American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis)

Rarely have I been confronted by a book that makes me feel sick for humanity, a book that causes me to question my taste as a reader, and or a book which is so brilliantly put together that I can justify ignoring my impulses to turn tail and run.

American Psycho.It was disgusting and offensive, yet, I read every word of it.

Ellis's American Psycho was brilliantly written and masterfully sewn together to create the view of a killer in decline. It deserves a place on my book shelf, but will never be suggested reading, I will never loan it out. I would ask people I care about to never read it.

Presenting in detail an utter disregard for human life, women in particular, I had trouble fathoming the filth my 'soul' was accumulating by proxy of the character Bateman. The despicable and cruel beyond description, he was neither sinister nor evil. Bateman simply wasnt human. Applying morality or ethics to the character would be no different than saying an inanimate macaroni salad at a hot BBQ is evil when it causes harm or death. Bateman simply exists and is what he is. He just needs to be recognized, separated, and thrown out as bad. Keep him away from your dog.

Seeing the world through his eyes and with his thoughts was torture. A reader cannot simply consume, having to instead perform amatuer analysis of him to find the errors causing his ailments. In some portions of the book, references to prep school abuse and other signs are enlightening but ultimate are not the point. Being an inhuman creature, I feel this was what was to be gleaned.

There are many analysis/reviews and deep level critiques of American Psycho, some predating its official publication, others from proponents of it's restriction or banning. Because of this, I will refrain from further speculation, feel free to read more at other locations.

Side note: People who knew what book I was reading commonly asked how it compared against the film adaptation. The film is tame, the film is an exercise in comic relief, the film is a beast that can be separated from reality and understood.. The novel, is a gory horror show several magnatude worse, to the level that no further comparison will occur.

Ugh... And yet, wow.I will stick with the more comedic less soul destroying movie in the future.

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Reblurb:

Not needed, it could warn you about the need to vomit while reading, but otherwise adequate.

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Publisher summary

In American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis imaginatively explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.



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