Media American Psycho (the novel)

[FrancisWolcott]

I know a lot of normies (including yuppie frat boys looking to become Wall Street Chads) love the film adaptation with Christian Bale, but have you ever read the novel by Bret Easton Ellis? Most people I talk to haven't, even if they're obsessed with the movie.

I first read it when I was an undergrad at university, and it sort of changed my life...I mean, it was probably the single most cathartic work of fiction I've ever experienced. I can still flip at random to virtually any page in that book, and find something hilarious or insanely quotable. It was just an absolute joy to read...a novelized foid holocaust, written like a depraved 80's slasher flick. And I know people love pointing out that Ellis is gay and that the book's misogyny is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but that shouldn't detract from one's enjoyment of the sublime prose.

 

[Grodd]

Haven't read it

 

[FrancisWolcott]

Haven't read it

It's 1000x more sadistic and over the top than the movie, with some scenes that could never, ever conceivably be filmed.

Ellis later implied that he was channeling some kind of demonic energy when he wrote it, like he was "possessed" by the character of Patrick Bateman, and that he really suffered because of it. And I can believe that, because nothing Ellis has written before or since is as mad or deranged as 'American Psycho.'

 

[CRASH THE CUCK]

The book is even more faggy and pretentious

 

[FrancisWolcott]

The book is even more faggy and pretentious

The faggy pretentiousness is the joke, though. The point of the novel is that modern, consumerist society is a soulless hellscape. It's not a celebration of yuppie culture at all. Inside, Bateman is tortured and confused by a vacuous, fake culture that's driving him insane, which is why he lashes out and kills.

 

[gluttony]

might read

 

[daydreamER]

I read it a few months ago, I really enjoyed it. I watched the movie before reading it and didn't like it, but the novel was great. It was funny and entertaining, but no explicit theme of inceldom or even anything to do with the manosphere. I think all that stuff only arose for the meme.

 

[CRASH THE CUCK]

The faggy pretentiousness is the joke, though. The point of the novel is that modern, consumerist society is a soulless hellscape. It's not a celebration of yuppie culture at all. Inside, Bateman is tortured and confused by a vacuous, fake culture that's driving him insane, which is why he lashes out and kills.

bateman struck me as a closet gay cuck in the book

 

[FrancisWolcott]

I read it a few months ago, I really enjoyed it. I watched the movie before reading it and didn't like it, but the novel was great. It was funny and entertaining, but no explicit theme of inceldom or even anything to do with the manosphere. I think all that stuff only arose for the meme.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that Bateman was an incel (although I do find him sympathetic, insomuch as he's keenly aware that he's living in Hell, and suffers in his own way because of it). Bateman is a rich piece of shit who wants for nothing and is drowning in hardbody pussy. He's a totally vacant monster, living in a totally vacant society that allows him to prey on anyone he wants, but he still has these profound moments of clarity, where—compared to everyone else around him—Ellis fucks with us by making him seem comparatively reasonable and correct.

 

[FrancisWolcott]

bateman struck me as a closet gay cuck in the book

He's a self-aware monster, created by a sociopathic capitalist society and then ruthlessly preying on it in turn. But he can't escape his grotesque yuppy programming, even as he actively despises it.

 

[Moth]

I read the book before I even watched the Movie. It's an amazing critique of the vapid emptiness of corporate culture and how we live our lives trying to please people we hate and who don't care about us.

 

[Emba]

might read

I know how to read!