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Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

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Original poster

American Psycho

24 replies

CaptainTripps · 17/05/2014 20:17

I have just read this. LOVED it. Anyone else read it out there?

So many messages on so many levels. I loved the inanity of endless detail and description of brands. The eating out every night. The blandness of the characters. The blandness of his taste in music. The hardbodies.

Ahh and how it all comes together somehow.

The gory bits I kind of glazed over.

I do recommend. Anyone else got any opinions on the book?

OP posts:

PseudoBadger · 17/05/2014 20:20

I read it and enjoyed it years ago. Two things remain prominent in my memory. The bit with the rats, and the endless discussions about Genesis/Phil Collins.

TerraNotSoFirma2 · 17/05/2014 20:42

I borrowed this from DH when he was just my housemate, when I handed it back looking a bit queasy he said....''its a shame what he does to that poor dog isn't it''
[Confused]

LondonForTheWeekend · 18/05/2014 08:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 18/05/2014 16:27

Dp and dd1 both absolutely love it. I have not yet managed to screw my courage enough to read it!

qazxc · 18/05/2014 19:00

the gory bits are gruesome and somehow made worse by the juxtaposition with the inane bland discussions on phil collins/whitney houston albums. And the fact he murders one person for having a better cream, plain business card than him.
I found it quite hilarious in bits, you just have to remember it is fiction/it's not real.

ditavonteesed · 18/05/2014 19:02

also the rude bits (before the gory bits) are the best written porn ever.

KaFayOLay · 18/05/2014 19:05

I found it pretty disturbing.

I read it but didn't want to keep ploughing through but compelled to keep going

It takes some kind of mind to write such stuff.

I wouldn't recommend it to somebody of a sensitive nature.

MrsAlexVause · 18/05/2014 19:08

Scared the crap out of me! I think the police should definitely investigate the author

ThaneOfScunthorpe · 18/05/2014 19:11

Amazing, amazing book. But very disturbing, and possibly the only book I've read that has provoked a feeling of nausea.

spottydolphin · 18/05/2014 19:14

OP have you read Glamorama? if not get that next

spottydolphin · 18/05/2014 19:15

and agree with dita about the porn

DangoDays · 18/05/2014 19:17

Pseudobadger - yes the Phil Collins. Endless description! That was terrifying!

SongsAboutB · 18/05/2014 19:32

I read it at quite a weird time in my life when I was living abroad (in Germany) and associating with English speaking workers who were working there for stupid money (around a £1000 a day at the end of the 1990s). TBH I completely recognised the people in the book in the people who were around me. They weren't in the same type of jobs but there was a lot of competitive networking, interest in the exact daily rate that others were earning, a rush to be the first to get each new type of mobile as they came out, a lot of watch comparison (put me off Patek Phillipe for life).

Socially they were a mixture, there were happily marrieds but not many, there were loners and there were lots of men who were in a couple but also shagging around because their wives/gfs were back in the UK/US/Oz/NZ. Some of them had a wife in their home country and a live in girlfriend in Germany. Some of them were laid-back and kind, some of them were evil sharks who tried to manipulate everyone around them. Loads of the older ones were on their third or fourth marriage. Every night there was at least two or three groups going out for a meal and drinking, I doubt everyone went out for a big piss up every night but it was possible if you wanted to and most people were out on the town at least two or three times a week. There was plenty of casual drug usage and one of the popular late night drinking places was the brothel, some used the prostitutes and some didn't but there was no moral thought around the subject at all.

Under those circumstances it was a very weird book to read, it paralleled my experience very neatly. My understanding of the book was that he didn't actually kill all those women, it was a fantasy life in his head that was always on the verge of breaking into his real life. I don't think that any of the people I was associating with in RL were serial killers but there were a few that I avoided if I could and that I would have scarpered from if there was any danger of being alone with them.

YouAreMyRain · 18/05/2014 20:13

Was it all in the characters head? The bit at the end where his neighbours ignored him loading a victim/body into his car(?) made me think it was all a fantasy of his and he didn't actually kill anyone.

YouAreMyRain · 18/05/2014 20:14

SongsaboutB just realised you said similar/the same

inforapennyinforapound · 18/05/2014 20:16

Did the same guy write Less Than Zero? I remember reading that as a teenager and being weirded out totally by it (think that one features a snuff movie?)

Original poster

CaptainTripps · 18/05/2014 21:49

Rain - I'm still unsure if it was real or not. I think we are meant to be left wondering.

Part of me think no way. How come no one saw him getting rid of the bodies/evidence.

But on a different level are we supposed to think that he committed the murders and that the murders didn't matter and it was more about the money / lifestyle? That humans were expendable? Am thinking of Paul Owen's apartment where the estate agent woman shooed him away with disgust and told him to stay away. Did she know? It seemed like it. But the value of the apartment was worth too much for her to bring the cops in?

OP posts:

mizu · 19/05/2014 20:36

Read this at uni about 20 years ago. Remember two things:

I knew I would never read it again

There is a bit about a dog that made me feel physically sick

LeBearPolar · 19/05/2014 20:42

It's very disturbing, but one of the hardest hitting social satires I've read. There's an interesting article on Bateman as the unreliable narrator here - I like the Guardian book club articles.

PseudoBadger · 19/05/2014 23:09

Great article thanks :)

deerkitty · 24/05/2014 07:30

This is the one book that I couldn't finish, it made me feel physically sick. When he murdered the kid at the zoo iirc, I put it down and I read it probably 15 years ago before the dcs!

exWifebeginsat40 · 24/05/2014 07:33

love love love this book. first time i read it i had to put it down halfway through as i simply couldn't stomach it (and i love a gory horror movie, me). it's one of my absolute favourites. and the film is actually quite good.

now if you'll excuse me, i have to return some videotapes...

Ohwhatfuckeryisthis · 24/05/2014 07:46

I was always two minds About whether he did it. It was either his fantasy world or he did do it And it was a commentary on the 80s society where people were less important than things, so Bateman could get Away with it because no o is cared. (Sorry for the mad punctuation and spelling, phone)

Cheboludo · 24/05/2014 09:06

I think it's a powerful and important book but I couldn't say I liked or enjoyed it. It may be the only book I've read that made me gag (the rat section). I really don't know if I could stomach reading it again.

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