n  n    See Pat date.
See Pat screw.
See Pat mace.
See Pat use a nail gun.
See Pat eat flesh.
See Pat do obscene things with a severed head.
See Pat store body parts in random places.
Go, Pat, go!n  n

1.5 stars Don't worry. That's the tame version. I didn't spoil the extreme parts of the story. Trust me.

It might be a long, long time before I read something which knocks American Psycho out of the top spot for "sickest thing I've ever witnessed," and I've read books which have had rape, murder, and gore aplenty in them.

How often can a person say that the movie was better than the book? I actually liked the movie because it carried the point from the story without being quite as tedious or gruesome.

Part of me wanted to spoiler-tag a couple of the more gruesome scenes, just to give readers who were curious something to look at. But I'm not giving anyone any ideas. O.o

The first half of the book was overworked satire. Pages and pages of excessive description gave no great sense of entertainment or enjoyment in terms of reading experience. I do understand why the author did what he needed to do in order to set up the character's state of mind to the reader. Many of the conversations and interactions were needed, and a few were actually informative or interesting, but the same point really could have been made in a few chapters.

It all comes down to reading preference for me. Half a book of recycled conversation about fashion, society, tanning, etc. is torture for people like me who could not give a shit about that stuff. I hate wasting my time by reading about stuff I don't want to read about, satire or not. Overkill is still overkill, especially when you see the same catch-phrases (hardbody, gazelleskin, etc.) used dozens of times in the book, and you're sort of sad that you're not playing a drinking game to combat some of the repetitiveness. By the time I got to the chapter on detailing Whitney Houston's career, I was downright tired of reading scene after scene of tedious information.

Although...the chapter on name brand water amused me, probably because of how I learned that I'm sparkling water poser.

Speaking of excessive...let's get to the second half of the book, otherwise known as a precursor (no, not really) to the show 1,000 Ways to Die.

Try thinking of the sickest way you could kill someone. Chances are, you aren't even close to thinking about what Pat put his victims through.

Did Pat become the way that he was because he was so rich and bored, and had nothing left to achieve or desire, or was his mind so completely ordered and methodical about everything from the start, that he viewed murder without emotion as just another thing he could organize and categorize?

I get why American Psycho has a good portion of its ratings on either one end or the other of the spectrum. Since the subject itself doesn't lend itself well to words such as "love" or "admire," a reader is either going to respect the method of writing, or hate the product of the writing.

I wanted to fall on the respect end because I understood why others rated the book high. But I can't overcome the fact that I hated reading the repetitive formula of : character talks about meaningless shit, character talks about or participates in unappealing (and super-extreme) sex, then character makes a gruesome kill.

The end of the story gave the reader nothing to wrap up the madness of it all.

The guy was a psycho. That's about it. At least the book was aptly named.

As far as I can tell, there are two ways to interpret this book. The first is as a hysterically funny, incredibly dark satire on the excess, greed and materialism of rich young Americans in the late 1980s. The second is as a hideously misogynist extended fantasy about the abuse, torture and murder of women. It's the second interpretation that raises issues for me. I am a feminist, and proud to say so; yet I absolutely loved this book. So is it possible to be a feminist and still enjoy American Psycho?

My (personal, subjective) answer to this question is yes. I can understand the objections others have raised and, unsurprisingly, I found the violent scenes intensely disturbing and difficult to read, and skimmed over the worst parts in the same way I'd squint at the screen during a particularly bloody film scene. The titular psycho, protagonist and narrator, Patrick Bateman, is undoubtedly a horrifically misogynist character - both in terms of the hideous things he does to women and in the minute details of the ways in which he perceives and judges them. The female characters (pretty much all of them, one by one) are objectified in the ultimate way - desired, fucked, tortured, dissected, even eaten. The violence is often juxtaposed closely with graphically detailed sex scenes or fantasies, with the two flowing into one another until they begin to seem almost inseperable. To me, this feels like a damning comment on the links between pornography, the consumer of pornography's view of women, and violent behaviour. And after all I've read about the author's motivations in writing the novel and other readers' and critics' reactions to it, I'm fairly sure this is how it's meant to be read.

The story is so obviously an allegory that, to be honest, I find it hard to understand how anyone could take it seriously as a fantasy of violence. Bateman announces his crimes to colleagues and girlfriends at numerous points, with these confessions become more blatant and more desperate as the book goes on - yet it seems nobody ever hears him, or their own self-absorption and greed is advanced to such a level that they don't notice or care. The character becomes more and more of a blank canvas as the book goes on, a development underlined by the fact that he is constantly being mistaken for someone else, or spotting an acquaintance and not being sure exactly who it is. The men melt into a homogenous blur of Brooks Brothers suits, Valentino ties, slicked-back hair and nonprescription glasses; the women into an interchangeable mass of blonde hair, big tits, whiny voices and Carolina Herrera silk blouses. In the end it doesn't seem that Bateman is actually a character as much as an amalgam of these people: their obscene greed, materialism, lack of empathy and empty selfishness - mixed in with astounding naivety and ignorance - concentrated and personified.

There's no realistic way Bateman could continue to get away with the crimes he commits - so frequent, so violent, so obvious - and as a result it becomes clear that either they are symbolic, or they are the fantasies of the character himself, an expression of his inward/outward anger and hatred. As the narrative becomes ever more surreal and descends into madness towards the book's conclusion, the latter theory begins to seem more and more likely. Bateman's supposed victims seem to reappear; he is involved in an impossibly lengthy police shoot-out which yields no retribution; he begins to step outside himself, narrating from a third-person perspective. The only incident in which he is identified as a killer by someone else appears, at second glance, to be a straightforward robbery. At the very end of the story, the reader is left to make up their own mind about the truth of events, making this a classic example of the unreliable narrator genre (I really should create an unreliable-narrators shelf here, I love them so much).

This book is, as its reputation suggests, a harrowing read at times, but it's also truly hilarious in parts - the endless repetition, the lengthy passages solemnly appraising the back catalogues of dreadful 80s bands, the meticulous descriptions of ludicrous meals and label-laden outfits. I loathe gratuitous violence and 'torture porn' films but while the violent scenes in this book are arguably unnecessary in their detail, they are contained within the context of a viciously intelligent satire. I wavered between admiration, amusement and repulsion throughout many of the earlier chapters, but I really loved the ending; the build-up and the subtle changes and the conclusion itself, all so brilliantly done. Altogether I thought this was an absolutely fantastic, if not always 'enjoyable', book and I don't feel bad about saying so.

n  ‘’The Voice Of Reason. The Boy Next Door.’’n



n  n    Bateman:n  n a vain, soulless, sadistic, yuppie and most importantly a psychopath with an interest in snuff.
People say he is sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and more, which yeah obviously he is. A Nazi on the Patty Winters Show said something and he clapped… He hates men, women, the poor…. everyone and everything.

n  n    -you can get dyslexia from pussy-n  n

n  ‘’I can’t tell if I’m cooking any of this correctly, because I’m crying too hard and I have never really cooked anything before.’’n
Biiitch I felt that. I make okay spaghetti and good popcorn. Don’t let me cook for you.

SHIT IS FUCKED UP AND GORY…. omfg I love it.
n  “That was what was so interesting to me about it. You can read the book either way.”-Ellis on Rolling Stone 2016n
Did fucked up shit happen? Is he just insane? We will never find out.

I think that at this point we all know about this. It’s a commentary on consumerism, capitalism and the garbage businessmen. Of course and homeboy over here thinks of killing/kills people. His life is so monotonous and boring. I’m shocked he didn’t off himself from boredom.
You may find this boring (apparently a lot of people found it) because it’s basically blah blah blah torture porn blah blah blah torture porn…. but liiisten, I didn’t mind reading about Patrick’s boring life.
I did not expect all these graphic details even tho I know Ellis. I blame the movie which took all the graphic shit and threw it out of the window... I wanna state that this is not a complaint. It’s a pleasant surprise. Skin them all Patrick. We are rooting for you… I read a lot of reviews because I’m bored and people were like ‘ew why would anyone want to read about people getting chopped up and raped?’. Karen mind your damn business. Do I judge your interests?...... wtf did this turn into? I’m ending it here and going to watch Ο Κύριος Και Η Κυρία Πελς. Don't know why.

Side note, FUCK I really wanna watch The Patty Winters Show.

jason, an old high school buddy, knew i was in manhattan for a few nights and asked to meet up for dinner. fuck it, i'm a sentimental guy, and it's nice to catch up -- even with a wall street douchebag. jason told me that lisa, another old friend, would be joining. here's the conversational breakdown at dinner:

20 minutes: comparing features on their new blackberries.
40 minutes: the new zagat guide and the city's best restaurants.
20 minutes: glib commentary on people we grew up with.

lisa leaves and jason asks me to walk a few blocks and check out his new apartment "fucking sick pad, bro, sick" -- unable to deal with any more of this shit without backup, i text the address to bryan and john; they meet up and we sit in jason's super large, super minimalist, picture-window-overlooking-the-city apartment shooting the shit and drinking johnnie walker blue label. jason is quickly bored and calls over two hookers. he hits the bedroom with the cuter of the two; me john and bryan sit at the living room table and drink blue label with the other one. five minutes passes and we hear this from jason's bedroom:

jason (screams): 'get off! get the fuck off!'

we're all wondering what it is, exactly, she is on that he wants her off of. and if we should go in there and see if everything's ok. and then again:

jason: 'get the fuck off!'
hooker: 'shut up!'

the door busts open and the hooker storms out with a very angry jason behind her ranting that she took a phone call while giving him head and carried on a conversation while licking his balls.

so it's a moment of hilarious revelation when we realize that what jason wanted her to get off of, of course, was her phone.

phone girl looks to blue label girl: 'you ready to go?'
blue label girl: 'you get paid?'
phone girl nods.

jason (angry): 'you're not going anywhere! i fucking paid for two girls! all we got was a half!'

the girls pause and give us the once over, i imagine, to gauge if we're the kinda guys to get violent or to let 'em just walk out with jason's money. they're professionals and know their shit. they walk out.

jason lamely chides us for not getting his back.
me bryan and john go down to von for a beer.


i recently re-read american psycho only a few weeks after returning from jason's (second) wedding in a vineyard in napa. they wouldn't allow any alcohol other than their own wine to be drunk, so everyone compensated with dimebags and eightballs. and i spent hours talking to all these coked-out shitbags (and, yeah, i guess i was a coked-out shitbag, but in an entirely different non-patrick-batemanesque way) -- here's the wedding conversational breakdown:


- new gadgets (iphones, stereos, flatscreens, cars)
- we are at the top of the system because we are the smartest and most shrewd and if obama is going to regulate us and put more money in the hands of the poor, we will be forced to prey on the poor… good job obama, you just fucked the poor in a way bush never could have.
- is jay-z the 'new sinatra'?
- vacation spots. (st. barts, maui, etc)
- can we get more coke?
- you know how much money greg has? fucking sick, bro. you know he took a fucking private helicopter here, right?
- jason's stepsister is kinda hot. you think i can fuck her?



easton ellis's book isn't really much of an exaggeration. what it is: controlled, hilarious, horrible, tragic, honest. and he employs some great little warholian tricks (whereas andy lined up pictures of mao, marilyn, & minestrone, easton ellis clobbers us with a quick repetition of interwoven, passive-voiced, flattened-out sentences about daytime television, anal rape, and fashion tips) to accent his truly mad book.


but the big question: is american psycho a book that hates women? i guess. I mean, it's about and for a culture that hates women, no? now, i don't really wanna defend the book against these charges; more fun to wonder what those who view american psycho as woman-hating or anti-feminist make of the dozens (hundreds?) of panty-sniffing television shows, movies, graphic novels, books, and video games that blanket pop culture?

consider, as a mild example, Law & Order: SVU.
here we have a show in which every episode is about an underage girl raped. or a coma victim raped. or an old woman raped. written, shot, and ingested as titillating panty-sniffing nonsense. less offensive because it takes itself so seriously? because one of the cops is a woman? or because it's able to take a preposterous and unrealistic moral standpoint in 'punishing' the crime/criminal by having them jailed or killed? or, in those rare occasions when the rapist isn't caught, we're given a profound & poignant & important commentary on violence and crime and the justiceblahfuckingblah.

or do CSI, SVU, COLD CASE, etc. get a pass because they're low art, light entertainment, 'not taken seriously'...? the shit's backwards, yo.

to be totally honest, i have a hard time seeing how one views (as so many do) american psycho as 'woman hating' or 'anti-woman' or 'anti-feminist' -- i suspect that easton ellis is so good at what he does, his depiction of violence so visceral, excessive, and demented that it literally pushes people to a point in which they must either reduce the book to a 'commentary on society and consumerism and capitalism' (ugh) or to the point at which the excess drowns out any point easton ellis imagines he's making.


and then there's a complaint best made by David Foster Wallace:

"I think it's a kind of black cynicism about today's world that Ellis and certain others depend on for their readership. Look, if the contemporary condition is hopelessly shitty, insipid, materialistic, emotionally retarded, sadomasochistic, and stupid, then I (or any writer) can get away with slapping together stories with characters who are stupid, vapid, emotionally retarded, which is easy, because these sorts of characters require no development. With descriptions that are simply lists of brand-name consumer products. Where stupid people say insipid stuff to each other. If what's always distinguished bad writing -- flat characters, a narrative world that's cliched and not recognizably human, etc. -- is also a description of today's world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we'd probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it. You can defend "Psycho" as being a sort of performative digest of late-eighties social problems, but it's no more than that."


while i find his stance admirable and elegantly stated, there's so so so much i disagree with here -- i guess it all comes down to an ear-drum shattering 'NO!' i do not believe that 'in dark times the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements.' i believe that could be a definition of 'good art', but not the definition. norman mailer (who tried, and failed, to create an american psycho type book with his an american dream) complains that easton ellis offers no alternative to the 'flat, insipid' life of patrick bateman... DFW and mailer seem to suggest that we need two things from art:


1. we need to follow a traditional model of literature which presents the good contrasted against the bad (i.e. tolstoy, dickens, etc); an art which offers an alternative morality, a way out, a 'CPR', something better... this is, of course, reactionary nonsense. what's good for leo, charlie, dave, or norm ain't necessarily good for the gander.


2. we need a representation of the 'good' in our art to show the reader an alternative or a means to break free. bullshit: while orwell needed a winston smith in order to achieve the intended effect of 1984, i cannot conceive of an american psycho with a moral voice. the moral voice comes not from the narrator or characters within the novel, but from the reader herself.


and look -- most of the shit i dig tries to do just this: "illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it" -- finding a means to live with integrity in a world of shit is an underlying theme in most of the shit i respond to and/or create. but, again, this does not mean that it is the author's job (or the creator of 'good art') to proceed along those lines. in fact, what i most appreciate about easton ellis is his refusal to trace over pre-defined lines.


as helpful, at times, as it might be to read litcrit and reviews which approach the novel as a kind of book-shaped container meant to convey certain ideas, standpoints, or commentaries... as a reader (for me, at least), it's a killer. deadly. american psycho is a great book in that, yes, there's lots of serious shit going on in there that lends itself to term papers, academic essays, and the like; and, yes, it succeeds wonderfully in defining a particular point in american history... but also because it transcends all that. it creates (here goes my generalization), as does all 'good art', the ineffable feeling only able to be expressed through that particular work. no other contemporary writer (except, perhaps, delillo at his best) is able to infuse a work with such dread. the dread that easton ellis creates in this book goes far beyond DFW's simple assertion that american psycho 'does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is.'
transcendence through dread, baby.

This book is TRUE. I live on an island of bankers, investment brokers and trust company lawyers and all of them are drunken, mad psychopaths with Jack Nicholson laughs and a propensity for getting into a lot of trouble at weekends.

They drink and they snort and they screw and they sail and they make loads of money and every now and again some of them disappear never to be heard of again. The women, the secretaries and admin staff come out from the UK husband-hunting but quickly find they are the rare prey of these mad psycho partiers and they too tend to disappear.

Deported or murdered? YOU decide!
__________

The investment bankers from the Swiss VP Bank were by far the worst. Going drinking with them usually ended up with some of the guys diving naked off the side of someone's yacht and then screaming they've lost their Rolexes. Several local divers made quite a good living diving close to the party boats and recovering watches, wallets and rings on Monday mornings. If they knew who owned the property, they'd get a reward, if they didn't they sold it. I used to enjoy all that. Now I have a bookshop, but then I had a bar. I kind of wish I had a bar, that kind of bar again.

Oh, book review. I did enjoy the book and later the film. So true to life... except for the murders, I think.

i hate this book. it's one of my least favorite books i've ever read. i'm sorry. it makes perfect sense that bret ellis and donna tartt are close friends, because good lord. he does not shut the fuck up ever. if ellis needed to shut the fuck up to save the world, we'd all be dead.

i never want to read the name of a luxury brand again. this book could've been two-hundred pages shorter if we didn't get an in-depth bateman beauty routine. i know the whole point of the novel is bateman's absurdity, but by page 130 i wanted to shed my own skin and rip my eyes out.

i couldn't find it in myself to care. he's a pretentious self-centered, and bigoted cunt. his life isn't even interesting without the gruesome murders he commits— and even those are boring. bateman's reasons for killing, raping, and beating people are so lackluster that it's not even interesting. he's just an insufferable prick, because he can be one.

not only is he insufferable, but his friends are, too. there's not a single thing in this novel that even makes it bearable. this book has nothing of substance, besides drugs and alcohol. haha.

a rich man with a sex & drug addiction? how original! i read this while sitting in a hospital waiting room, and the entire time i was wishing i had brought something else. i've never been more grateful for the fact that i never have to read something ever again.

Hay quien sigue creyendo, no pocos, que las armas no incitan a la violencia, que son más bien las garantes de la libertad y la seguridad de las buenas gentes. De la misma forma, hay otros muchos que opinan que el capitalismo dejado a su propia inercia no es el responsable de tantos desmanes y que los controles y frenos a su desarrollo no hacen más que distorsionar su, de otro modo, perfecto y equilibrado funcionamiento. Ellis plantea aquí el retrato de esos “chiquillos” de los ochenta imbuidos de tales ideas que desprecian profundamente a quienes son incapaces de llevar su vida, culpables únicos de su situación, y que se creen con todos los derechos del mundo para apropiarse de la forma que sea de todo aquello que piensan merecer. Uno llega a sentirse culpable por seguir leyendo tanta bazofia yuppy, tanta violencia pornográfica, pero seguimos y seguimos, pensando que todo es una gran sátira o simplemente con la esperanza puesta en el justo castigo que Patrick Bateman debería recibir y así sentirnos mejor.

I recently asked a dear friend for book recommendations. He suggested Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. Dude is a wicked smart-ass. Although his response was given in jest, I was intrigued. The title was familiar. I’d heard plenty of pop-culture references and seen variations of the cover. I had to read the book immediately.

Readers are weirdos with quirky rules. I have only one. Know as little as possible about the book. Nothing is optimal. It is with blissful ignorance that I gleefully announce: I’m reading tonight!

Dude: Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Me: You didn’t. That is not a warning. It is a thinly veiled dare. You are making me read this book.
Dude: (Says nothing. Accepts zero responsibility)

I’m stunned by the detail. Patrick Bateman gives an inordinate amount of time and focus to minutiae; noting each article of clothing, accessory, and hair product (or total lack thereof) for each person he sees. Further along, I get it. The only way to truly jerk the reader into Bateman’s sick, twisted head. Mr. Ellis is quite clever. Or maybe he just dabbles in magic. How else could pages (and pages) devoted to men’s fashion or Huey Lewis and the News become engrossing insights into this lunatic’s mind?

Peppered throughout the incidental information, snippets alluding to Bateman’s capacity for cruel are sneak peeks into how totally messed up this may turn out to be. The unwavering attention to each slight detail does not wane as Bateman’s actions become more frequent. There would be no other way to honestly convey how heinous, disgusting and terrifying the torture is. It is difficult to read on.

Allow me to put that into perspective. I’ve never once read Stephen King or Dean Koontz while peeking through my fingers. I read Bill Bitner before going to sleep. Ellis is horrifying. Reading a particularly gruesome scene while in Starbucks, an understandably anxious lady gently touched my arm, and politely told me that I was whimpering. It is vividly graphic. Thank Herra, I’m anosmic. Picturing the carnage is one thing, conceivably conjuring up the accompanying odor….unimaginable.

Yet, I read on. I have questions.

Is any of this really happening? How has he not gotten caught? Really, why hasn’t he been arrested? Nobody notices the stains on his clothes, the noise, the odors? WHAT about his family? WHAT firm do they own? Why is his mother in a room with bars on the windows?
Why did my friend say to me that, since I had been in the securities industry, I might get something out of it? I’m confident Bateman is the exception, not the rule. Most people on Wall Street don’t actually behave in this manner…..I hope.

Wait. THAT is the ending? No. He didn’t finish, so much as he just stopped writing. Unbelievable.

I enjoyed this collection of essays about important musical artists of the 80s, but was confused by some of the stuff in between.

So, after finishing American Psycho this afternoon, I've came to the rather abrupt conclusion, that;

1. I wouldn't let Patrick Bateman put his arm through mine.
2. Wealth means nothing.
3. I'll never think of video shops in the same way again.
4. I dislike Patrick Bateman.
5. Patrick Bateman is a dick.

These, and various other thoughts have been swimming in my head ever since I read the last page. Did I enjoy this book? Yes and no.

The humour was dark, and although I didn't laugh long and loud, I did admittedly titter to myself, while slurping my morning freshly brewed coffee. The way in which this book is written is different, and in a way, I liked the format. I mean, some of this was like a person talking for ten minutes straight about random stuff and without taking a breath. I like random. And, this is a book about a psychopath.

As for the rest of it, it was fucking sick. The continuous degradation of women was dreadful. It was on nearly every page, and if your tits aren't big enough, or sit high enough on your body, your absolutely worthless. There was so much violence, rape, torture and even animal cruelty so I completely get how people have given this book a low rating.

The descriptions of what each and every person was wearing was irritating, I mean, who the fuck cares?

Jo is wearing a black 100% organic cotton t-shirt from FatFace with a white lace trim, teamed with 100% cotton bleached stretch denim dungarees from Next, and with this she wears silver greystone earrings from Dorothy perkins and a purple pearl midi necklace from River Island. On her feet, are silver quad sandals from Dr Martens, and she's using these to walk in to take back those video tapes she lent a few days ago.

Gran libro, me ha impactado. Tiene tantos detractores como admiradores, yo me encuentro en la segunda categoría, reconociéndole el gran mérito literario, no había leído nunca algo tan crudo ni por asomo.

Creo que he somatizado un poco. Me sorprendo pensando en el libro tras cerrarlo, he soñado incluso.Me propuse leerlo sin saltarme una línea y a pesar de lograrlo no estoy muy satisfecho tras el resultado. Hace falta tener alguna tuerca suelta (el autor) para llegar a este resultado, casi nadie se atrevería a intentar esto.

A ver si pongo orden sin hacer spoiler. B. Ellis pinta un personaje absolutamente aborrecible, un sociópata de manual, bueno, mejor psicópata, más bien: insensible a la más mínima empatía con nadie. Un tipo superficial y vacío, materialista hasta el extremo, obedece tan solo a estímulos económicos, sin el más mínimo complejo por su incultura, ni interés que no sea cuantificable económicamente. Es inculto, pero a un tiempo inteligente. Solo responde a la marca de traje, corbata equipo de alta fidelidad y cuestiones por el estilo, al igual que los hombres y mujeres de los que se rodea, es decir, lo más alejado posible a la forma que personalmente tengo de ver las cosas… y sin embargo ese odio visceral que acumulas durante toda la novela te hace valorar aún más si cabe al autor, que es capaz de meterse en la piel de un personaje tan despreciable, vacío y de catadura moral tan baja.

Me gusta el estilo, el retrato que hace de aquella raza que surgió a finales de los años 80 llamada popularmente yuppies, en este caso un yuppie particularmente siniestro y llevado al extremo:

·        Lo mejor de todo es el ritmo narrativo. Cada capítulo es una especie de fotograma suelto dentro de una película completa. Un capítulo termina y el siguiente ni mucho menos comienza por el fin del anterior: aunque la correlación temporal es lineal, nunca sabes en cuanto tiempo va avanzando, días o semanas; otras veces nunca más detalla como continua la historia tras un episodio siniestro. Lo cierto es que la novela va claramente de menos a más.

·        Otra marca propia: la forma de describir a los personajes, detallando todas las marcas de su vestimenta. Para describirlos resulta más importante indicar la marca de reloj que lleva, por ejemplo, que hacer una descripción del tipo en cuestión si es alto o bajo o moreno o flaco.

·        Los diálogos extremos que hasta mitad del libro mantiene el protagonista con gente como él (no quiero hacer spoiler, pero algo así: “me gustaría meterte un puñal ahora mismo en mitad del pecho”), les parece decir a la cara situaciones que nunca jamás se le dirían a nadie, y me queda la duda si el autor quiere significar que da igual lo que se digan unos a otros porque nadie oye nada de lo que dice su interlocutor, esa es al menos mi interpretación): no se aclara si es un pensamiento del prota o si es algo que se dice realmente, lo cierto es que el resultado es soberbio y viene a significar lo que decía, y es son tan fatuos los que dialogan, que da exactamente igual lo que el contrario le diga, que le quiere degollar, por ejemplo, ya que no le está escuchando y el solo se escucha a sí mismo.

·        Lo mismo ocurre con algunas circunstancias chocantes, un tipo va con un chubasquero ensangrentado por NY tras un asesinato, o con la ropa con sangre en una fiesta o con un cadáver envuelto en un saco de dormir dentro de un taxi. Con todo esto te preguntas si se trata de un esquizofrénico, o si como decía, da a entender al lector que en NY podría ir un tipo sin cabeza andando por la calle, y nadie le prestaría la menor atención.

·        Otro detalle de esta despersonalización y valoración extrema del dinero, es que unos personajes a otros se llaman por nombres erróneos, confundiendo continuamente los que tienen un poquitín más de estatus a los que tienen un poquito menos. Lo más gracioso es que nadie se molesta en sacar del error al otro.

·        En 1990, hace más de 30 años, el mito de todos ellos es Trump: el dechado de virtudes, buen gusto y referente de todo lo chic. Esta faceta visionaria de Ellis sobre lo cutre, zafio y de mal gusto, me resulta alucinante que ya hace tanto tiempo viera en Trump este peligro y culmen de lo hortera, vulgar e inculto (podía seguir con mil adjetivos más, racista, machista, clasista, etc).

Ha habido un elemento extraliterario que me ha impedido ponerle 5*:  la cuestión es que las descripciones extremas y hechos extremos que narra, que son lo que hace más grande esta novela totalmente diferente, es precisamente lo que me impide puntuar al máximo, digamos que me provoca cierto rechazo. Nunca me gusta puntuar así, pero en esta ocasión es lo que siento. La máxima puntuación, las 5* las dejo para aquellos a los que adoran el género de terror extremo y demás, que no encontrarán una novela igual.

Loved this book. One to give me a book hangover. Didn't want it to end.
Always loved the film and the book is really not far off.
Descriptions were OTT.
Dark Masterpiece



Love the scene with the business cards. Both film & book.