As gory as the movie and a whole lot more... (American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis)

Member Name: Cuchulain

Product:	American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
Date:	16/03/01 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: VERY descriptive - leaves nothing to the imagination.

Disadvantages: VERY descriptive - leaves nothing to the imagination.

Seen, and liked, the movie? This book on which the film was based will blow your mind! Bret Easton Ellis' writing skills create pictures in your mind, which are far more gruesome than the director or producer of a movie could ever come up with.The book is set in the mid-eighties Wall Street. Well I presume it is Wall Street because that is never made clear in the book. It is a moot point, as the story has nothing to do with where the main character works. You enter the life of Pat Bateman, a young successful businessman in New York, and look at his circle of friends through his eyes. Bateman works for a successful company owned by his father and so doesn?t have to do any work at all, just be there from day to day. Boredom sets in and he starts going off the handle. Cue multiple murders, misogynistic tendencies and a view inside the head of a killer who is definitely a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

We are told of his false relationships with the people around him, and the constant mask he has to keep up while he is with them. But there are always the times when that mask slips a little. Like when on his girlfriends birthday he has a tiny cake made for her, made from those toilet freshening soaps they have in urinals. He sits and watches taking sick enjoyment as she forces it down so as not to hurt his feelings, then takes great pleasure in watching her become violently sick afterwards. This is actually one of the calmer moments of the book. Some of the other things that go on would make your eyes water.

Ellis? writing goes into so much detail that this is exactly like a fly-on-the-wall-documentary. You are told exactly, to the last detail, what hair care products Bateman uses, what type of music he listens to, and gives us every little thought that runs through his head. Thoughts about what a presenter is saying on an early morning news program, thoughts about what to get his girlfriend for her birthday, thoughts about cutting open some tram
ps face and watching the blood drip down his cheeks. It is exactly like that ? going from the everyday thoughts that we sane people have and throwing in a few psychotic ramblings to build his character more. And it works a treat.

His descriptive prowess shows its gruesome face all the way through the book, and in even more detail, if that is possible, when Bateman is carrying out his attacks, and sometimes this can be a little sickening. Do we really want to know in THAT much detail what happens when he cuts a girl in half? Well I suppose we do or the book wouldn?t have been a best seller.

Those of you who enjoyed the movie but haven?t read the book will be shocked even more. So much of the book was left out so that it could get a rating and not be banned, that most of the most horrific, main scenes from the book have been cut is the name of taste. Only read this book if you have a strong stomach and aren?t upset by very much.

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