American Psycho: A second read
Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho was a book that took the reading world and chopped off its head. No, really, this was a book that was so violent, so misogynistic, so graphic and depraved, that it was rejected by its original publisher, and had to be picked up by another. It ruled in academia, and even spawned a movie, which has barely overshadowed the book (a rarity).
I read it before the movie in the fall/winter of 1999. It was one of the first books I read in college on my own, though it was far from the first book of depravity I had ever read. Stephen King fascinated me in the 5th grade (and I read him on and off through the summer before college), Clive Barker was one of the first positive gay experiences I had ever read (In the Hills , the Cities from his Books of Blood collection), Trainspotting, and A Clockwork Orange were both read by the time I was 16. Heck, in the 9th grade, I wrote a finale to the Monkey's Paw that was just so visceral and damning that I was surprised I read it in class.
When I read American Psycho, it was hilarious. It was shocking, and it was so petty. I mean, the sheer violence in that short story I wrote is the only other piece I have ever read to the sheer violence in American Psycho. I say this not as "look how brutal I am" but as "the violence in American Psycho was so over-the-top that 9th graders with no limits are the only ones who compare."
And, really, we start to get at the heart of American Psycho. The first time I read it, I read it as some rich yuppie who just had violent tendencies. It's a first-person narrative which practically begs you to empathize with this drug-using, name-dropping, social-status-worshipping rich asshole who hates women and poor people and commits brutal gruesome murders for fun. It begs you to skim through its shallowness and see that this person is just a shallow everyday yuppie.
A lot of people think its just about the sick fantasies of a power-hungry corporate guy who rules the financial world. The murders are the focus and they're just his own dreams and escapisms that he thinks are real.
But, really, its deeper than that. This is no everyday Mergers and Acquisitions guy. This guy is a yuppie loser. He goes out with models who deem him socially inadequate. Everybody he knows thinks he is a sad sack of shit. The only people whom he hangs out with are a group of social idiots high on their own sense of self worth, and they even think he's a carbon copy asshole. Half of them can't even get his name right. He's a complete square, and most people won't even give him the time of day. This is the guy whom you made fun of in high school, and in college, but now has a bit of power and still is a bland asshole who is trying too hard to be somebody and failing miserably. And his flights of fancy are his way of dreaming his own control back into his life.
The first time around, I didn't realize it because I was too busy empathizing with all the "I" statements. He hates everybody in the book. He thinks he's better than everybody. The first time around, it feels like it is just ego that is making that the case. The second time around, I am asking "But, why is that?" with more seriousness. The answer is "because he is rejecting them after they reject him." He fantasizes about killing poor people after being humiliated. He fantasizes about violently raping his old girlfriend Bethany after she says she's dating the chef at Dorsia (the restaurant he obsesses over but can't get into) and displays her Platinum AmEx, a financial status symbol. He fantasizes about killing a guy who has an account he wants desperately because he can't figure out how to get it himself. He's a virtual symbol of inadequacy.
In looking up American Psycho today, before writing all this this, Ellis said in a 2010 interview: "[Patrick Bateman] did not come out of me sitting down and wanting to write a grand sweeping indictment of yuppie culture. It initiated because my own isolation and alienation at a point in my life. I was living like Patrick Bateman. I was slipping into a consumerist kind of void that was supposed to give me confidence and make me feel good about myself but just made me feel worse and worse and worse about myself. That is where the tension of "American Psycho" came from. It wasn't that I was going to make up this serial killer on Wall Street. High concept. Fantastic. It came from a much more personal place, and that's something that I've only been admitting in the last year or so. I was so on the defensive because of the reaction to that book that I wasn't able to talk about it on that level."
Huh. Its a potent read-through, even moreso than the first time around.
I read it before the movie in the fall/winter of 1999. It was one of the first books I read in college on my own, though it was far from the first book of depravity I had ever read. Stephen King fascinated me in the 5th grade (and I read him on and off through the summer before college), Clive Barker was one of the first positive gay experiences I had ever read (In the Hills , the Cities from his Books of Blood collection), Trainspotting, and A Clockwork Orange were both read by the time I was 16. Heck, in the 9th grade, I wrote a finale to the Monkey's Paw that was just so visceral and damning that I was surprised I read it in class.
When I read American Psycho, it was hilarious. It was shocking, and it was so petty. I mean, the sheer violence in that short story I wrote is the only other piece I have ever read to the sheer violence in American Psycho. I say this not as "look how brutal I am" but as "the violence in American Psycho was so over-the-top that 9th graders with no limits are the only ones who compare."
And, really, we start to get at the heart of American Psycho. The first time I read it, I read it as some rich yuppie who just had violent tendencies. It's a first-person narrative which practically begs you to empathize with this drug-using, name-dropping, social-status-worshipping rich asshole who hates women and poor people and commits brutal gruesome murders for fun. It begs you to skim through its shallowness and see that this person is just a shallow everyday yuppie.
A lot of people think its just about the sick fantasies of a power-hungry corporate guy who rules the financial world. The murders are the focus and they're just his own dreams and escapisms that he thinks are real.
But, really, its deeper than that. This is no everyday Mergers and Acquisitions guy. This guy is a yuppie loser. He goes out with models who deem him socially inadequate. Everybody he knows thinks he is a sad sack of shit. The only people whom he hangs out with are a group of social idiots high on their own sense of self worth, and they even think he's a carbon copy asshole. Half of them can't even get his name right. He's a complete square, and most people won't even give him the time of day. This is the guy whom you made fun of in high school, and in college, but now has a bit of power and still is a bland asshole who is trying too hard to be somebody and failing miserably. And his flights of fancy are his way of dreaming his own control back into his life.
The first time around, I didn't realize it because I was too busy empathizing with all the "I" statements. He hates everybody in the book. He thinks he's better than everybody. The first time around, it feels like it is just ego that is making that the case. The second time around, I am asking "But, why is that?" with more seriousness. The answer is "because he is rejecting them after they reject him." He fantasizes about killing poor people after being humiliated. He fantasizes about violently raping his old girlfriend Bethany after she says she's dating the chef at Dorsia (the restaurant he obsesses over but can't get into) and displays her Platinum AmEx, a financial status symbol. He fantasizes about killing a guy who has an account he wants desperately because he can't figure out how to get it himself. He's a virtual symbol of inadequacy.
In looking up American Psycho today, before writing all this this, Ellis said in a 2010 interview: "[Patrick Bateman] did not come out of me sitting down and wanting to write a grand sweeping indictment of yuppie culture. It initiated because my own isolation and alienation at a point in my life. I was living like Patrick Bateman. I was slipping into a consumerist kind of void that was supposed to give me confidence and make me feel good about myself but just made me feel worse and worse and worse about myself. That is where the tension of "American Psycho" came from. It wasn't that I was going to make up this serial killer on Wall Street. High concept. Fantastic. It came from a much more personal place, and that's something that I've only been admitting in the last year or so. I was so on the defensive because of the reaction to that book that I wasn't able to talk about it on that level."
Huh. Its a potent read-through, even moreso than the first time around.