**BE WARNED: THIS NOVEL CONTAINS THE MOST EXPLICIT DESCRIPTIONS OF SEX AND VIOLENCE I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED**
This is obviously a satire on the excesses of the overpaid yuppies working on Wall Street in the late 80s. The protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is a psychopath of the most depraved and violent type. Bateman narrates the novel and provides descriptions in repetitive detail of 80s fashion, high-end food and restaurants, hair and body care products, high-end electronics including VHS recorders and stereo equipment, and music reviews of Phil Collins, Huey Lewis, and Whitney Houston. Bateman is also very misogynistic and has no empathy for anyone. And to no surprise, he idolizes Donald Trump! And then amidst his high scale lifestyle, going to business meetings at pricey restaurants and snorting cocaine at fashionable New York clubs, he commits rape and murder. From 1001 Books: "Descriptions of nouvelle cuisine and Armani jackets are as pornographic, here, as descriptions of anal rape. Pop music, movies, and fashion--these are so complicit in a murderous culture that they become part of the murder...the extremity of the violence, coupled with the uninflected way in which it is described, produces a strange, ethereal dimension to the writing, which is as close as the novel can come to an ethics..."
I read this book mainly because it is on the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. But I really was unprepared for the graphic sex and violence. I have read other reviews of this novel and many give it high praise but for me, I felt it just went too far. I'll have a hard time getting some of this out of my mind!
This is obviously a satire on the excesses of the overpaid yuppies working on Wall Street in the late 80s. The protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is a psychopath of the most depraved and violent type. Bateman narrates the novel and provides descriptions in repetitive detail of 80s fashion, high-end food and restaurants, hair and body care products, high-end electronics including VHS recorders and stereo equipment, and music reviews of Phil Collins, Huey Lewis, and Whitney Houston. Bateman is also very misogynistic and has no empathy for anyone. And to no surprise, he idolizes Donald Trump! And then amidst his high scale lifestyle, going to business meetings at pricey restaurants and snorting cocaine at fashionable New York clubs, he commits rape and murder. From 1001 Books: "Descriptions of nouvelle cuisine and Armani jackets are as pornographic, here, as descriptions of anal rape. Pop music, movies, and fashion--these are so complicit in a murderous culture that they become part of the murder...the extremity of the violence, coupled with the uninflected way in which it is described, produces a strange, ethereal dimension to the writing, which is as close as the novel can come to an ethics..."
I read this book mainly because it is on the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. But I really was unprepared for the graphic sex and violence. I have read other reviews of this novel and many give it high praise but for me, I felt it just went too far. I'll have a hard time getting some of this out of my mind!
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