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.

Siempre digo que califico mis libros de acuerdo a lo que me hacen sentir. Este libro me hizo sentir: odio, rabia, mucho asco el indignación. Voy a necesitar mucho rato para procesarlo y qué bueno que lo vamos a discutir en el club porque eso seguro me va a ayudar a poner mis pensamientos más en orden.

”...there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there. It is hard for me to make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever did exist. There are no barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold onto one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?”

I let Keeten finish putting in that quote before I popped him in the head with his own tire thumper. Oblivious fucking bastard, so caught up in words that he didn’t even hear the soft tread of the boogeyman.

You want to talk to him? Well, fuck you. You’ve got me.

Anyway, he’s a little tied up right now. Hardy har har har!

If you are worried about him, you should be.

For now, I feel under control. I washed down a handful of Valium with a couple of three finger pours of J&B to create a euphoria of calm before I popped the lock on his sliding glass door.

I’m looking at this bum. Is this how normal people dress? He’s wearing black Timberland boots, faded Land’s End jeans, a crimson red Out of Print T-shirt of the Odyssey, and a purple, wrinkled Territory Ahead button-down shirt. Homeless people in New York dress with better class than this guy.

Fashion is everything, well, and great hair products.

Here’s an example of a guy who knows how to dress. I must confess I killed him. I mean, just having great taste in clothing is never going to be enough to save anyone...from...me.

”Paul Owen walks in wearing a cashmere one-button sports jacket, tropical wool flannel slacks, a button-down tab-collared shirt by Ronaldus Shamask, but it’s really the tie--blue and black and red and yellow bold strips from Andrew Fezz by Zanzarra--that impresses me.”

Or how about this fine description of a hardbody who has a fine eye for great clothes. You have to love those sculpted bodies of these rich bitches, who have all the time in the world to turn their figures into works of art.”She’s wearing a red, purple and black hand-knitted mohair and wool sweater from Koos Van Den Akker Couture and slacks from Anne Klein, with suede open-toe pumps.”

For this visitation to the land of cows, I still dressed nice, even though I’m running the risk of getting blood on some very, very fine cloth. “I’m wearing a six-button double-breasted chalk-striped wool suit and a patterned silk tie, both by Louis, Boston, and a cotton oxford cloth shirt by Luciano Barbera.”

I smell good, too. I just checked in the mirror, and my hair looks fucking amazing. I should buy this guy a nice suit. I’ll put it on my platinum American Express card. The rubes will pogo stick around the store when I bring that out of my. . . . Jesus, he needs a real haircut, too. I ask him, jokingly, if he cuts his own hair. He nods his head.

Unfuckingbelievable.

So why am I here in Kansas, you might ask? I’m choosing to make that a bigger question because I’m holding the tire thumper. Haha! Well my friends, I am drawn this way. I come out of the sickest depths of Bret Easton Ellis’s demented mind. In other words, I’m created in the image of God.

n  

Who am I?
Who am I?
I’m you!

n

We are marginally different, but the rage that is in me is in you. Maybe you haven’t tapped into it yet, but you may when you least expect it. I do understand that we may see different things in clouds, for instance. ”When we look up at the clouds she sees an island, a puppy dog, Alaska, a tulip. I see, but don’t tell her, a Gucci money clip, an ax, a woman cut in two, a large puffy white puddle of blood that spreads across the sky, dripping over the city, onto Manhattan.”

I understand I’m a bit more depraved than you are, but I’m wealthy. I’m incredibly handsome. I’m a fashion intelligencia. I’m way smarter than you. I have a larger responsibility to approach the world with a greater degree of honesty.

”This is no time for the innocent.”

Everyone deserves to die, especially this moron reviewer who thought he was going to write a fucking review of my fucking book today.

WRONG!

Look at this passage he noted.

”If she likes me only for my muscles, the heft of my cock, then she’s a shallow bitch. But a physically superior, near-perfect-looking shallow bitch, and that can override anything…”

I don’t like him making notes about Courtney. I rip aside the duct tape on his mouth, which had to fucking hurt, and asked him, WTF?

“I was going to make a point about you complaining about the shallowness of what Courtney liked best about you, but you are a hypocrite because what you like about her is just as shallow as what she likes about you. Plus, you would need more depth for her to appreciate something else about you.”

Can you believe that? I’m writing it just like he said it; then I bash him with the club a couple of times. I think I heard something snap. Fuck! I’m really trying not to lose control here. I have to put the tape back on his mouth because he is hollering with too much volume. Whimpering is fine, even encouraged, but there is no sound proofing on the walls, so we can’t be screaming. I really much prefer the way women scream. The tenor of their voices trips the light fantastic in my head.

How many people have I killed? Well, too many to count. It is amazing what you can get away with when you have as much money as I do and look like I do. People are begging to spend time with me. It seems to me like they are really begging to be dismembered, burned with acid, eviscerated.

We do have a few things that we need to get straight, and then I need to head back to New York. I’ve got some video tapes that need to be returned, and the late fees are fucking outrageous.

Huey Lewis and the News is the greatest American rock band...ever. Indisputable. I notice that Keeten has the greatest hits, which earns him a painful bash to the knee. You have to buy the complete albums. The rest of their songs are as important and fantastic as their hits.

Second, Donald J. Trump is a genius. I admire him more than anyone else on the planet. It takes a psycho to recognize a psycho. As far as I know, he is keeping it together, but I feel a kinship with him, a calling in the blood. Haha! did he ever pull the Art of the Deal on all of you.

Okay, so you see that I am fair. I let Keeten participate in the writing of this review, but I just couldn’t let him do it alone. I was sitting in my apartment, gazing with fascination at my favorite vagina, the one with the Hermes blue ribbon tied around it, and thinking, I’m not going to let this hayseed from Kansas write a review about me.

I’m thinking about taking one of his fingers to nibble on during the flight back, so... maybe... I can get to New York without murdering anyone.

You’d give up a finger if it meant saving some other poor innocent life, wouldn’t you Keeten?

So you think you want to read this book? HA! Ellis, the sick bastard, did not spare the grotesque descriptions of my activities. In fact, I read the damn book, and even I was starting to yawn a bit through all the blood and mayhem. I think he made his point about what kind of depraved monster, a true creature of God, I am WAY before he quit relating yet another senseless death. And yes, I know they are senseless because not one of my victims has quelled the beast. Blood only begets more blood.

Don’t hate me. I’m just a product of the entitlement system. I appreciate it that you all let me be me. Your ability to live with letting my madness run rampant means you are actually more insane than I am.

Something for all of you to keep in mind...Patrick Bateman is still out here. Yes, I’m alive and frankly very fit looking. The tanning bed is a wonderful investment. I bought the same one as Donald. If you have a hardbody, come to New York. Look me up. I’ll take you out on the town and show you something you’ve never seen before.

I see from the notes here on the desk that Keeten is going to call this a Masterpiece.

He isn’t looking so sure anymore. He’s a bit gray, and some blood has trickled out from beneath the duct tape. I used the tape from his garage. It obviously isn’t as good as the brand I normally like to use. *Sigh*

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

“...there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there.”

Of COURSE Patrick Bateman is obsessed with Trump

simplemente no estoy ahí.

Hace un año “American psycho” cambió mi forma de ver la literatura. La narración de Patrick Bateman fue una que me llevó por un recorrido turbulento, pasando por los fragmentos más perturbadores y oscuros. Muchas veces las voces de los libros me han hecho desconfiar en mi forma de percibir la literatura, pero la de este no solo me llevo al límite -y más allá-, sino que me abrió las puertas de una mente y con ella, al grado más profundo e incómoda intimidad. Hace un año de mi primera lectura y todavía recuerdo todo lo sentí, la forma en que este narrador tan potente fue capaz de hacerme ver su versión distorsionada de un mundo, haciendo parecerla real. Constantemente cuestionando porqué continuaba leyendo; constantemente sintiendo asco por lo que leía; constantemente preguntándome cómo es que algo pudo escribir algo así; constantemente preguntándome cómo la literatura es capaz de provocar sensaciones físicas al lector; constantemente pensando hasta dónde puede llegar la literatura. Esta es la clase de libro del que simplemente no puedes olvidar; incluso detestándole, de alguna manera tu mente vuelve a él. No está escrito para gustar, sino para demostrar que la literatura puede retratar cosas en extremo terribles.

Supongo que no es sorpresa para nadie que este libro me fascinase. Un año después sigo hablando de este libro e incluso me disfrazo de Patrick para ir a la universidad. Halloween es mi día favorito del año porque puedo disfrazarme dos veces un mismo día -incluso en público- si quiero, y está bien.

Siempre quise escribir sobre “American psycho” y ahora mismo me encuentro escribiendo una especie de análisis comparativo entre la obra de Easton Ellis y Tartt, basándome en la filosofía de Edmund Burke para un vídeo ensayo -qué ganas de grabarlo-. Puede ser que que mis clases de literatura están haciendo efecto en mí.

4th Read: I read this book way too much, but I LOVE it, and every time it gets funnier. Anyway this time I’m writing an essay on doppelgängers and New York City so reread to annotate and get quotes. Literally every word of this is complete genius and I am never going to get over this book. It belongs in an art gallery. (But please be careful because it is absolutely rife with extreme sexual violence and triggering content.) Peace out.

--

3rd Read: Amazing. Astounding. Wonderful. Disgusting. Does anything even get any better than this. I don't think so. Bret Easton Ellis has me whipped.

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2nd Read: Reread this for uni. Still absolutely insane and I would give this a billion stars if I could. The dissociation of identity, the drive towards consumption and consumer culture, the ambiguity of reality and fantasy, it's all in there guys.
I've been thinking lately though if I prefer Rules of Attraction to this. I don't know. I think I might. But all of Ellis's books are just so good. Aahhh. Reading the Informers next.

--

Let me give you some background to my experiences of this novel before I jump in to my review. Until I moved out of my parents house when I was eighteen, my mother wouldn't let me read this. We had the book on our shelf and it had been there for years and years, but she would flick through the pages, grimace, and say no. The reason was because of the sexual violence. I was told not only by my Mum but by my friends that it's the most explicitly and disgustingly violent book that had ever been written. I was jealous of my friends that got to read it, and grew up expecting it to be a slasher-fest from start to end with no redeeming qualities apart from it's shock factor.

I finally decided to read it after falling in love with Donna Tartt's The Secret History. It is well known and Tartt and Ellis were friends in college and shared first drafts of their works with each other, and so, hungry for more of this style, sought out American Psycho.

If you are turned off from starting this book because of preconceptions similar to mine, don't be. This novel was one of the best things I've read this year.

The first half of the book hardly includes any sexual violence, and is instead a portrait of our narrator Patrick Bateman. It becomes clear from the offset that he is obsessed with image - of himself and of others. Whenever he meets somebody new he will narrate what they are wearing and judge them accordingly. The conversations he has are so shallow, misogynistic and elitist that there was no way I could take it seriously. But this was want Ellis wanted from us - the novel is a deep criticism of this attitude. At times they were so doped up on drugs that the narrative switched from first person to third person and back again. The treatment of women and the working class was terrifying and raw. Yet Bateman's voice within this was perfectly sustained and didn't lapse; instead it intensified as the novel progressed.

Bateman indeed starts to become more neurotic as the story goes on. And yes, there are some deeply disturbing and horrific descriptions of torture in this novel, but the way they are written is fascinating. Bateman carries them out like they are nothing - like we'd make a cup of coffee in the morning or play the piano. It is a pastime for him. I found that Bateman's attitude towards this, and the pleasure he took was performing these acts as possibly more terrifying than the acts themselves.

Most of all, I am shocked by the depth of this novel. It is not what I thought it was; it does not rely solely on its controversy or it's violence, but every line seemed to carry some kind of weight whether it be satire, metaphor, irony, or foreshadowing. It was an immense construction and I (problematically) loved reading this. There are scenes which will stick with me - for example, when he sees a homeless girl sitting on the ground and drops a dollar into her coffee cup, only for her to raise her head in a sneer as he realises the cup is full of coffee and she is reading holding a bag full of university books. Small passages such as this have so much meaning and conjured so much discussion with-in me.

I am excited to give Less Than Zero another try after liking this so much!

He Wants to Fit In...

AMERICAN PSYCHO
by Bret Easton Ellis

No spoilers. 4 stars. Patrick Bateman is a psychopathic serial killer disguised as a yuppie NYSE broker...

He hangs out with like-minded yuppies at Manhattan's trendiest and most expensive restaurants and clubs...

His circle of friends and dateable women are concerned with having restaurant reservations, what they'll wear, what school they attended, and scoring drugs...

Bateman is a cross between Bundy and Dahmer... The world is most certainly a better place with some people gone...

Bateman's Chinese dry cleaner frequently tries to remove the blood and gore from his clothing and bedding, but not without vehemently complaining about it...

Over drinks with friends at Harry's...

Bateman quotes Ed Gein because he was an interesting guy. When Gein saw a pretty woman, he thought about two things:

Getting to know her and how her head would look on a stick...

He likes to taunt the homeless by offering them a dollar, then, at the last minute, shoving it back into his pocket and abruptly killing the bum...

Bateman is a suave and worldly date...

When his girlfriend Evelyn asks to come over to his apartment, he tells her: No. Why? she asks. Because I have a head in my freezer, he replies...

On one date, with a woman from his past who dumped him, there's this exchange over dinner:

Woman: Why do you work?
Bateman: Because I want to fit in.
Woman: Are you seeing anyone?
Bateman: Does anyone ever really see anyone?

When he needs to get rid of unwanted company, he simply tells the person that he has to return videos...

Bateman enjoys Christall champagne, the Patty Winters Show (a Windy Williams-like show), and his Rolex watch. He's always searching for the perfect hair mousse...

Bateman is completely and emotionally dead...

This story may be one of the forerunners of the Extreme Horror genre. I certainly can't think of another novel as extreme as this one (except for True Crime) during the 80s and 90s.

If you look back at the life and times of serial killer Ted Bundy, you'll see many similarities to Bateman.

The beautiful and wealthy characters in this story are vile and vapid. Their only goal in life is to see and be seen spending obscene amounts of money on clothing, food, and drink. The NYC scene is the perfect hiding place for an up-and-coming serial killer.

Some readers didn't like the pages and pages, and sometimes whole chapters describing clothes, jewelry, and music, but some of it sets the stage for Bateman's obsessive thought process.

This is my second reading of this excellent story told from Bateman's POV, and I saw more this time round than the first. BTW, the movie with Christian Bale was also very good.

I'm going to cleanse my mind's palate now by binge-watching DEXTER.

Warning to some readers: extreme horror, explicit sex, animal abuse, and racial slurs (including use of the N-word).

I'm not sure what to say about this book. It just wasn't for me.