Boy oh boy. Sometimes a work comes along that you think you can graspe, take hold and look at with inquizzitive eyes, without plunging into it's darkness - but Bret Easton Ellis' third novel, AMERICAN PSYCHO, is not one of those works.
I think we all know the subject matter and probably have seen the film with Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman - Wall Street yuppie/mass murderer - actually, I rented the film last weekend and found it to be still quite disturbing, but poignant and fascinating at the same time.
The book - not surprisingly, is more so of everything. The descriptions of wardrobes and restaurant dishes are numerous and overwhelming (I continue to feel my mind slip as Bateman goes into the greatest detail of each piece of 80's garb!) - the story is even more obscene - and the murders... well... are borderline unacceptable.
This is the first book I have read by Mr. Ellis - his style is fascinating yet repetitive at the same time. Moments of reflection and contemplation of Bateman's actions come in the form of ironic statements of psychoticness that are slid in amongst Bateman's derranged ramblings of materialist grandeur! The pace of the insane descriptions are frantic... and often very effective, creating the same twitching/throbbing sensation of Bateman in my own mind.
Yet, with all of the commentary - ironic - critical look at impact of materialistic obsession and how sick and empty the consumer life can be... the book seems far too obsessive with the details of torture and murder. I understand the impact a description of destroying a homeless man and his dog can be to the reader... and how variations on murders will help show how Bateman judges all equally... but the repetition of the slaughters... and the enormous details of each (including the pornographic - yet emotionally void honesty of the sex scenes) seems to open a dark place in the readers mind. These images are so offensive... so imaginatively violent... that they attempt to deter me from finishing the book.
Last night, a mere 60 odd pages from fruition - I put it down... unable to stomach the events I had read. Granted, I finished the words... but the scene grew in my mind... twisted, became more... I saw moments within the murder I never wanted to see.. and that was my imagination beginning to take Bateman's psyche and using it as fuel for my own. That disturbed the hell out of me!
I will finish the book - I will read the rest of his works... but I am unsure how Mr. Ellis' own mind handles the balancing act of writing these words... and looking at them as words... as opposed to his own derranged thoughts.
Yo
Get excited. Get pumped. Get out your old and nasty clothes.
