November 29, 2014
Not long ago, my nephew was fascinated to see that a display case in the children's section was covered in CAUTION tape. "Did someone break it?" he asked me. I explained that it was their display of frequently banned children's books; innocent classics like the works of Roald Dahl, the Harry Potter series, A Wrinkle in Time, you know. They also posted the ridiculous reasons why these books were banned in various places. It was to raise awareness for Banned Books Week; I concluded by asking my nephew, "It's not cool to tell people what they can or can't read, is it?" He agreed.
I was disappointed to see no such display in General Fiction for teens and adults, but then again, it might have made me remember that my local library network, for all of their celebrating of reading the censored and banned classics, do ban books to this very day. There is at least one author who is banned from my local libraries:Bret Easton Ellis.
So when I noticed copies of his books at Half-Priced Books, I couldn't resist getting this oh-so controversial author's best known novel. I've seen snippets of the movie; Christian Bale does have the right creeper vibe to pull off Bateman, but as I read the book, I found myself picturing someone more fresh-faced, barely out of business school, truly the boy-next-door (he is constantly referred to as such by members of his clueless social circle). You wouldn't necessarily look at him and think "killer"; more like "douchebag" or "trust fund baby." Christian Bale almost looks too psychotic to play this psycho.
This book was certainly a cure for my longing for a character-driven story, even if the character is horrifying. Yet the world he lives in is almost as horrifying. The thing is, as you read, you really understand Bateman. He comes from a vapid, pointless culture; too much money, too much shit to buy, too many distractions, nothing real. I mean, people fucking mix each other up all the time in Bateman's world, which allows the murder of another Wall Street guy to go unnoticed for months and months...because people swear they keep seeing the guy in London. Bateman isn't exactly cold and calculating; he's out of his fucking mind, but his slip-ups and confessions go unnoticed because nobody fucking knows who anybody else is in his world!
And such a world (which I don't get) is the perfect place for Bateman to hide. His obsessive nature works to his advantage; it's considered a good thing that he spends hours a day exercising, that he's very careful of what he eats (except when he has a craving for human flesh), that he obsesses over fashion. The roll call of designers for every piece of clothing that he and his crowd wore in every scene were appropriately tedious. The whole fucking culture that Bateman worships of labels and appearances and going to the trendiest, hippest places is disgusting, and yet it's all that's keeping him from really going off the deep end...in fact, that's not even enough anymore, as he's really losing his shit throughout the book, getting worse, and you hope (pray!) that getting caught is inevitable. But he did call his lawyer with a lengthy confession, but the lawyer thought it was a joke and didn't even recognize Bateman when he next saw him!
Since this book takes you into the mind of a really psychotic man, shit gets graphic. The sex/rape scenes were really detailed, more so than anything I've ever read that hasn't been specifically designated as fictional porn. The scenes with two women together wouldn't have bothered me (like at all) if not for two things: one, that Bateman wasn't considering these things as "degrading" (and they wouldn't have been if he weren't there), and two, if I couldn't have guessed what could happen next to those poor girls.
The murder scenes...whoa. There was a lot of cringing, gasping, cries of "oh my God" on my part as I read (or rather skimmed) these. Look, Bateman doesn't just kill people; he tortures them, mutilates them, makes liberal use of power tools. He's like a particularly destructive child with a toy, disturbingly imaginative. Bateman loves to kill, and he loves to cause any kind of pain possible. He's disappointed after discreetly stabbing a child in the neck at a crowded penguin exhibit; he mistakenly believed that the grief for a child will be less than the grief for a grown person, thereby inflicting less pain. He doesn't just inflict physical pain; a girlfriend of his (therefore, safer from his bloodlust than most other people) is forced to get an abortion, and the same day he buys and sends her items for a baby to mock her. He also implies that he, uh, performed two abortions in former girlfriends himself, which I don't even want to picture (best case scenario: stairs). He wants to cause pain: to tiny animals, to other people, anything and anyone.
He's obviously very mentally ill, and his diet of steroids, cocaine, and pills pills pills doesn't help at all. It seems to run in his family; his mother is in some sort of hospital/institution for reasons that can only be inferred, and the only thing we know about his father is that he's rich as shit...other things may be inferred. Bateman has a cousin who raped a girl and bit off her earlobes. The man clearly needs serious, serious help. He even saw a psychiatrist for a while...undoubtedly it was no more than a drug connection.
Okay, I can clearly see why this book would be an easy target for censors and the morality police. But I felt like the graphic details have their merit. The shallowness, the dullness, of Bateman's outer life, in stark contrast to his very dark and dusturbing private life...it's all brought together to show two years in the life of a very twisted man and his very twisted world. Did his yuppie culture that he loves so much create him, or does it simply enable his horrific lifestyle? That's unclear, but what is clear is that a world like that, uncaring and disgustingly blah, is the perfect place for monsters. I consider the right way to live to be completely the opposite of what Bateman and his crowd value, and this book only reinforces my own values.
Needless to say, I will read more by Ellis in the future...though I won't look for him at my local library.
No comments:
Post a Comment