American Psycho: Please tell DH that that the film doesn't make the points that the book does.

[Ninks]

He thinks he won't enjoy the book because he has watched the movie.

I read it in the early nineties. Found it really disturbing. Shocking content obviously, but the flat, emotionless prose, the sense of benign neglect that the upper-class NY / Boston brothers endured - all implicit...

And the sense of America post-AIDS when silly money was being earned by silly people. It's worth reading for that alone in this day and age.

Very original style he has too, Mr Easton Ellis. Which is always good. (Apart from when he tries to write other books - I'm not keen on them )

Seems to me that people who liked the social commentary of, "We Need To Talk About Kevin", would be interested in this. I bloody loved that about the book more than the main narrative tbh.

I am obviously forgetting lots of other good things about it. Can you help me out MNers?

the book is very interesting, it's supposed to be the inner workings of the mind of a pyschopath - or is it- but some of the murder scenes are brutal

the film is a pale imitation

I loathed the book and the film.

And 20 years after reading it I can still remember the description of the rat eating her

revolting

Agree with sal - whilst I thought the book was very clever, very funny in parts & hugely powerful, it's the one book that I've ever regretted letting into my head.

As such, have not given the film the chance

fraught opinions indeed

the book contains some horrifying passages of violence and some tedious passages about huey lewis and phil collins

the anti hero also refernces every designer brand name he can think of

but the book has so much to say about the type of high achieving banker wanker the press have been having a field day over for the past year, the ones who make pots of cash and don't contribute anything to society...well patrick bateman is one of these and the book is almost 20 yars old, so the point is as valid today as ever

the book is filled with irony: patrick bateman cannot recognise his colleagues / friends and constantly confuses their names. he often has conversations with people who clearly know him but he has no idea who they are. And yet, he knows (or thinks he knows) what tie, overcoat and designer shirt they are wearing. This is a man who is so unhinged, he is better at recognising designer labels than people's faces. It is meant to be ironic. We are not meant to admire these designer trappings, but despise the man who values them above human beings.

The anti-hero is an unreliable narrator par excellence. Nothing he says can be taken at face value, not what clothes people wear, not what they do, not what he sees on TV (anybody remember the piece of Cheerio breakfast cereal he thinks appears on a chat show?). All the violence and horror likewise. The reader has to be sceptical about everything he says, especially his own sexual exploits and violent trendancies.

I think it is multi-layered and a fabulously searing critique on modern consumerism and the cult of capitalism.

i tried to read the book, i say tried. i gave up, found it too up its own arse and the violence gave me the heebie jeebies....i actually remember having an argument with DH who read it...(it was 20 years ago!) we had just met and it put me right off him for a while!

i really couldnt read it but i sort of understood the point of it would be lost on a film, so i didnt bother with that either.

Can't believe so many of you read the book as did I many moons ago. The film is tres crap!

Did any one see the "Come Dine with me" episodes of last week?? Thought the silly blonde boy who was so up his designer full arse very similar to Patrick Bateman!!

he didn't have a head in his fridge, did he?

head in the fridge mousse,voila!was that episode with posh sloaney type and the Persian lady who was great cook?

I remember liking the first thirty or so pages of American Psycho when it had all the dark humour and the piss-take of the bankers. Then the violence started! I was so shocked at the first murder (the tramp, I think) that I actually stopped breathing for a minute. I thought that was bad, but it kept getting worse and worse. Bethany's murder is one I regret letting into my head, I still remember it after 10 years! Finally I skipped huge chunks of the novel just stopping to make sure I wasn't missing any big plot detail (I wasn't!) and went straight to the end.

Like a previous poster said, the salient points could be made without the gratuitous violence. I am generally against censorship of any sort, but this sort of book makes the case for censorship so much stronger. I wouldn't be in the lest upset if this book was banned and forgotten.

Thanks for your answers. I have to say that I didn't actually read a lot of the torture scenes. You know how you can skim over pages? (I find myself doing that more and more as I approach old-gimmerhood but regarding sex scenes instead )

Anyway, Dittany it is awful that the book sold to many less serious readers because of the shock-value of the dismembered and raped women. However:

It illustrates misogyny to a horrific degree. Not only does Pat objectify women in mainstream movies, porn or street-hookers as "meat", he also nearly always tries to combine them with uptown-girl types. Educated, "classy" designer-clad with wanker-banker jobs and trust funds. And he makes them equal by having them degrade themselves. With each other for his amusement.

That says a lot about this type's attitude to women. All meat - whatever they say or do. Prey he says, I think. And I remember thinking in my naivety as a twenty-something wondering why he didn't respect women who were like him, his class, his set. Until I realised that the point was that some men hate ALL of them.

And that there is no way of escaping such men by being exceptionally beautiful or clever despite what the crappy romance novels say. That they will always try to drag you down to the low level they think should should be at.

I don't think it is as simple as saying that because something contains awful violence against women that it is condoning or glamorising it. Not so. The book basically illustrates how porn works, how people become cattle. All the women in Patrick's life are young and plastic and he can't relate to them as people at all.

That's well put Ninks.
I still think the level of violence was unnecessary. Have you read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo? The original Swedish title for it was Men Who Hate Women. The killer (not revealed till the end) is very much like Bateman in character - outwardly suave and attractive and a misogynistic pig inside. Horrific incidents happen in this book too BUT back-of-screen. The reader does not have to wince and groan his/her way through detailed descriptions of dismemberments and rape. Much better book IMO, but loses critique points because it's a "thriller" and American Psycho is an "intellectual wak-fest" as scottishmummy so eloquently put it