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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nobody should LIKE this book.,
This review is from: 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?
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't look at it through your own eyes.,
This review is from: American Psycho (Paperback)
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.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book, if you look deeper than just murder,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: American Psycho (Paperback)
The author dedicates an insane amount of detail to the most irrelevant of things in correlation to the plot of the book, as well as to the main plot scenarios and devices. Expect to read about 150 or 200 pages before anything significant happens. Obviously, this is a book about a serial murderer, but those pages are important to work up to the extended climax of Patrick Bateman's unabated killing sprees. If you value gender and race equality, this book is not for you. If you can't handle extremely graphic, accurate, and realistic depictions of murder, rape, sodomy, and a plethora of all sorts of other fun things, you might not want to read this book. If you have a handle on the concept of Existentialism, and know who Jean-Paul Sarte was, you may enjoy this book on an academic level. This book explores Sarte's notion of "Hell is other people" quite a bit. I would recommend you also watch the film version written by Mary Harron; Bret Easton Ellis has vouched for the film on its accuracy and faithfulness to the original work.
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