murphyandhislaw

reading list

American Psycho

Brett Easton Ellis

published: 1991, read: 1/9/25
399 pages, genre: Horror
rating: 7.75/10, normalized: 7.5/10
0.451σ better than average
0.848σ or 0.686/10 better than average in Horror genre
1σ or 0.375/10 better than average by Brett Easton Ellis

Most fucked up book I've ever read by a good margin. Exceeds Big Driver from Full Dark, No Stars in terms of both amount of depiction of sexual violence. Depictions of non-violent sexual acts are also numerous (though they frequently become violent in nature), begging the uncomfortable question of self about why I enjoyed this book, but dislike commercial smut. I think it's because these scenes motivate the plot and do what they're supposed to in making me very uncomfortable instead of aroused.

The spectre of AIDS, Les Misérables, and Donald Trump is in the air in 1980s NYC. Patrick Bateman, his friends, their homophobia, and the fact that –for the first few chapters, at least– Patrick Bateman is the least offensive of his ribald friends is crazy. It's not until the chapter entitled "Tunnels" that Bateman starts to give the impression that he has a capacity for violence, but then it doesn't stop.

I do love the idea of being so bored on a first date that you start wondering whether or not you should share your pro-apartheid stance, let alone try to convince your unsuspecting victim to share your viewpoint. That and the absurdity of "free range squid"

There's this recurring theme of all these shmucks mistaking each other for other shmucks.

The irony of this novel is that by name dropping every single product, appliance, song, trend, brand, or trendy thing – Ellis attempted to make the vapid superficiality of the characters and their eventual obsolence age like fine wine, however the book becoming an instant classic kind of defeats this. "Cool it with the antisemitic remarks!"

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