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But for those who understand it to the fullest extent (even the passages about Whitney Houston and Genesis), I am sure this work is AWESOME.For those others, try applying today to it instead of the 80's, it'll help a bit. Or maybe I had to live in the 1980's and understand the culture better, the driving forces behind the "yuppie" culture.
The book doesn't resonate with me as it has with others. There has been so much hype, so much talk about this book and others by Ellis that something has been lost.
Like I said, I am desensitized to any such "horror" because it happens in every day life to my generation and those coming up. Personally speaking, I could understand how his "twisted" and "warped" frame of mind and his on going psychosis was a reflection of the society around him but Jesus, the books was borderline boring.
Was it supposed to be like this in comparison to him fulfilling his "needs" was a question that kept popping into my mind but the details made me want to shoot myself.Perhaps it is because I come from a generation that isn't fazed by violence, that we already see the psychos and the killers and shrug and say "well, it had to be someone, glad it's not me." Forced abortion, where he says he killed 5 children in such a way, 3 by abortion, the others by murder, didn't faze me or shock me in any way. I don't know.Overall, why not read it, you will probably find something in it that I didn't.
For the most part, the gore I could handle more so than the repetition of this mess. His life is an obsession of designer suits, what everyone is eating, and how much money people are making. Patrick's life is so empty he constructs elaborate and disgusting fantasies in order to simply feel SOMETHING. I tend to believe everyone knows, like me, his or her limits. The painfully detailed, out of left field editorials of the music world left me hating Genesis, Hewy Lewis, Whitney Houston etc, not to mention INXS.
The answer is going to be up to each individual reader and I'll leave it at that since the answer really isn't that important anyway.Aside from going back and forth from laughable to hideous, it also teetered between boring and gross. If the writer is sane, I can only conclude this was a sick indulgence he needed to get out his system for whatever reason. Exactly how is it interesting to know every detail of this guys morning routine and what he washes his hair with or exfoliates with. Ellis teased us by showing glimmers of humanity in Patrick and then snatching them away with no explanation. And the diatribes about suits and exotic food in every chapter simply had to be skipped over because of the tediousness of the nonsense. I'm not sure I ever reached that before in a fiction read. Can't say I'll be reading any more of his books.Finally, this book simply wasn't written very well. Or are they fantasies.
He happens to be completely devoid of all human feeling. I get that Patrick was intended to be a plastic, empty suit but there had to more in there. I knew it would be bad from the start, but nothing prepared me for what it ended up being.As we all already know, Patrick Bateman is the poor little rich kid from Wall Street mostly spending his days behind his desk reading Sports Illustrated between lunch and raquet ball appointments. There was no character building at all.
What was the point. Because of the predictability of this story, one can easily forecast when it's going to be "bad." Thankfully, there were many parts I was able to skip and save myself some nightmares. For the parts I did make it through, I seriously have to wonder about this author's mental stability, and this is perhaps the most disturbing part of this book entirely. This book went back and forth from being totally laughable to totally hideous. Expanding on this would have added so much, it seemed he took the lazy way out by simply slam dunking it. It was rambling without a resolve in many of the scenes. I'll be the first to recognize I probably was not the intended audience for this and therefore, just didn't get it. So proceed with caution.
Keep the book hidden from your kids, and don't put it on your list of things to buy for grandma. Knowing what brand of shoes one is wearing trumps remembering someone's name in Patrick's world. It's a harsh, difficult, painful and uncomfortable read, but also tedious and boring. And the gore is another story. It's frightening to know this stuff is floating around in someone's mind, and this same person is wandering the same streets as unsuspecting individuals. I know I can take a lot, but this book reached, if not exceeded my boundaries. I guess to each his own, but this one definitely wasn't for me.
Pat Bateman. its does get dark in this one, believe me. The essence of the junk bond trading, ray ban wearing, Trump/Ivana drama, hip clubbing, power lunch, aerobics class 80's is summed in this book brilliantly. I never read fiction but I had to read AP because of the reputed "fiction taking place in a non fiction" world that this book entails (take that for what its worth). One of the most outstanding books I have ever read. It truly defines irony and will help these young adults come to grips with what true reality is and could be. The reader will pause in the earlier pages of the book and wonder, "Did he really just say what I though he said out loud." As the reader starts to find Pat Bateman more appealing as his wit, sense of humor, and maybe even his lifestyle bring out feelings of sympathy the reader will then realize the true satire and dark humor that the auther is bringing forth. of Pat Bateman.
400 pages is what's needed to "decapitate and canabilize" the characters and their world. there's just so much you can say about this character but I will use one word to describe him: fascinating. A masterpiece. At 400 or so pages some might think this work of fiction is to long but not me (and I don't even dig fiction). well. The book starts off well with its endless monologues on fashion, scenery, and other people and it begins to drop hints for the reader about the impending depravity and cruelty that one will discover exists in the mind (and body ). This book should be on the required reading list of every high school senior in America. Buy this book and read it.then give it to someone you know who would horrified by it.
As for being a social commentary on the excess and greed of the '80s, Ellis certainly makes his point clear, but I'm left wondering why he would make such a commentary in a book about a serial killer. Ellis goes the easy way out. It doesn't mesh well together with the heavy-handedness of dealing with a psychopathic killer. Some of the chapters are written entirely in a normal first person narrative but end in a stream of consciousness style.
I've stomached violent murder scenes before (I'm an avid fan of Joyce Carol Oates) but this book left me physically sick at times. I just didn't know bad it would be. This is why books as formerly controversial as 'Lolita' and 'Crime & Punishment' are classics: not only did the authors humanize their despicable protagonists (a pedophile and a murderer, respectively) but they also allowed readers to actually feel sympathy for the characters. For example, Bateman describes one victim as "too ugly to rape".
He states something to the effect that he wants everyone to feel his pain. What would have been more interesting, and perhaps just as controversial is if Ellis had humanized Bateman. Disillusioned or not, there is little psychological reasoning for Bateman's motives. Instead the book reads like a full on celebration of bloodlust. Let me start off by saying that I had an idea what I was getting into before I read this book.
Any psychologist will tell you rape isn't about lust or attractiveness, it's about power. It's not until the very end that we get a bit of Bateman's psychological reasoning, which is AFTER the brutal torture scenes (and should have been placed before). which seems believable, but desperately needed to be expanded upon. As a piece of literature, the book can't decide if it wants to be first person narrative or stream of consciousness. Ellis misses the point entirely. That's not talent; it's perversion. I was honestly left wondering if there was a printing error in my book.
I agree with what a previous reviewer stated about Spielberg's comment on 'Saving Private Ryan': soldiers that day had seen sights even gorier than what he chose to portray, but showing those images would have gone beyond the bounds of decency. What little psychological reasoning there is for Bateman's crimes is usually way off the mark. Ellis really needed to pick one or the other. If this is the point he really wanted to make, he could have made it just as clear in a different story entirely, one that didn't involve torture and murder, and left the story about the serial killer up to writers who actually know a thing or two about psychology.
OMG can this guy spend anymore time writing about what everyone is wearing. This could be such a great story if the author got to telling it and left out the endless descriptions of every garment each character has on.we get it.Save your time and money rent the movie.
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