American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

The first time I had really known about American Psycho was when it was broadcasted on my television when I was younger. I saw that it had sarred Christian Bale and I couldn’t say no to that so I glued my eyes to the T.V. and readied myself for a hopefully enjoyable movie. Boy was I wrong! That was one of the most uncomfortable films I had ever seen besides Irreversible. I had no idea it was a book until after I watched it but now that I’ve seen the movie plenty of times and read the actual book I just have one thing to say before I really start discussing anything else: Bret Easton Ellis is either incredibly brilliant or possibly insane. I’ll go with the former but it takes a heck of a writer to pull of what Ellis wrote. I have never read anything that has made me feel so disturbed and completely disgusted as American Psycho. I'm ashamed too admit though that I did laugh at a good number of scenes in both the film and book.

            American Psycho follows a man named Patrick Bateman. He’s wealthy, living up the American dream, charming, is the textbook definition of narcissism, and did I mention he likes to kill people? Patrick’s character in the novel is so disgustingly horrible but unfortunately I found him somewhat fascinating as well. Throughout the whole novel the narrative is told from Patrick’s P.O.V. but even that’s not helpful with all the grizzly events which take place in the story. It’s interesting though how this narrative works as it shows how Patrick’s identity in the novel is screwed up in some manner as he’s constantly mistaken for another one of his wealthy colleagues. He also describes a large number of materials objects in regards to himself and other people, but mostly himself (he seriously loves to talk about himself too much). I found it irksome after a few chapters to be honest as Patrick always talks in detail about anything materialistic, but afterwards I thought it was really symbolic of just how yuppy he really was.

            While reading the book I was somewhat shocked by how graphic it was. I mean some of the ways Bateman kills his victim is just downright monstrous. He's violent, impulsive, and ruthless in what he does. He even kills a child at some point for no reason at all. I felt like the overall character of Patrick Bateman may have been some metaphor for violence or something along that subject. As the story progressed Bateman killed more and more people and I was really disappointed that he wasn’t caught by the police until I got to the end of the book. Now this is where the twist comes in. At the end of the story it’s revealed that Patrick was more than likely imagining all the violent killings he conducted throughout the book. A good way to wrap up a disturbingly violent story I must admit.