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2014-06-04 05:25 4969740 Anonymous (american-psycho-book.jpg 498x800 74kB)
What does /lit/izens think of American Psycho?

4 min later 4969753 Anonymous
>>4969740 meh

5 min later 4969755 Anonymous
omg so edgy

6 min later 4969758 Philosophag
>>4969740 The movie brought too many plebs.

7 min later 4969763 Anonymous
Not OP but I'm considering reading this. I don't give a fuck about being edgy, memes, and all of that. Can people just give honest opinions and elaborate a little bit more than "meh" or "so edgy" please?

16 min later 4969792 Anonymous
It's actually pretty good despite being popular and liked on reddit.

18 min later 4969798 Anonymous
>>4969763 I'd say the movie is better and probably Christian Bale's best performance, but that's just me. The books is more violent if that's your thing though.

22 min later 4969808 Anonymous
>>4969798 The movie was saved by his performance. It's pretty impressive how the writers managed to wrangle a faithful and coherent screenplay out of the source material. The thing that really holds the movie back however is the direction and cinematography are so goddamn lackluster and the small budget didn't really do it any favors.

28 min later 4969824 Anonymous
>>4969755 ya know, i think it actually did edgy right. it's hard now-a-days to make something edgy, without people scoffing at it. but american psycho was damn well entertaining, and even written pretty well. can't you appreciate good edge anymore, anon?

32 min later 4969832 Anonymous (capybara.jpg 500x373 86kB)
It's a bit of a twist on the classic great-gatsby type alienation-from-the-self-because-of -society thing. The twist involving horrible violence, a dab of meta, and a sense of freedom with the medium. One of the most interesting things about it is it's introduced early on that Bateman hallucinates, and the contradictions that have racked up by the end show that hallucination was involved in a lot of the narrative. This is almost like fiction on two different levels. On top of it having no impact on our reality, we have no way of knowing how much impact it has in the reality of the fiction itself. However, the only reality of the novel as we know it is Bateman's narrative, so in a sense it points out the weirdness of thinking there are things that Bateman is getting "wrong" or "right" when we'll never know what "really" happened, because none of this "really" happened, because it's a fictional story.

45 min later 4969892 Anonymous
>>4969832 Also has some really funny stuff, like seemingly pointless sex+murder scenes followed by equally pointless seeming six-page discussions of an 80s pop artist's career and influence. There are scenes like this, which are remarkable because they're so forgettably useless that they become memorable. It's the superficiality that fiction's been talking about for a while that Ellis amps up to 11, and rather than telling or showing, he /does/, and he does it dark and weird and hilarious. It's like if David Lynch painted his interpretation of one of Renoir's really upbeat, colorful crowds of people, and gave them uncanny-valley-ass surreal faces, half of them are in an ambiguous state of either having fun or being murdered, that kind of thing.

47 min later 4969904 Anonymous
>>4969832 I like your rabbit

53 min later 4969927 Anonymous
>>4969904 thx >>4969892 It's social commentary on more cocaine than is necessary, dealing out little hints and details on a lot of different levels, and the contrast of subtle themes and hilariously over the top scenes (re: Satan talking to Bateman through Bono at a U2 concert) makes for a stark and textured read. Would definitely recommend. It also has one of the most interesting endings of any piece of fiction I've ever read, and that the movie couldn't possibly have replicated, that I'll leave for you to find.

1 hours later 4970019 Anonymous
>>4969755 shut up you contrarian

1 hours later 4970028 Anonymous
It is really quite a funny book.

1 hours later 4970101 Anonymous
>>4969832 >>4969892 >>4969927 Thank you, put into words what I could not. Also yeah it sports one of my favorite ending lines of all time.

2 hours later 4970320 Anonymous
i agree emotions are finite. people grow weary. first love is almost the most amazing sensation ever.

2 hours later 4970362 Anonymous
>>4969740 I'm currently on page 43 and I like it so far. The book was kinda hard to get into but that might be cause I'm not a native speaker.

2 hours later 4970370 Anonymous (1394233347322.jpg 400x400 8kB)
>thisthreadagain.mkv

3 hours later 4970389 nJgərz təŋ maj enəs
>>4969758 the movie was good,really good. the book is decent because it is so horrible. he's a hack. >>4969798 >>4969808 this, though i think the director did a good job, as did the cinematographer >>4969824 >written well >no

4 hours later 4970535 Anonymous
Let's see if we can find meaning in AP by breaking down the name of the protagonist, Patrick Bateman. I believe Ellis intends this name to be read as a homophone, making the main character a bait man. The absurdly comic amount of time and effort B spends arranging to dine with others starts to make sense in this context. Yet, Bait denotes not only food used as a lure but also a deadly substance used to kill vermin. The most memorable murder scene in the novel, which I won't make any more explicit for the sake of those who have not yet read AP, contains several elements that support the idea that the author intends the reader to think of PB's actions as being gruesome yet beneficial. In this context, the popular music that Bateman delights in listening to is another form of bait that draws his attention away from his work and serves to help him lure victims. Will explicate / elaborate further for money. Getting sleepy now.

10 hours later 4971374 Anonymous
>>4969763 It is entry level. My friend enjoyed it. He also like Slaughter-house Five. He liked it a lot. So if you liked that book go for it.

11 hours later 4971625 Anonymous
One of the first books I've read, I liked it very much. Don't give a shit about irrelevant terms like "edgy", give it a try.

13 hours later 4971996 Anonymous
>>4970101 care to elaborate?

15 hours later 4972473 Anonymous (this_is_not_an_exit_web.jpg 540x712 88kB)
>>4970101

15 hours later 4972499 Anonymous
>>4969740 American Psycho is a horrible, obscene novel for white trash who think they're smart and educated (i.e. "edgy plebs"). Patrick Bateman is an excellent character that deserves a better writer.

15 hours later 4972502 Anonymous
>>4970362 >thinking stuff until page 43 is relevant >so pure and innocent

16 hours later 4972510 Anonymous
>>4969758 The movie was 100x better than the book, and having an actor that understood Bateman (sans the homosex) made the character more believable, and injecting a more accessible dark humor vibe. The movie made the social cynicism and social observations much clearer than the book ever did. I'd never read the book again, but I'll watch the movie 10 more times before I die.

16 hours later 4972526 Anonymous
>>4972499 Reading/looking at obscenity (4chan) is what makes them think they're so enlightened. "Fuk middle class morality" ect. This is so easy.

16 hours later 4972536 Anonymous
I skipped all three music chapters

16 hours later 4972560 Anonymous
>>4972526 I don't know, I'm older than most people here and 4chan didn't even exist when I read this book. But since this book had a lot of success in the 90's, you can tell many people were like that before 4chan; people who were perfectly normal and "nice" in every other matter, which was somewhat frightening. They told you to read that book, without any warning, like it's your regular Umberto Eco novel.

16 hours later 4972583 Anonymous
>>4971374 so much this. it's like the people that praise bukowski. >a semi-decent story is useless with shit writing. >>4972499 i disagree. i think it's for dumb, educated people who don't want responsibility Patrick Bateman is an excellent character that deserves a better writer. do not, cannot, disagree >>4972536 those are the only coherent chapters. moreover, i could be biased; i love whitney, huey & the news, and collins

16 hours later 4972587 Anonymous
>>4972560 >4chan didn't even exist when I read this book so? you're just nostalgia'ing because you're older just because someone pioneered something doesn't really matter in the here and now someone was gonna do it eventually and now it's been done mone on

16 hours later 4972595 Anonymous
>>4972583 >dumb, educated i like you

16 hours later 4972600 Anonymous
>>4972587 *move

16 hours later 4972609 Anonymous
>>4972587 You missed my point; do you feel nostalgia thinking about the moment where you missed my point?

16 hours later 4972648 Anonymous
>>4972526 angsty teens have always been against the middle class teachings. now it's the techno-intellectual, then it were the punks in the eighties, hippies in the sixties, et cetera. only difference now is the praise and worship of mediocrity, though that's been on a slow incremental rise for decades, technologies have helped mediocrity into scripture while suppressing genius. >>4972560 people have always loved gore, being scared, whatever. is that, too, frightening? why would it need a warning to read a novel? >did you just compare a good writer to B.E.E >>4972595 >me, or my comment? did you understand what i meant? i went to school with fucking idiots, not all of them mind you but many. i don't know how this many people are allowed at uni, money speaks.

17 hours later 4972799 Anonymous (Screen shot 2014-06-04 at 2.04.40 PM.png 1007x972 315kB)
This book is popular tonight

17 hours later 4972817 Anonymous
this thread >dead/dying other thread >shit

19 hours later 4973057 Anonymous
Bret Easton Ellis is a boring little shit on his podcast ill say tahat

19 hours later 4973100 Anonymous
>>4973111 >A way a lone a last a loved a long the

19 hours later 4973111 Anonymous
>>4973100 >riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

19 hours later 4973251 Anonymous
>>4970535 I've always thought it's a reference to Norman Bates, the killer from Hitchcock's Psycho. I can't really substantiate that interpretation with evidence / parallels because I haven't seen the film, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't the intention, given the title of the novel.

19 hours later 4973265 Anonymous
>>4973251 I thought that too until I read his earlier work (Patrick's brother Sean is one of the main characters of The Rules of Attraction - Patrick even has a brief cameo near the end with no readily apparent indicator of his nature).

19 hours later 4973275 Anonymous (catch me on that molly.gif 500x347 1015kB)
>>4973100 >>4973111 what the fuck is this shit I think we just got Joyce'd

21 hours later 4973572 Anonymous
>>4972648 But people talk about this vulgar novel like it's the ultimate masterpiece of modern literature... No one says that "Saw" is the most ambitious or most influential film of our time.

22 hours later 4973776 Anonymous (1369440969636.gif 500x281 697kB)
>>4973100 >>4973111

38 hours later 4975762 Anonymous
You know the aura of the movie you just watched that lingers on for some time after you've watched it, American psycho just doesn't leave that, it leaves an imprint on your mind. The brutality of the emotional and visual extremes just leaves such a huge impact on your senses, it's an amazing experience. Despite the extremism, the beauty of it lies in the subtleties. The intricate details are explained, for example the brands of face wash he uses, how he describes every little step in the beginning about he likes to take care of his body. And most of all, how elegantly they subdue every single extremity at the end and the brutality ends, with his lawyer. The subtle extreme. The lies we live, the outrageous lies we live are nothing when compared to how day by day the truth seeps out of our lives. Sublime yet bombards you with extremities. Sums up our society. Sums up humanity.

41 hours later 4976246 Anonymous
>>4973572 Very few people talk about American Psycho like it's the ultimate masterpiece of modern literature. Shut the fuck up.

42 hours later 4976634 Anonymous (1392773642878.gif 320x176 776kB)
>>4973100 >>4973111

3.086 0.110