# American Psycho



## Neo (Jan 25, 2007)

My favorite book. What do you think?


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## Sock (Jan 25, 2007)

A very great, very dark, black comedy. A really in depth look into the mind of a serial killer. It has a very deep, well developed character who seems to be boasting about all of the people he has killed. I love how he describes in exact detail all of the items in his house, usually adding that they are top of line, or the best you can find. Great book, with a great adaptation.


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## Anarkos (Jan 26, 2007)

I'm fighting my way through The Informers at present.

Bret Easton Ellis is quite the bastard.

Backed.


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## Neo (Jan 26, 2007)

The morally nihilistic tone of the novel complements it's bleakness and as a whole, as a detached narrative on consumerism, vanity and greed, uses it's implicit mysoginy and graphic violence and sex is an appropriate and necassary manner.

Now did THAT sound all professional or what!


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## strangedaze (Jan 29, 2007)

i love it. especially when he tries to feed the cat to the bank machine. i remember laughing out loud on the bus whilst reading it. bret is a writer i love, whose style totally captures an era. 

and i dont think the misogyny is implicit lol the book is pretty up-front about it all. 

i second, or third, the choice for AP as a swanky book.

and as for the informers, theres a short story in it, one of the last three i think, when reality starts to show beneath the glitz and glam of hollow LA. with the chick who has cancer. WOW. why didnt he finish the collection with that? unreal.


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## deviger (Jan 29, 2007)

I have been wanting to read AP for quite some time.  It's been on my list, but somehow I keep forgetting to pick it up.


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## Kane (Jan 29, 2007)

I'm reading this now.  I started it yesterday, and it's been a struggle just to get through the first 150 pages.  I'm so sick of reading about what everyone is wearing, or reading about the shallow little world of the well-to-do they live in.  I realizze the author is doing this to flesh out Bateman's character, but the more I read, the less I give to pence about Bateman, or his journey through this tale.  I'm willing to bet that if you removed the description and brand-name dropping of clothes, the book would be at least 33% smaller, if not more.  Earlier this morning I read a chapter where the sole topic was Genesis/Phil Collins... bleh.  I'll keep going, cause I paid $15 for the damn book, but I'm feeling like I should have just paid $15 for a used copy of the DVD.


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## coral (Jan 30, 2007)

I thought the book was pretty good, but not my favourite by a long shot. Some parts were so grim that I had to put the book down and some parts even worse where I had to re-read to see if I had just read what I thought I read and then put the book down.

I think that all that bullocks about what everyone is wearing and such, needs to be there though. 

I didn't really get the chapter on Genesis either. He does that again with another group too. I remember being a bit disappointed by the ending though...but I also remember thinking that it worked with the theme of the book.


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## Kane (Jan 30, 2007)

I don't know if it needs to be there or not.  Maybe... It's not just that Bateman absolutely CANNOT see ANYBODY without describing the color, style, brand and sometimes price of each piece of clothing, but a good 25% of the dialogue is the different characters sitting around, drinking expensive wine, eating expensive food, and talking about clothes, and when it's fashionable to wear them.  And almost nobody knows who anybody is in this book.  Everyone calls everyone else by the wrong name... Are these Wall Street socialites really like that?  If so, I'm glad I'm just an average Joe.  The sex scenes belong in a porno magazine.  When you remove all of this, the book is left with very little substance.


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## Jolly McJollyson (Jan 30, 2007)

Kane said:
			
		

> I don't know if it needs to be there or not.  Maybe... It's not just that Bateman absolutely CANNOT see ANYBODY without describing the color, style, brand and sometimes price of each piece of clothing, but a good 25% of the dialogue is the different characters sitting around, drinking expensive wine, eating expensive food, and talking about clothes, and when it's fashionable to wear them.  And almost nobody knows who anybody is in this book.  Everyone calls everyone else by the wrong name... Are these Wall Street socialites really like that?  If so, I'm glad I'm just an average Joe.  The sex scenes belong in a porno magazine.  When you remove all of this, the book is left with very little substance.


You do realize that the book is about the dehumanizing, depraved mania of greed in 80s corporate culture, right?

If so, you should understand the importance of those passages in shaping the idea of the cultural mentality.  Sure, if you remove the MAIN POINT of any book, it'll be left with very little substance.

That said, I'm not that big a fan of minimalism, and Palahniuk is far from the cream of the crop in that genre.


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## Jolly McJollyson (Jan 30, 2007)

Neo said:
			
		

> The morally nihilistic tone of the novel complements it's bleakness and as a whole, as a detached narrative on consumerism, vanity and greed, uses it's implicit mysoginy and graphic violence and sex is an appropriate and necassary manner.
> 
> Now did THAT sound all professional or what!


Up until the point when you spelled "misogyny," "necessary," 
"compliments," and "its" wrong, yes.


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## Kane (Jan 30, 2007)

Jolly McJollyson said:
			
		

> You do realize that the book is about the dehumanizing, depraved mania of greed in 80s corporate culture, right?
> 
> If so, you should understand the importance of those passages in shaping the idea of the cultural mentality.  Sure, if you remove the MAIN POINT of any book, it'll be left with very little substance.
> 
> That said, I'm not that big a fan of minimalism, and Palahniuk is far from the cream of the crop in that genre.



Well, if that's what he's trying to convey, I think a short essay would have been better, or if fiction is really his thing, a short story.  I got the point in the first segment... to have to put up with it through 400+ pages is repetitive overkill.


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## Jolly McJollyson (Jan 30, 2007)

Kane said:
			
		

> I got the point in the first segment... to have to put up with it through 400+ pages is repetitive overkill.


Obviously you didn't, since you just had to have it explained to you.


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## Kane (Jan 30, 2007)

I didn't need anything explained to me... I know what he's trying to do and it's overkill.  Understand?


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## skitz (Jan 31, 2007)

If one were around the yuppie scene in the eighties, then one would realize that the author caught the essence of the useless existence yuppies held on the planet to a tee. He furthered the uselessness to include a yuppie with no conscience and a humorously murderous personality. There was a bit too much description of food and clothing as most have stated. I skipped over alot of the description to get to the juicy stuff. The author is warped and talented. I loved it.


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## coral (Jan 31, 2007)

I still believe that in order to write the novel, he needed to add all that bullocks in. What else could he have written about. This is 80's yuppies-ville. What he wrote about is their world. Overkill? Yes, absolutely. But was there anything else for those characters? No. So thank god Bret made his main character a psycho-path serial killer.


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## deviger (Jan 31, 2007)

Part of Bateman's psychosis is his obsession with perfection so naturally he would notice brand names etc.


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## Kane (Jan 31, 2007)

/shrug

Like I've said, I know why he did it, but that doesn't make it any less painful to read.


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## Neo (Jan 31, 2007)

I am thinking about reading it for a third time, at the mo. I was in a new cafe in Blyth today actually. I was wearing black trousers from Burtons and a black tee-shirt from Ethel Austin, as well as a red-and-black checked jacket and black padded windbreaker from Burtons, and I began thinking about the clothes thing. You're right, it's totally irrelevant.


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## Kane (Jan 31, 2007)

funny...

Maybe I'd care more about what they wore if I wasn't a tactical BDU's and t-shirt kind of guy.  I don't care if I get my shirts at Wal-Mart or some other store, so long as I like the fit and color.


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## Neo (Jan 31, 2007)

Damn right.


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## coral (Jan 31, 2007)

Neo said:
			
		

> I am thinking about reading it for a third time, at the mo. I was in a new cafe in Blyth today actually. I was wearing black trousers from Burtons and a black tee-shirt from Ethel Austin, as well as a red-and-black checked jacket and black padded windbreaker from Burtons.




:-D

But I'd still read it again too


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## Neo (Feb 16, 2007)

What are Ellis' other books like?


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## Heid (Aug 7, 2007)

I'm about 215 pages in and I'm loving it (the threesome chapter was more arousing than porn!). Bateman is clearly an egotistical character whose obsession with image and top brand products dominates not only his own thoughts but also his actions. (cold sweats and fits of trembling when he realises his business card is inferior).

I know that the descriptions of clothes and products are over the top but obviously that reflects how Bateman thinks and how much attention he pays to what others are wearing and judges them by it.

The Genesis/Phil Collins chapter I actually enjoyed but largely because I am a fan of them (except for Genesis' early work)


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