American Psycho
by Bret Easton Ellis
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bret Easton EllisEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1991-03-01
ISBN: 0679735771
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Vintage
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780679735779
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of American Psycho
Book Review: An Achievement
Summary: 5 Stars
Probably Ellis' most famous novel, American Psycho first strikes the reader as definitely different from his previous book - The Rules of Attraction - as this one was from his first novel, Less than Zero. Unlike many (most?) writers, Ellis managed to write a completely different book, while retaining the same themes that make Ellis the writer he is.
Patrick Bateman, the American psycho and brother of Sean Bateman from the previous novel (Ellis has the same characters over his novels, ? la Balzac), narrates the story, in present tense. Because of this, the novel is esthetically reflecting Bateman's mind, naturally, which means you will be exposed to countless detailed accounts of what everyone wears, to the specificities of just as much electronic material and quite a bunch of restaurants and dishes, most of which I never knew the name of. The result is efficient: we read the thoughts of an obsessed mind, obsessed with everything that doesn't matter, but completely unshaken by the worst acts of cruelty.
And acts of cruelty there are many in this novel. It's much, much more graphic than the movie, which couldn't have done justice to the book without an X rating. As much as it is extreme, I never felt like it was gratuitous. In his previous novels, Ellis gives you enough credit as a reader so as to not feel obligated to tell you what's right and wrong, and when you should feel disgusted in the highest degree. Bateman commits the most horrible acts without flinching; this doesn't mean you shouldn't, or that the author condones these acts(!).
The novel is divided in (unnumbered) chapters with titles. Many of these chapters take place in restaurants, and direct speech represents the bulk of these. Thankfully, Ellis is gifted for dialogue and those passages were always excellent - and when they are confusing and boring, even retarded, they were meant to be, because you cannot discuss what restaurant to go to for over an hour without being quite retarded. Ellis is a master of the "show, don't tell" principle, like Hemingway, and this forces the reader to look beneath the surface, read between the lines. You really have to do that, lest you'll think this novel mere bad taste pornography and extreme violence.
American Psycho is nearly 400 pages in the mind of the clinically insane. In there, murderous thoughts and detailed analyses of Genesis, Whitney Houston, and Huey Lewis and the News, along with lists upon lists of clothing items and menus and drinks and dishes and restaurants and names, all mingle to create a confusing pile of what looks rather unimportant in the end. Nothing matters much to Bateman...
Except perhaps his secretary, Jean. The most morally likeable character in the book, she might be a ray of light in Bateman's insanity.
In conclusion, I definitely recommend this book to those who are interested, but warn that you'd better be ready for gruesomeness and extreme cruelty. If you can keep in mind that those scenes are part of the whole painting, and the depiction of a world gone cold and mad, then you should be able to read through and feel like you're on the same side as the author, which side isn't that of Patrick Bateman.
Summary of American Psycho
The controversial novel about a handsome serial killer who moves among the young and trendy in 1980s New York.Ellis, Bret Easton Books
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