Media Diet: American Psycho, Lot 49
Finally settling down with two overdue reads from The List: American Psycho and The Crying Of Lot 49. Between
pope_guilty and a few other sources, I ended up seeing a lot of references to TCL49 in a row and decided to snag it. I've been meaning to start in on Pynchon for a long time, and TCL49 is probably a better place to start than Gravity's Rainbow if there even exists such a thing as a less dense place to start in the Pynchon canon.
American Psycho, meantime, is partially to get ready to see the movie since I hear Christian Bale is atrociously hot in it. From what I've read so far (halfway into Psycho, quarter into TCL49), if he got himself into shape to properly play Bateman, he'll be something worth looking at. Psycho also is achingly 1980s and has an interesting vibe to it - the main character hyperfocuses on consumer goods. It's like a Tom Clancy novel, only the narrator is word-masturbating over Armani and trendy restaurants and personal mega-grooming and Louis Vitton and home electronics instead of military hardware. Fascinating, so far, if a bit tough to read in some places because it does a decent job at putting you in the head of a very damaged individual. Of course, part of the point, I think, is that while Bateman is damaged, it could be any of his associates instead of him who's the serial killer: they're all of a kind, really.
After the office I worked out at Xclusive and once home made obscene phone calls to young Dalton girls, the numbers I chose coming from the register I stole a copy of from the administration office when I broke in last Thursday night. "I'm a corporate raider," I whispered lasciviously into the cordless phone. "I orchestrate hostile takeovers. What do you think of that?" and I would pause before making sucking noises, freakish piglike grunts, and then ask, "Huh, bitch?" Most of the time I could tell they were frightened and this pleased me greatly, enabled me to maintain a strong, pulsing erection for the duration of the phone calls, until one of the girls, Hilary Wallace, asked, unfazed, "Dad, is that you?" and whatever enthusiasm I'd built up plummeted. Vaguely disappointed, I made a few more calls, but only halfheartedly, opening today's mail while doing so, and I finally hung up in midsentence when I came across a personalized reminder from Clifford, the guy who helps me at Armani, that there was a private sale at the boutique on Madison… two weeks ago! and though I figured out that one of the doormen probably withheld the card to piss me off, it still doesn't erase the fact that I missed the fucking sale, and dwelling over this loss while wandering down Central Park West somewhere around Seventy-sixth, Seventy-fifth, it strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place. [p 162]
Bateman reminds me of that "spirit of the age" bit from Ghost Dog.
pope_guilty and a few other sources, I ended up seeing a lot of references to TCL49 in a row and decided to snag it. I've been meaning to start in on Pynchon for a long time, and TCL49 is probably a better place to start than Gravity's Rainbow if there even exists such a thing as a less dense place to start in the Pynchon canon.
American Psycho, meantime, is partially to get ready to see the movie since I hear Christian Bale is atrociously hot in it. From what I've read so far (halfway into Psycho, quarter into TCL49), if he got himself into shape to properly play Bateman, he'll be something worth looking at. Psycho also is achingly 1980s and has an interesting vibe to it - the main character hyperfocuses on consumer goods. It's like a Tom Clancy novel, only the narrator is word-masturbating over Armani and trendy restaurants and personal mega-grooming and Louis Vitton and home electronics instead of military hardware. Fascinating, so far, if a bit tough to read in some places because it does a decent job at putting you in the head of a very damaged individual. Of course, part of the point, I think, is that while Bateman is damaged, it could be any of his associates instead of him who's the serial killer: they're all of a kind, really.
After the office I worked out at Xclusive and once home made obscene phone calls to young Dalton girls, the numbers I chose coming from the register I stole a copy of from the administration office when I broke in last Thursday night. "I'm a corporate raider," I whispered lasciviously into the cordless phone. "I orchestrate hostile takeovers. What do you think of that?" and I would pause before making sucking noises, freakish piglike grunts, and then ask, "Huh, bitch?" Most of the time I could tell they were frightened and this pleased me greatly, enabled me to maintain a strong, pulsing erection for the duration of the phone calls, until one of the girls, Hilary Wallace, asked, unfazed, "Dad, is that you?" and whatever enthusiasm I'd built up plummeted. Vaguely disappointed, I made a few more calls, but only halfheartedly, opening today's mail while doing so, and I finally hung up in midsentence when I came across a personalized reminder from Clifford, the guy who helps me at Armani, that there was a private sale at the boutique on Madison… two weeks ago! and though I figured out that one of the doormen probably withheld the card to piss me off, it still doesn't erase the fact that I missed the fucking sale, and dwelling over this loss while wandering down Central Park West somewhere around Seventy-sixth, Seventy-fifth, it strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place. [p 162]
Bateman reminds me of that "spirit of the age" bit from Ghost Dog.