Comments on: On Liking American Psycho – slight return (Part 2/2)

By: Becky Shepherd

Becky Shepherd — Sun, 20 May 2012 22:21:08 +0000

Great post. I just nodded along throughout.

I never quite understand why you’d strip something of all its context to critique it? It happens a lot and not just with novels, but film too.

By: Rhian E Jones

Rhian E Jones — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:56:35 +0000

In reply to Russell.

Ha, yes, it’s a slightly counter-intuitive line of argument, but I just wanted to argue against the idea of Ellis dredging the darkest recesses of his mind for inventive ways to outrage the female body – he didn’t, and doesn’t, need to when these kind of crimes take place in the real world, and can be exposed and opposed there rather than (or, if you like, as well as) in fictionalised depictions.

Great comment, thank you, and I hope you get something out of the book if/when you read it. I hesitate to recommend it as a good read, but it’s certainly worth a shot.

By: Russell

Russell — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:58:40 +0000

Really liked these two articles, there’s a lot to think about in them. One question which immediately springs to mind is whether men also wish to criticise the patriarchal structures in which they find themselves – to which my answer would be a definite yes – but whether when they do so they are accused of the opposite, which appears to be part of the point you make about this particular work. As someone who has merely seen the film (although you have persuaded me to seek out the book whenever I escape from whatever fantasy land I am currently trapped in) my opinions on this work are obviously diminished somewhat, but certainly in that work it’s clear we’re not meant to sympathise with Bateman, but we cannot help but admire him because he actually does represent the sadistic ideal which we are meant to aspire to, and necessarily cannot achieve. This tension between admiration and abhorrence is only resolved when one realises that Bateman is a criticism of that ideal itself. I think that if one doesn’t acknowledge this, then it’s easy to see the violence, as some critics do, as being gratuitous. Somehow the idea that it’s all in his head doesn’t make it any better.

I did take issue with one statement from your article, however: “The book’s scenes of torture and murder were, apparently, all based on Ellis’ reading of real life cases and criminology textbooks, not whimsically called into being by him.” God help us if professional authors start making things up… :-P