the work: are those murders real or imagined; that is, is Bateman really a psychotic killer, or is he a harmless loser who takes out his angst against those around him in fantasy? Unless the author one day announces which side Patrick Bateman really falls on, there is plenty of evidence in the book to justify anyone finding reason to believe he indeed was a murderer or a dreamer. All this can be deduced by any reader.

What sets apart, I think, those readers who enjoy the read versus they who loathe it (aside, of course, from they who are simply offended by the graphic violence) is the (lack of) appreciation of point of view. I've heard and read many times that people find the book too distracted by or devoted to abstract and meaningless descriptions of periphery items or situations and by way of monotony. I argue that is the essential element that makes this book work, makes it real. If the objective of any author writing this book were to be simply submit a biographical piece, then he would do what many critics say and supplied just enough arbitrarily descriptive monotony to make the point clear that Bateman is void of real human emotion and moved on with the plot from there. That's not the objective though. The entire point of this book is that you are reading the thoughts, you are inside the mind of a psychotic individual. It is written as a psycopath would write it.

Personally, I am not that bothered by the graphic violence, but I don't care for it either. I think that is all noise. The cream of this book is in the trueness of the point of view (Bateman's narrative, that of a psychopath) Ellis maintains through this endless and seemingly meaningless monotonous descriptions of people, music, products, and paisley ties coupled with Bateman's equal parts insecurity --masked by vanity-- and disgust for his peers, superiors, and inferiors.

When first skimming through or even reading in entirety the novel `American Psycho' one can made the assumption, wrong as it may be, that it's nothing more than a perverse catalog of sadistic events. Like I said, that assumption is wrong. Bret Easton Ellis is and will always be one of the most intriguing authors of our generation for he knows how to probe the mind with the things we often repel, satisfying our sense with his perversion while telling a story that, if stripped bare of it's disturbing gloss coating would resemble a detailed study on what makes us as a society so horrifying. `American Psycho' is no more a story of a serial killer than it is a story of a lost generation of self absorbed zombies who find more satisfaction and or horror in the detail of a co-workers business card than they do in a meaningful relationship or, yes, a sadistic murder.

The novel succeeds in being utterly spine-tingly due to Ellis' decision to make our psycho, Patrick Bateman (just me or was Ellis going for the obvious `Psycho' throwback...Norman Bates/Patrick Bateman), a first person narrator. In this way the reader not only knows the acts of this man but knows his feelings on the subject. The murders are all horrifying, gut-wrenching and not for the squeamish, but it's really the way in which Patrick recounts the events that are truly repulsive. As has been mentioned, he states everything in a blunt, matter-of-fact type dialog that portrays an air of corrupt morality, as if none of this even matters.

As the reader gets through the bulk of the novel he's forced to question how much of this is reality and how much of this is all in Patrick's head, and that for one is what makes this novel so brilliant. The answers are there but the reader will have to find them on his or her own. Bret refuses to answer the question for us in any point-blank fashion but leaves it to our own imagination and or astute deciphering to uncover the truth in it all. What this allows the reader to do is really probe into the mind of this man and discover he's not so different than us all. It's in this discovery that I was able to truly appreciate Ellis' madness/genius for he was able to take a prose that could and should repulse us all and make it relatable and very close to home. Patrick is a man so absorbed in the media, the pop-obsessed culture we live in that his whole life and purpose can be summed up in a `People Magazine' article. He's so impressed and influenced by what is pressed upon him by television and magazine advertisements that he's become dulled to the reality of the world around him. After reading this novel one is forced to face the idea that we're all just one designer pair of underwear away from slitting someone's throat.

Ellis' use of detailed description has turned some away from this novel. The fact that an entire chapter is devoted to the products he uses to clean himself may appear as needless and redundant but in actuality it proves to be a brilliant way to unravel this mans madness before the brutality of his crimes ensues. This mans mental soundness is brought into question every time he converses with his friends about mundane things such as brands of water and or the font of a specified business card. These men are so dulled as to the real issues at stake that the brutal slaying of a child gets nothing more than a passing remark. It's because of this void of any real feeling that Patrick finds murder and torture so essential for it's the only way he can feel anything. His life would have no meaning otherwise.

Underneath the gritty exterior lies the story of a man not unlike the rest of us. What Ellis has accomplished here is not something to be taken lightly or disregarded as trash for it's far from it. It may take more than the average reader to sit through and uncover what really lies within these pages for this is far from leisure reading. This is above all else a study of human interaction and human relations with each other but more importantly with ones self, and it exposes the power that society and culture impresses on an individual, good and bad. Ellis is in my book a literary genius and has given us one of the most powerful displays of raw talent available in your local bookstore.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 9 reviews  3.7 out of 5 stars