Plato: What goes on in the theater, in your home, in your fantasy life, are connected.
Richard Wagner: I have an enormous desire to practice a little artistic terrorism.
Synopsis
Set in Manhattan and beginning on April Fools' Day 1989, American Psycho spans roughly three years in the life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman. Bateman, 26 years old when the story begins, narrates his everyday activities, from his daily life among the upper-class elite of New York to his forays into murder by nightfall.
Bateman comes from a privileged background, having graduated from Philips Exeter Academy, Harvard (class of 1984), and then Harvard Business School (class of 1986). He works as a vice president at a Wall Street investment company and lives in an expensive Manhattan apartment on the Upper West Side where he embodies the 1980s yuppie culture. Through present tense stream-of-consciousness narrative he describes his conversations with colleagues in bars and cafes, his office, and nightclubs, satirizing the shallow vanity of Manhattan yuppies.
The first third of the book contains no violence (except for subtle references apparent only in retrospect), and is simply an account of what seems to be a series of Friday nights, as Bateman documents traveling with his colleagues to a variety of nightclubs, where they snort cocaine, drink a variety of alcoholic beverages, critique fellow clubgoers' clothing, trade fashion advice, and question one another on proper etiquette.
Beginning with the second third of the book, Bateman begins to describe his day-to-day activities, which range from such mundanities as renting videotapes and making dinner reservations to committing brutal violence. Bateman's stream of consciousness is occasionally broken up by chapters in which Bateman directly addresses the reader in order to critique the work of 1980s musicians, specifically Genesis, Huey Lewis and the News and Whitney Houston.
In addition to describing his daily life, Bateman also speaks about his "love" life. He is engaged to a fellow yuppie named Evelyn, though he possesses no deep feelings for anyone; additionally, he frequently solicits sex with attractive women ("hardbodies"), manipulates his secretary's feelings for him, and tries to avoid the attention of Luis Carruthers, a closeted homosexual colleague who confesses his love for Patrick. Bateman also documents his relationship with his estranged family, including his senile mother, whom he visits in a nursing home, and his younger brother, a hedonistic college dropout (Sean Bateman, one of the protagonists from Ellis's earlier novel The Rules Of Attraction; Patrick Bateman himself also briefly appears in said novel).
As the book progresses, Bateman's control over his violent urges deteriorates. His murders become increasingly sadistic and complex, progressing from stabbings to drawn out sequences of torture, rape, mutilation, cannibalism, and necrophilia. His mask of normality appears to slip as he introduces stories about serial killers into casual conversations, and confesses his murderous activities to his co-workers. People react as if Bateman is joking with them, appear not to hear him, or otherwise completely misunderstand him ("murders and executions" is mistaken for "mergers and acquisitions"). As the book nears its conclusion, Bateman describes incidents such as seeing a Cheerio interviewed on a talk show, being stalked by an anthropomorphic park bench, and being ordered by an ATM to feed it a stray cat. Bateman's mental state appears increasingly questionable, and the events in the novel draw into question whether he has actually committed any of the murders he has described.
Towards the end of the novel, he visits Paul Owen's apartment, where he has been stockpiling mutilated bodies; to his amazement, Bateman enters a perfectly clean, refurbished apartment with no trace of decomposing bodies, but with many strong-smelling flowers, as though meant to hide a bad odor. He runs into a real-estate agent showing the apartment to prospective buyers. The estate agent asks him if he saw the advert in the Times. When Bateman pretends that he did, the estate agent says that there was none, and that he should leave and not cause any trouble.
Bateman confronts Harold Carnes, his lawyer, on whose answering machine he has previously confessed all his crimes; Carnes, who mistakes Bateman for someone else, is amused at what he considers to be a good joke. But Carnes reproaches Bateman for laying the list of crimes at his feet, and further says that Bateman is far too much of a coward to have committed such acts. Challenged by Bateman on the disappearance of Paul Owen – a colleague whom Bateman hacked to death out of professional jealousy – Carnes unexpectedly claims that he had dinner, in London, with Paul Owen a few days previously.
The ambiguity is heightened by the fact that mistaken identity is a recurring theme throughout the book. Characters are consistently introduced as other people, or argue over the identities of people they can see in restaurants or at parties. Whether any of the crimes depicted in the novel actually happened, or were simply the fantasies of a delusional psychotic, is deliberately left open.
The opening lines of the book have Bateman staring at graffiti on a Chemical Bank building, reading Abandon all hope ye who enter here, an allusion to the gates of hell portrayed in Dante's Divine Comedy; the book ends with a similar scene, as Bateman sits in a bar, staring at a sign that reads "This is not an exit," a reference to Jean-Paul Sartre's play No Exit.
- Re: American Psycho/Aestheticization of violenceposted on 11/04/2009
作者Bret Ellis被文评家誉为美国的狄更斯。他1990年就写了这本书,他那时才26岁!他目前在洛杉矶。
Bret Easton Ellis (born March 7, 1964 in Los Angeles, California) is an American novelist and short story writer. He was regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack,[1] which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney. He is a self-proclaimed "moralist."[2] Ellis employs a technique of linking novels with common, recurring characters. - Re: American Psycho/Aestheticization of violenceposted on 11/04/2009
Good! - Re: American Psycho/Aestheticization of violenceposted on 11/04/2009
这段太有趣。
Feminist activist Gloria Steinem was among those opposed to the release of Ellis' book because of its portrayal of violence towards women. Steinem is also the stepmother of Christian Bale, who portrayed Bateman in the film adaptation of the novel. This coincidence is mentioned in Ellis's mock memoir Lunar Park. - posted on 11/09/2009
这本书被归类为psychological thriller。但我直觉感到Bret Easton Ellis比stephen king还是高级一点。虽然两个人的小说我都还没看。今晚要翻一点stephen king。
Ellis触及了一个主题misogyny. 从逻辑上我很难理解。男人是力量、主动的角色,为什么他们会对女人有恐惧?前天晚上参加一个聚会,我开始观察这个现象。
晚会上有一个非常引人注目的法国男子,那天晚上的美女依然占绝对多数,这男人就更加显得出众,因为没有其他比他更帅气的男子。他有一张模特的脸,走路姿态都充满男子气。然而他对男人女人都冷漠,不说笑容,就是礼貌招呼都不打。同性恋朋友Alex一直给他使眼色,他无动于衷,让Alex丧气失望,我们断定他肯定不是gay,并且是个绝对的非gay。仔细观察他对女人的态度,好几个妖娆美丽的女人都晃过他身边,他也一样不主动打招呼。
我跟Alex都无法理解,Alex是个好玩的人,他见到所有女人,打完招呼后,第一句话就是:I am gay。他从黎巴嫩来。 他给这个法国男人下的结论是:he feels insecure, 那些外表不出众的,讲话平庸的人似乎才让他安心,但他又是一脸矜持。
他好像一个在女人森林里迷失的人。相对的映衬,是两个黑哥们儿。他们热情如火,跟所有的女人flirt,他们的笑容体态,挥洒自如,随时都能放下又捡起。
那天晚上,观察他,真是替他难过。这样的男人迟早要成为misogyny。死神大概就是这个样子的男人。
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