Bret
Easton ELLIS, American Psycho, Picador/Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 2000.
Octavo; paperback; 399pp. Moderate wear; covers rubbed and
edgeworn with some creasing; text block and page edges lightly toned. Very
good.
This
book first appeared in 1991 and it was a headache from the word “go”. Due to
the content, it was required that the book, when sold new, had to be enclosed
in shrink-wrap, so that no-one could just browse through it inadvertently and
be offended. This had an impact upon retailers’ attempts to reduce their carbon
footprint – causing some distributors to fork out for shrink-wrapping equipment
– and the costs were necessarily passed on to the consumers. A buzz soon
generated and for many - at least here in Australia, anyway, where our bullshit
threshold is particularly low – it seemed as though this was just a marketing
strategy to boost notoriety and, therefore, sales. You can bet that every major
bookshop in the world though, had an opened copy tucked away somewhere that had
been ‘accidentally’ damaged down at the receiving dock and which did the rounds
of the staff.
For
me, I had just slogged through the crapulous fascination, generated in the 80s
and pushed on into the 90s, for serial killers. We had been thoroughly
saturated with the life stories of Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne
Gacy, presented to us as super-beings and whose evil existences had been
strip-mined to produce Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, all of
Patricia Cornwell’s books and even the “X-Files”. Deranged multiple
murderers were everywhere, and the concept was becoming stale and had started
to devour itself. So, the last thing I wanted to do was to read yet another
book about a psychotic repeat killer. As far as American Psycho and I
were concerned, my only role was to make sure it stayed like Laura Palmer – wrapped
in plastic.
Then
of course, the movie came out and the book was re-launched, this time without
the gloomy Francis Bacon cover. I was once more convinced that the plastic wrap
schtick was just hype – if the book was so notorious, how come it was allowed
to be filmed? – but the headache over ‘to wrap or not to wrap?’ was back and I
was grateful to be working in a part of the book world where such things were
not an issue. To this day, I have been unsure about whether – as a secondhand book
dealer – the rule has to be followed within my area of expertise. Given that
most injunctions of this nature in Bookland are rarely, if ever, policed (with
the sole exception – in my experience – of the timed release of J.K. Rowling’s Harry
Potter novels), I’ve always assumed that it doesn’t apply if the book is
being sold used; however, the book so rarely shows up on the secondhand market
that it’s not really been an issue.
(This
is a disturbing thing, in and of itself. There are books that are sold new by
the millions that almost never get surrendered to secondhand dealers – the complete
works of Sir Terry Pratchett for instance – and the assumption is that they are
always read into the dirt and so are only ever thrown out as unusable, or are
so wildly popular that readers refuse to give them up, or are so outrageous
that no-one really wants to be identified as having read them. I’m assuming
that American Psycho fits into the latter category – any thoughts
otherwise are too horrible to contemplate.)
The
other week however, a copy did materialize from somewhere and, after I
spotted it on the ‘specials’ table out in front of the shop with a $5 sticker
on it, I withdrew it from sale and my boss and I had a conversation about it, mainly
about whether it should be wrapped up or not. We agreed to differ, and I
decided to take the book home with me – it’s a perk of the job being able to
take any of these well-used books home if they catch my eye. I chucked it on a
shelf and forgot about it until the recent bushfires demanded that I do
something to distract myself from the enclosing ring of flame that seemed to be
pushing inevitably towards my home (it’s alright now; the worst has passed).
Here are my thoughts:
This
is a terrible book. It’s also a horrible book, in that it deals with horrific
and horrifying things, but it’s a terrible book in that it is a thing designed to instill
terror – terrible in the Old Testament sense, in other words. It’s a book that
can be read on multiple levels and – like all such things – it is dangerous in
the hands of those who approach it in the wrong way. This is not a story about
a young would-be Hannibal Lecter committing crimes in New York and getting away
with it; this is absolutely not a Patricia Cornwell slick and sassy serial
killer “airport read” or potboiler. This is an unflinching condemnation of an
entire lifestyle and attitude to existence that Easton Ellis was vilifying in
the 80s and which we are heirs to right now. In that it veils its message in
copious amounts of sexual and violent pornography is truly worrying and, having
now read it, I see that the decision to shrink-wrap this monster was more than
just a sales ploy.
Having
been exposed to ‘serial killer chic’ through everyday media, we know – whether we’re
conscious of it or not – a lot about how the psycho-killer’s mind works. We
know that they display a distinct lack of empathy, or ability to relate
emotionally to those around them, despite being able to hide their true natures
with relative ease. We are aware that they tend to be hyper-intelligent and
that they display ritualistic behaviours and “magical thinking”. We have
learned that they escalate their behaviour over time becoming more reckless, in
tune with their growing sense of being immune to consequences. What Easton
Ellis is trying to show us with this book is that all of those traits and mannerisms
are alive and well in the business culture that grew and perpetuated in the
80s. Yuppies – especially New York Yuppies – are trained to be sociopathic
monsters by the very nature of the work they do and the institutions which
support them. In making one of their breed a serial killer, he highlights this
parallelism and displays the consequences to our culture and our society of
this attitude.
Patrick
Bateman – the serial killer in this novel – is a merchant banker (although he
doesn’t need to be – we learn that he is supported by a massive trust fund and
has never needed to work) and spends his days working out at the gym and
spending time lunching at various fashionable eateries across New York, often
well into the night. He spends time in the company of his peers, well-dressed
young men with whom he vies to appear to be the most conspicuously wealthy and
well-appointed, in terms of everything from their haircuts to their girlfriends.
In his circle, he is treated as something of an authority on fashion and
answers many mind-numbing queries as to the required width of braces or the appropriateness
of a pocket square. In detailing these endless useless conversations, Easton
Ellis shows us how Bateman’s mind works:
We
never get a description of anyone in the story – no faces or discussions of
height or weight are provided, rather Bateman provides excruciating detail
about clothes and who’s wearing what: designer names; styles; materials – it’s an
eye-glazingly endless list of brands. So too are descriptions of meals, apartments
and other environments – brand names, food and fashion trends occupy Bateman
completely. This shows us that he never actually thinks of people in terms of who
they are, just what they have. The Yuppie obsession with conspicuous consumption
is paralleled with the serial killer’s lack of empathy with clinical skill.
Society
is also given the serial killer treatment: Bateman’s peers are all identical to
himself, therefore he regards them as equals (although he is first among them,
in his own opinion). Women with whom he dines are all potential girlfriends –
if they are also employed by financial agencies, or come from money; otherwise
they are “hardbodies”, if sexually stimulating; “girls” if they are about to be
tortured and killed by him; or else, invisible – and definitely better off that
way. His bigotry extends even further, and he displays an open hatred of Jews,
blacks and homosexuals. Waiters, taxi-drivers and doormen are all treated with
disdain and the poor and homeless are scorned, vilified and randomly tortured
and/or murdered. In Bateman’s world, money and power are the only roads to
success and he fights a constant battle to ensure that he is on top.
According
to criminologist and former prison governor David Wilson in his work A
History of British Serial Killing (Sphere Books, 2009), such killers are promulgated
in societies where certain elements of society are promoted over, and at the expense
of, others, meaning that some sectors of the community are not privy to the
protections offered to others and have had “bonds of mutual support … all
but eradicated”. He says that such groups as the elderly, the poor, racial
minorities, religious groups, sex workers, the homeless, even children, consequently
don’t get the protections that they deserve or need. This view is more than adequately
depicted as real and functioning in this book, where white, male, privilege is
tacitly (and not so tacitly) supported at all times. Bateman kills and tortures
just about everybody – women, men, children, animals – and he gets away with it
all because the world around him lets it happen.
That
I think is the most disturbing thing about this book: he gets off scot free.
Towards the end, I was turning pages in the increasingly forlorn hope that
someone would see what he was doing, that someone would call the police, and
that Justice would be seen to be done. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t happen. So
hollow, so ethically and morally barren is this book, that Bateman just enters
a new decade (the 90s) with no comebacks, and no consequences for his repellent
actions. Nothing. By the book’s end, Bateman is so repulsive to us that even
his friends and associates can’t help but be tainted by his career of evil – we
simply cannot believe that they can be so blind and so they must be complicit.
As are we all, since, apparently, we’ve all ignored the call-to-arms that this
book represents.
(And
speaking of complicity, I’m amazed that this book wasn’t suppressed upon
release, not because of its content – which is truly vile – but because of who
it ropes in through association. There are extended discussions of noted
musicians of the day – Genesis and, by extension, Phil Collins, Peter
Gabriel and Mike & The Mechanics; Whitney Houston; Talking Heads;
INXS; U2; Belinda Carlisle; Huey Lewis & the News – movie
stars – Tom Cruise: Bateman has a chat with him in an elevator; Sylvester
Stallone – and political figures – Ronald Reagan; Oliver North and George Bush –
none of whom are painted particularly sympathetically, since they all share in
Bateman’s approval. I guess they (or their agents) all decided that any promotion
is good promotion. It should surprise no-one that Donald Trump is an
inspiration to Bateman and that his name crops up all over the place as the
object of Bateman’s fawning adulation: I’m pretty sure that Trump wouldn’t choose
to see a negative spin on his depiction in this work; I’m also pretty sure that
Trump hasn’t even read this. In fact, if he ever did, he probably wouldn’t see
anything wrong with it.)
(Actually, the resounding silence from all of these performers and their agencies says more about the prevailing attitudes represented here than anything else. If these people had a moral core - or even a defensible position upon their involvement - they would have spoken up well before now.)
(Actually, the resounding silence from all of these performers and their agencies says more about the prevailing attitudes represented here than anything else. If these people had a moral core - or even a defensible position upon their involvement - they would have spoken up well before now.)
Easton
Ellis uses a particularly pared-down style in this work. It’s no-nonsense and
clinical, spared the need of descriptive passages or internal struggle. The
constant litany of clothing types styles and brands, along with lists of
furnishings, accoutrements and restaurant dishes, is designed to blunt the
reader’s sensations, causing a kind of comatose state that is often, startlingly
broken when Bateman pulls out a knife and gets to work. Even here though, the
clinical and often off-hand lists of ruination and dismemberment are coloured
by this pedantic background of wardrobe identification and dissection: Bateman
works both literally and metaphorically. Drugs, cocaine and prescription brands
(brands, brands, brands!) are crucial to Bateman’s world and his struggles to
dose himself into acceptability, or out of his meltdowns, is the closest we see
to anything resembling his inner emotional state.
There
are some problems, not least of which it’s way too long: at three points
in the novel, chapters appear that provide a complete review of various
musicians and their bodies of work throughout the 80s. These are seemingly
randomly thrown in and, except for the last of these chapters which focusses on
Huey Lewis & the News, don’t overtly seem to originate from within
the mind of Bateman. In the context of the material which bookends them, they
are disturbing and partake of the clinical mentality that inexplicitly drives
them (ie., Bateman’s) but just one of these would surely have been enough (if
only because I won’t be able to hear any of these performers without this context
from now on!). Too, an extended passage occurs when Bateman shoots a busking saxophone
player in the street during which his silencer fails to work and the noise of
which summons two policemen driving by. The ensuing mayhem as Bateman desperately
flees capture is pulled out of the first person perspective into the third
person point of view, obviously designed to display the psychological disassociation
which Bateman feels at having made an error in judgement; however it reads like
the bad narration of a sequence from an action movie and jars as a result. So
too, do a lot of the sex scenes which unfold across the book, reading like third
rate porn for the most part before descending into infernos of splatterpunk
excess. There are sex scenes which involve Bateman and potential girlfriends (or
the girlfriends of his so-called friends) which are quite different in tone to
these other brutal dismemberments. Easton Ellis obviously chose a technique with
which to relate his narrative; he should have stuck with it doggedly, because
these excursions and deviations come across as obvious tricks and defeat the
intent of his not-so-obvious ones.
There is some confusion too. It becomes clear to the reader at some point in the narrative that Bateman is using pseudonyms to hide who he is from many of the people he encounters. Most people call him "Patrick" or "Bateman", some call him "Marcus", others call him "Davis". Given that Bateman often misidentifies people he sees across crowded rooms, and that no-one of his acquaintance is given a physical description to personalise them, the reader is often at a loss as to who is saying or doing what to whom, and when it's a case of Bateman being deliberately misleading, the problem compounds and confusion reigns.
I
hate this book. I think it’s disgusting and repulsive. That being said - and
given where we are as a society these days (Trump! President!) - I also
think it’s an important document, a searing alarm-call to action which was
ruthlessly ignored and watered down by the Powers That Be. I think it needs to
be handled carefully and read with a measuring eye – if anyone came up to me
and tried to tell me how “cool” they thought Patrick Bateman was, I would punch
them in the nose. In fact, I still think it needs to be shrink-wrapped,
secondhand or otherwise. You may not agree with me; that’s your right. Regardless,
there’s no going back after having read this, so choose your next step wisely.
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