American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
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Book Summary Author: Bret Easton Ellis Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 1991-03-01 ISBN: 0679735771 Number of pages: 416 Publisher: Vintage |
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Book Reviews of the American Psycho
Customer Review: The Giorgio Armani of Gore novels
Summary: 5 Stars
Since his debut with Less than Zero in 1985, Bret Easton Ellis has been America's literary authority on the
lives of the infinitely wealthy. His novels are moralizing satires mixed with a great deal of autobiography.
His landscape is populated by fashion aficionados that are bookish enough to read the pages of GQ, but show
little recognition of the works of Tolstoy. These characters are frequently bisexual, which may or may not
be due to the fact that Ellis is bisexual himself. Violence is common to the lives of these fine young
gentlemen and beauty queens, and so are cocaine and valium. His prose often drifts into erotica at some
points; the New Yorker herald's him as "Jackie Collins plus literary devices."
Ellis' third novel, American Psycho, has received both critical attention and vehement attacks. The
attacks arise from the violent treatment and murderous behavior that Patrick Batemen, the main character
of the novel, exhibits in his interaction with women. Defenders of the novel point out that more men in the
novel are killed than women. Besides being misogynistic, and I'm not denying that Patrick Bateman is, he's
homophobic, racist, self-righteous, and firmly believes in the division of social classes. In other words,
he's the living embodiment of that palidrome that the poet Amiri Baraka observed in the word Love, Evol,
or evil to use the correct spelling. In satire, I believe, realism is sacrificed for cariacture. Being a
conservative myself, and I'm rather embarrassed to be one, because liberalism is the dominating force in
literature, I find that Ellis has formed a stereotype that emerges more out of liberal propaganda than
actual reality. Pat Bateman is more of an hallucination than human. Even the name suggests a stereotype
when it brings to mind a certain hitchcock psychopath of a similar name. Bateman doesn't seem to harbor
any motivation for his killings; it seems that his bizarre executions are for no discernible reason.
It has been suggested that Bateman secretly abhors the world he lives in; so his response is to destroy
anything of aesthetic value. Evidence to support this theory is not only in his violent actions, but the
fact that he has a painting hanging upside down in his apartment (could this have something to do with
the death of ST. Peter.....uh...nevermind). Bateman clearly has no sense of aesthetics, or if he does,
which is more likely, he did that on purpose to deface and confuse the meaning of the painting. In
Bateman's review of the pop group Genesis, he complains that under Peter Gabriel's influence, they were
too artsy. Bateman is true to himself, only in these passages where he contemplates popular music,
because that world is not of the glamourous landscape that he is trying to get out of. Other critics
may disagree with me that popular music is not glamourous, but to me, it's not of the same aesthetic
quality as fashion. Apparently Ellis thinks so too, since there is never a scene in the entire novel
that Bateman feels like bashing in his stereo.
It has always been unclear to me, exactly what Ellis as a novelist actually thinks. On a recent
interview with Vanity Fair magazine, he declined to tell what his sexual preference was. With respect
to his privacy, this is typical of Ellis. He's a master of moral ambiguity. Other critics may
understand his views, like for instance, he comes off as a liberal in various ways, but he doesn't in
others. Bateman explains his political views at a dinner party at his girlfriend's house which amounts
to a fusion of the platforms of both parties. While most americans don't necessarily agree with all the
opinions of their political party, their opinions were more defined that Bateman's. A central problem
that lies in Ellis' work is that he needs to believe in something clearly defined in order to be a
satirist. An arguement could be made that nothing is clearly defined; this is exactly why I think satire
is a limited genre to work in. With his autobiographical tendencies, Ellis compromises satire too. Social
realism cannot be blended with satire because it confuses the reader. It just doesn't make sense. I mean,
is Ellis criticizing bisexuality as immoral or is he just reporting what he's seen? That's unclear. I
might not be the ideal reader that he wants to have, but it seems to me that an author can't make a
satirical character autobiographical because it muddles the purpose of it condemning the evils of society.
Professors of literature and highly acclaimed writers say Ellis is a
satirist, but it is in social realism that Ellis' talent really lies.
In that same article in Vanity Fair, Ellis admits to a friendship with Joan Didion. Her influence
upon his work is easily recognizable. Didion, who is from the literary school of New Journalists
(Along with Tom Wolfe, who I despise, not on the basis of his intelluectual ideas, but his subject
matter, which is not a very good reason at all to dislike an author) that believed journalism would
take the place of novels. A certain aspect of this, which Ellis follows, is that he inserts real
magazines (GQ and People) and real people such as Tom Cruise in American Psycho into his novels. James
Fenimore Cooper got in trouble when he inserted George Washington into one of his novels, and I would
say that I cringed when Tom Cruise's name appeared on the page. I got used to the fact that the magazines
and reviews of contemporary musicians, but beyond that, I thought Ellis went too far. Certain fiction
like that, and the new journalist's nonfiction novel, I fear, are going to ever be lost to posterity,
because the names of the celebrities will go unrecognized in the future. But an arguement could be that
Tom Cruise was important to understanding the times. Ellis is trying to cram new journalism, social
realism, and satire into his work. It doesn't work.
Ellis succeeds in the comic vein though. His portrayal of businessmen as heartless boring
individuals would make Charles Adams (the brother of Henry) laugh. His prose ignites a manic blur of
events, with lively conversation even though his characters, frankly have nothing to talk about(But
find no fault with him because businessmen wouldn't). Prose like that, even though I'm in the minority,
and I sincerely believe this, is as refreshing as the Evian water the characters consume. Bateman's
often excuse for anything is "I have to return some video tapes" and that cracked me up through the
whole book. The dirty yarns Bateman's friends spin, one in particular about a Vassar girl (you'll have
to read the book to find out what is is; ladies beware) are reminiscent of what my dad tells me of
Henry Miller. These guys are morally decadent, that is obvious, but while Ellis achieves cringing
which he did with me, especially in the scenes with homeless people, he also makes me chuckle. In
other words, I could see Quentin Tarantino making a film out of this. The violent scences in this book
are nothing short of creative; picture torturing somebody with a rusted butterknife. Ouch. One scene
with lighter fluid and cheese was truely inspired. But I read EC comics along with more literary pursuits
so I'm used to this sort of thing. There's no doubt in my mind that Ellis created the Giorgio Armani of
gore novels. Ellis is a good writer, he has talent, but he just burst on to the
literary scene when he was 20, so he didn't really have time to perfect his craft. He is an engaging read,
but he well, has a central problem making characters that I care about, and mixes two different kinds of
writing that I can't see merging. There is really no plot to the book, but I can deal with that, because
Faulkner was plotless, John Hawkes is plotless, and their both good novelists, so I don't really care.
If I didn't think Ellis was important, I wouldn't have written about him, but I give him the perfect ten
because even though the novel's flawed, it's dang more exciting than anything I've read in a long time.