American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Ideally I should be at the consulate renewing my passport this moment, however due to my stupidity and laziness of the office, I'm stuck at home. I'd elaborate but it's completely unnecessary since this is a book blog, not a life blog.

Since I'm stuck at home I decided to talk about American Psycho, the book as well as the film.

I completed the book in about 2-3 days, almost non-stop. I tried to speed through it because a. I know once I put it down I'm going to get lazy and take forever to resume (the details bore me and act as a repellent) and b. the mood of the book is dark and disturbing, so I don't want to prolong this feeling if possible.

When my friend first gave me this book after watching the movie together, he said something along the lines of..., "are you ready for it? it's quite... vivid..." Naturally when I started this book I was expecting it to be extremely graphic and disturbing. Much contrary to my belief, it wasn't graphic in the beginning at all. It took a while, according to Wikipedia first third of the book, till it got to the nasties.

So once it got into the really graphic stuff, I started to get really disturbed. All I wanted to do was finish the book asap. Mind you, I am a person who loves thrillers and gory and morbid movies, but when it comes to books it's a bit different, since you know... you kind of have to produce an image when reading the text, which tend to linger longer than if an actual concrete image was placed in front of me. Also, because most of the victims in the novel were women, the way the author describes the tortures and murders really gets to me. Being a woman myself, I can feel the pain the women in the book are feeling... You'll understand if you have or do end up reading the book (the rat and the cheese O_o).

I guess the reason why the book disturbs me so much is because it's so... realistic... mundane... The inner monologues of Patrick Batement can easily be mine or yours. The way he is so vain isn't so different than you and I, and although I do not have murderous intentions (at least not always or really mean it anyways... come on, you never wanted to murder the asshole who cut in front of you while driving to work this morning?), at times I have destructive thoughts... like breaking a glass... smashing something onto the ground... or something. Of course, nothing to harm others or myself.

The point is... Patrick Batement can exist anywhere, and can be anyone. It can be in anyone of us. The author never clarifies whether or not the murders took place, so I mean... we can all have these murderous intentions and thoughts like Batement, regardless of it actually happens or not. Batement once said, "Is evil who you are, or is it what you do?"(or something like that). I'm thinking, is evil who you are, what you do, or what you think? Is thinking about strangling that cat as evil as actually conducting the act itself? If I think about murdering someone while I put on a fake benevolent mask, doing tonnes of charity work, am I a saint or a secret satan?

Near the end of the book, I really enjoyed the brunch Patrick and Jean had together. Jean is someone who Patrick looks down on for the entire book, since she's his secretary and madly in love with him. Jean sees Batement as a considerate and sweet man. I can't really remember if he is angry at this, but he thinks about how Jean has categorized him and he cannot be anything else but that. I find this very interesting. We get mad when people misjudge us because once someone judges us, it's very difficult to change that image in someone else's mind. They've decided who you're going to be and you cannot be otherwise. It's kinda like how parents always think of their children and kids even when they children are now in their 50s. No matter what you do or how old you grow this relationship and image doesn't change.

Last but not least, the only thing I will mention about the movie is that... it's strange how the lines are the same as in the book, but the orders and the people saying them are mixed up. It's actuallt quite interesting. The essence of the American Psycho is kept in the movie even though it isn't the identical twin of the novel.

So do I like this book or not? Well... I don't know. I think it was quite entertaining, although I skipped a lot of the boring details such as what someone was wearing or eating or drinking or sniffing. I also pretty much skipped through the 3 chapters on Genesis, Whiteney Houston, and another band I can't recall. I do like dark and disturbing things... but I think maybe this was a little too much for me. I'm gonna say... this was ok, but definitely not my favorite and I may or may not recommend it to others. Well, I guess it depends on who I'm talking to.