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| American Psycho | 
 enlarge | Author: Bret Easton Ellis
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  139 reviews
Sales Rank: 21766
Media: Paperback
Pages: 399
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0330319922
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780330319928
ASIN: 0330319922
Publication Date: April 26, 1991
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| Customer Reviews: Read 134 more reviews...
A black hole of revelation September 6, 2008
Without a doubt, this book is one of the most disturbing I have ever read. If not psychologically so, physically the sheer depravity of our protagonist Patrick Bateman's murders is enough to shock all but the most hardened readers of horror and gore. These descriptions are not brief or disguised; as Bateman draws out the deaths of his victims, such are the descriptions lengthy, horrifying and explicit. Sex is also focused almost solely around his violence; both as a prerequisite and even during the attacks themselves.
The rest of the book remains a flat monotone narrative, Bateman obsessively cataloging the clothes of his "friends" and giving overlong fussy analyses of discographies of his favourite musicians, Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis and The News and Genesis for example. It is these sections of the novel that are obviously essential as the contrast to the brutality of the frenzied sex and violence around them, but these bland accounts make Bateman a difficult if very enigmatic protagonist, in how little they say about a personality. However, Bateman is a self-confessed "vacant" person; these somewhat dull passages help us to understand how empty his life is: outside of his insanity, that is. It is in most cases simply something the reader has to endure; they hold little interest in terms of content or style.
I find it completely understandable that many many people will find this book not to their taste, or even object to its being published. Saying this, within the exhausting changes between almost comatose blandness and adrenaline and drug fuelled passion, there are some important messages. The growing desensitization of our society aided or even created by the web of the media is epitomised by Bateman's extreme of renting thousands of dollars worth of movies and constantly narrating to us the daily topic of a TV show and missing work to watch topics he finds interesting, and saying that during day-to-day life he feels "I simply am not there". Indeed, by the end of the novel, his commentary on his friends conversations and his own thoughts becomes increasingly fragmented, boiling down to simply stating concepts and nouns of the materialistic things that define his ironically meaningless life.
Perhaps a good summary of his feelings runs as follows: ""Define reason. Desire--meaningless. Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead. Fear, recrimination, innocence, sympathy, guilt, waste failure, grief, were things, emotions, that no one really felt anymore. Reflection is useless, the world is senseless. Evil is its only permanence. God is not alive. Love cannot be trusted. Surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in."
This novel is not easy on the reader. The ending, on the surface, does little to relieve or comfort the reader as we may like an ending to. But look a little deeper into his brief moments of personal insight and social commentary and it may cause the reader to think harder about the society in which we live and how dangerous it could be.
 Sushi My Girlfriend October 19, 2007
We have a guy called `Bateman' at work. He looks and behaves nothing like the `hero' of this novel, isn't impeccably dressed, doesn't eat lunch in smart restaurants, doesn't earn a huge 6 figure salary and hopefully.. his nocturnal activities don't match either... but like the central character in this novel.. everyone just calls him `Bateman...'
Patrick Bateman is Hannibal Lector's yuppie nephew preceding our favourite `slice n dice' psychiatrist by a good many years but with a lust for sudden explosive gore-soaked violence that would make his `Uncle Hannibal' proud. Bret Easton Ellis's exquisite, expensively manicured and `his hair was perfect' protagonist is a narcissistic self obsessed over paid and indulgent dealer. His daytime obsession apart from making huge money is to outdo his other vacuously self centred male clique inmates demonstrating one-upmanship - achieve the `perfect' exclusive impossible-to-get restaurant booking, obtain snob-club memberships and flaunt their cartier-gucci-rolex-versace style-brand obsessions.
High powered 80s `new men'...they preen, strut, gossip and whinge their way through their overprivileged expense account lives driven by media trivia statistics. Their biting sneering criticism is a prescient glimpse of the male version of `Sex in the City' - a triumphant win for greed, gadget- materialism and vanity over meaningful existence. They ruthlessly denigrate everyone, sneer and boast, treat waiting staff and service personnel like scum, and of course they all `hate and despise' the jobless, the homeless and the `underclass' with a vitriol that knows no bounds. They drool over ever more contrived minimalist priced-to-insanity menus, celebrity tailoring, skin treatments and `male perfumes'. They talk yuppie `buzzword' speak and act like the spoiled selfish ***holes they are. Above all they 'hate' women, but can't do without them.
Bateman though, has a secret. He compensates. He twists and blurs and warps his view of the world so that amongst his shallow peer group of preening guppies he is really a silk suited, Armani clad, calvin-klein Thin White Shark (with a perfect tan). At night Bateman targets and stalks prey - women (although the odd homeless tramp can be a suitable target for his murderous rage when the mood strikes) As the book progresses, Bateman's off duty serial killer `hobby' grows and grows into an uncontrollable monster. It's an explosive, bloody and visceral gutting, carving, raping, nail-gunning and beating of women, and gets more and more risky, careless and enthralling to him. Like most extreme sensation seekers he soon becomes jaded and needs an ever more outrageous thrill to produce the desired post event calm.
He is carelessly `wasteful' of his girlfriends, even ones he likes and has moments of bitter-sweet regret - one look, one move, one magazine vignette-style frozen moment or a word can set off the kill frenzy. After which he returns to his daily `act' within the indulgent high profile media dominated GQ `men's world'. A swaggering waxed-smooth male model peacock surrounded by yes-friends ` what shall we eat today , where shall we shop?' Bateman's neurotic male cronies make you think `material girls' are not so bad after all.
As famously asked in Hitch Hikers Guide `what is the meaning of life' .? For Bateman and his ilk its a constant keeping up with and humiliating of their peers and all those `beneath them' - rich diets, hi profile cars, designer suits, and vacuous gold-digger girlfriends just part of advertising land's trim and trappings. Bateman's label-scorning, brand obsessed life is a walking `to die for' OCD obsession, every move style-analysed and scored by our studio audience, folks. The rivers of anxiety, envy and resentment run deep and red through his mental landscape. It's the Land of Excess, the 80s aspirant excess-style-dream world.
The book follows his obsessive-compulsive disorderly decline and descent into homicidal madness and bursts of rage filled murderous self indulgence in a vain attempt to cope with his ever increasing thrill seeking and the bleak despair of boredom. A portrait of the veneer generation where fashion trappings, social status and `bling' outweigh values and where the line between normal `observance' of rules and outright pathological rebellion is a thin one. Bateman crosses the line and like Luke Rhinehart's Dice Man he is on the slippery bloody slope. He sets himself against the rest of grudgingly law abiding society...no way back...!
 Good if you're into this sort of thing September 8, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Read this book in about two weeks on and off. Personally I found it dull but interspersed with moments of total, gut-churning descriptions of utmost depravity. I can appreciate why some people think it deserves more than 3 stars but I am not one of them
Armani Blood - a new fragrance from aids orphans July 11, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is about living with perfection albeit of the materialistic splendour variety (poor poor Patrick). Money gives the psycho the resources to visit anyone, anything, anywhere. Psycho only lives in the material world and finds it incredibly irritating and shallow even though he appears to have it all. Porn and extreme violence very mildly produce a reaction otherwise he appears numbed and unemotional, dead really. These drones deserve ultra violence and Bateman is only looking for a real response from them as he mutilates. It is a slight reprieve for him who has to live in the uber chic air conditioned nightmare a milion free air miles cannot take him away from. Platinum amex cards and cocaine are no palliatives for this sterile consumer world, murdering another model might help for a few minutes. Poor Patrick Bateman I pity anyone he comes across. A bit of a bore carrying a carving knife only Phil Collins might be able to persuade him to put down
Shocking, vile and very good March 22, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Careful with this one. If you haven't got the stomach for graphic descriptions of the most depraved and senseless acts of violence, depravity and murder then, really, don't read it. Ellis leaves no stone unturned in describing the vile deeds of his (anti) hero, the serial killer Patrick Bateman, and the nasty and random brutality inflicted on his victims can be a challenging read.
But the book is not actually about the murders themselves. The reviewers who say that the book is about the failures of capitalism and consumer excess are absolutely correct, however pretentious that may sound - it's the bits in between the killings that are what the book is about. Or - to put it another way - the killings are an integral part of the world of labels, product endorsements, tv serials, chat shows, restaurants and conversations about restaurants, cocaine, GQ magazine, fitness routines at the gym, self-obsession, superficial lifestyles and empty personalities that Bateman lives in.
What he finds out is that endless killing has no more power to make his life meaningful than an endless choice of designer clothes, regional cuisines, CD or DVD technology or skin and haircare products. Consumer excess leads ultimately to disassociation, loss of values and absence of personality.
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