American Psycho

American Psycho was, probably not wisely, my first horror book, and was quite a shock to the system. Ellis's detailed and graphic depictions of violence really affected me early on, to the point where I had to stop. But progressing through, I was shocked to not only find that it at times became easier to process the violence, but only because it started to become so removed from reality that I was able to buffer it. The change in Patrick's world near the end of the book had to be my favorite part. Watching as the rules that seemed to be established on how he interacted with characters and the world break down, and he having to acknowledge it, was fascinating.

While this was not a book for the faint of heart, I think I truly "got" it and can truly appreciate what Ellis was aiming for.

Ich lese Bret Easton Ellis’ Roman American Psycho als kalte Bestandsaufnahme einer Epoche, in der Oberflächen alles bedeuten. Patrick Bateman, Investmentbanker in Manhattan, führt mich durch die späten Achtziger: Designerlisten, Hautpflegeprogramme, edle Restaurants, Visitenkartenkult. Der Ton ist präzise, inventarisierend, fast mechanisch; gerade dadurch wird die Unmenschlichkeit spürbar. Ich registriere, wie die Sprache der Reklame Batemans Denken kolonisiert, bis Moral nur noch Stilfrage ist.

Gleichzeitig entfaltet der Text eine Eskalation der Gewalt. Ich empfinde Abscheu, aber auch analytische Distanz, weil der Erzähler unzuverlässig bleibt. Passieren die Morde wirklich, oder sind sie Projektionen eines identitätslosen Subjekts? Ellis legt Spuren in beide Richtungen. Für mich ist diese Ambivalenz zentral: Der Horror liegt weniger im Blut als in der Möglichkeit, dass niemand es merken würde, selbst wenn es geschähe. In der anonymen Effizienz von Büros, Taxis und Clubs wird Schuld geräuschlos ...

Strukturell arbeitet der Roman mit Wiederholung und Katalogisierung. Ich sehe darin eine Satire auf Konsumlogiken, eine Parodie auf Testberichte und Lifestyle-Journalismus. Die detaillierten Popkultur-Essays über Musik wirken wie Ausstellungsstücke im Museum der Oberfläche. Ich fühle mich zugleich abgestoßen und gebannt, denn das Protokollhafte erzeugt einen Sog, der mich zwingt weiterzulesen.

Am Ende bleibe ich mit einem Satz zurück: „This is not an exit.“ Für mich bezeichnet er die ausweglose Selbstschleife, in der Bateman gefangen ist. Die Masken der Männlichkeit, der Erfolg, die Marken – all das ist nur Kulisse. Ob Tat oder Fantasie: Die Leere bleibt real. Formal ist American Psycho damit eine schwarze Komödie, ein Horrorroman und eine Gesellschaftsstudie zugleich. Ich lese ihn als Warnsignal: Wenn das Ich nur noch reflektiert, was es besitzt, wird es ununterscheidbar vom Nichts.

Zugleich nehme ich die historische Wirkung ernst: 1991 provozierte der Roman Empörung und Lob. Ich verstehe beide Lager. Für mich feiert Ellis die Grausamkeit nicht; er überdehnt sie, bis Betäubung als System erkennbar wird. Gerade weil alles so glatt erzählt ist, schmerzt jede Zäsur doppelt und spiegelt auch heute noch eine unangenehm klare Gegenwart.

I read this book based on some snippets of Ellis' writing I found intriguing. This is also a rare example (for me) of a book I read after seeing the movie so, in some ways, Patrick Bateman will always be Christian Bale to me.

I understand that this book was controversial on release in 1991 and it's not hard to see why. It leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. The sex is straight out of Letters to Penthouse, the violence is equally pornographic and barbaric. This is not your typical literature. This is not something you discuss with your children or coworkers. There isn't one scene with anything admirable in it, there is nothing life affirming, nothing hopeful.

Yet the novel is also utterly believable and portrays something that I think needs to be examined - the complete and utter lack of accountability of the wealthy. This is what makes American Psycho so compelling. The sex and violence can both titillate and disgust, but the intervening time is spent showing us how everyone in Bateman's world, the world of the rich elite, doesn't care about anything but their own appearance. Other people don't really exist to them.

Everyone is speaking, no one is saying anything of substance, no one is listening.

Everyone fights over prestige restaurant reservations, no one eats anything which doesn't keep them from reciting snippets of critical praise from a newspaper or magazine.

Everyone is interested in fashion and brands and price tags to measure themselves against others, no one cares about the actual substance of their lives.

Through the book, Bateman is almost always confused for other men and never makes a correction. Much time is spent with his rotating crew of acquaintances trying to identify others and failing. The men who can name a garment by designer and collection, or list the model number, features and price tag of their stereo, can't remember a face if their lives depended on it. The business card is a fetish object more notable for its lettering and thickness than any information conveyed by it.

At one point in time I think the outrageous level of narcissism depicted in this book might have read as a satirical caricature. It might have seemed like we lived in a country where justice is equal and the Patrick Batemans of the world would be punished. In 2020, with 30 years of hindsight with Enron, subprime mortgages, Weinstein, Epstein, and of course Donald Trump (who is explicitly idolized by Patrick's ilk in the book) it's almost chillingly real. During a chase in the novel, Patrick shoots someone on the street and all I could hear was Trump's claim he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose a voter.

The bottom line is that consequences aren't on the table for these people. Bateman tells us that he doesn't have any clear emotion except "greed and, possibly, total disgust." No happiness. No sadness. Certainly no remorse. No fear of discovery. Bateman is occasionally upfront about his violence and even confesses but it's always ignored or taken as a joke because those around him are pathologically incapable of noticing his aberrant behavior for fear that their own will be noticed.

It's a bleak story overall that shows us the ruling class is entirely self-serving, vapid, unfaithful and even murderous and yet the one character central to Bateman's life that is merely average, Jean, his secretary, has actually fallen in love with the facade he presents to the world. It's darkly ironic and indicative of how stupid we, the American people, are that we believe there is any goodness or high intention in them.

The one criticism I will level, and the reason I didn't give this five stars for prose alone, is that I think Bateman's unreliability about murdering Paul Owen does nothing but rob the story of some of its clarity. It would be one thing to turn Bateman into a gutless fantasizer and relegate all of his butchery to his imagination, but we suspect some of his exploits did occur (the taxicab driver accused him of murder he recounted, the police at Evelyn's neighbor's brownstone, the blinded bum) so not knowing how much of Bateman's memory is true just undermines the overall point that it doesn't matter.

I would also say I found the three musical interlude chapters to be rather pointless filler. Assuming they are written from Bateman's point of view all it proves is that he can appear quite discerning about music I don't care about. The main body of the work aged well in retrospect, but these sequences seem far more dated to someone that wasn't immersed in 80s pop culture. I suppose they serve as palate cleansers in a book that only has one character to follow.

All together though, the book was a compelling read that shocked me and made me feel dirty for reading it, and dirty for living in a society where this level of flagrant disregard for humanity is basically par for the course for the moneyed elite.

Having read The Wisdom of Psychopath, I wonder which came first. The definition of psychopathy or Bret Easten Ellis’ protagonist.

Patrick Bateman is a racist, narcissistic, materialistic, brand-crazed, homophobic sadist. I think no one is familiar with the terms apathy or psycho until they’ve read this novel. And given the overabundance of gore, sex, barely conceivable acts of cruelty inflicted upon not only kids and homeless people but also dogs, and (worst of all,) the never-ending minute clothe profiling stretching once as a chapter, and throughout the entire book as a mantra, I doubt anyone will eventually finish it.

“I had all the characteristics of a human being – flesh, blood, skin, hair – but my depersonalization was so intense, had gone so deep, that the normal ability to feel compassion had been eradicated, the victim of a slow, purposeful erasure. I was simply imitating reality, rough resemblance of a human being, with only a dim corner of my mind functioning.”

“the world is better off with some people gone. Our lives are not all interconnected.”

This book starts slowly, but later you realize that the author was introducing the character in a way that will work very well from page 100 on, when things start happening.

The rhythm given by the stream of consciousness writing and the frequent repetition of bizarre micro-interactions both contributes= to make it quite riveting and unlike most novels. There is also a certain intrigue in how the narrative toward the end can be read at a few different levels.

Warning: this is a graphically violent and disturbing novel.

In a way obvious satire of the greed and ruthlessness of the Wall Street shuffle c. 1990, American Psycho sits firmly in Ellis' own tradition of writing about vapid characters where surface is everything and identity is pretty much meaningless. It's infamous for its violent scenes and famous for the redundant description of things as well as music 'reviews' which these days would have been written by AI. 
Whether the murders 'really' take place, Word of God (i.e. BEE) is that they do, although some of the crimes including the car chase are more than a little farfetched..
It's hip to be square ....