What are you currently reading?

[Renfield]

I'm reading a Phil Spector bio. Forget the title.

Was it hidden by the wall of sound?

[Dr. Dread]

Was it hidden by the wall of sound?

Close.



Eat any bugs lately?

[Bunny]

Is it possible that the reaction you have was supposed to be the reaction to the violence? That Patrick Bateman is not particularly sympathetic, and, in fact, is downright evil? Perhaps Easton Ellis is making the point that, as a society, we have become so desensitized and numbed that a novel about disconnection and modern alienation would not have any impact without the sign and symbol of that disconnection and alienation being -- at the very least -- fantasized violence. Even assuming that isn't the point, the author is making a powerful statement when he shows us a character whose only real connection with his fellow men and women is brutal, sadistic violence -- real or imagined. Maybe you need only to change "repugnant and unnecessary" to "repugnant and necessary."

I'm still wondering, of course, what the relationship is between Ellis' bedroom practices and the attitudes you see in the book. You did allude to some sort of connection.

I didn't have problems with Henry Miller, and his scenes of sexual strangulation, whether fantasized or real, were also pretty revolting if barely tolerable.  I think the difference is that BEE takes descriptions of violence to a needlessly explicit level.  The book is a blueprint on how to recreate the most vile acts.  It's like a novel about a terrorist that includes explicit information on how to make the bombs along with explicit descriptions of the damage done by the bombs. 

The fact the none of you find it to be impossibly violent tells me that you are all desensitized to violence to some degree.  I'm not surprised by this because one of my daughters didn't find the violence too revolting either.  I think that a lifetime of being exposed to depictions of violence on tv, in movies, in video games, and other media as well as to the reality violence of shock journalism and war reporting (in my youth, we never saw a dead body let alone a mangled dead body in film or on tv) has led to a generation being as desensitized as the jury of the Rodney King trial.  That jury, in case anyone is unfamiliar or has forgotten, was exposed to the video daily until they didn't find it shocking.  Once the shock value was neutralized, they didn't find the actions of the police officers extreme.  It's a lesson to me that perhaps there is a value in restricting the exposure of anyone to violence, blood, and gore.  I also realize that soldiers' first experience of combat usually provokes extreme reactions of disgust and nausea when they see the dead, dismembered, and wounded in the aftermath.  They also become "hardened" to the carnage as they continue in their military careers ("battle hardened veterans").  I suspect that all of BEE's defenders have in some way become hardened to carnage so that they can read it and isolate themselves from it.  I haven't been desensitized so I still am able to find the violence in the novel as exceptional as it truly is. 

My allusion was really a reference to Ellis's extreme misogyny which is something he hasn't hidden.  I think he really gets off on fantasizing the torture of women because he really hates women.

[Opus106]

Madras
Tracing the growth of the city since 1639

K. R. A. Narasiah

Madras, now called Chennai, is the city that I call home. I have not read any books by this author, but I have seen his name mentioned numerous times in a weekly newspaper column by the best-known historian of the city. Given my interest in this city's history, I snatched it up a couple of weeks ago.

The book traces the transformation of what was essentially a group of (fishing) villages into the capital of the Madras Presidency during the British Raj. Though it covers the period 1639-1947 - the time of the British, it begins with some mention of this part of India many centuries ago. A thriving port and centre of culture not far from where I live known to the Greek Ptolemy of the second century A.D. Then come the Portuguese and the Dutch in the 15th-16th centuries in search of spices. Then in 1639, a couple of fellows from the British East India Company land on these shores to build a fort as a trading post. But you know how these colonialists were. They began acquiring the surrounding areas and started building a city.

[Renfield]

I think he really gets off on fantasizing the torture of women because he really hates women.

But regardless of your opinions on the novel, which we are discussing, this is your personal assumption.

On a similar vein, I might say Sylvia Plath was simply bitter at Ted Hughes for abandoning her, and instead of moving on, she wrote some of these silly poems that betray women's inability to cope with rejection, and then killed herself to prove my point.

Would that not be completely out of order for me to say? Personally, I draw a line between discussing a work and discussing its author.

[PSmith08]

I suspect that all of BEE's defenders have in some way become hardened to carnage so that they can read it and isolate themselves from it.  I haven't been desensitized so I still am able to find the violence in the novel as exceptional as it truly is. 

If that's the case, I'll iterate my point, then Easton Ellis' argument rings true. Were it anything less, most everyone would have written it off as a book about a rich guy who has a BDSM kink. As it is, it's about a monster (on one level or another) who is able to function, with some success, because no one is paying any attention. Why is no one paying any attention? Well, as I read the book, it appears that the fabric of Bateman's society (I've said this above) has broken down to the point where nothing connects anyone. The society that created Patrick Bateman is disconnected, alienated, narcissistic, and oblivious. This theme of a shattered society, filled with narcissistic, amoral pleasure-seekers, is apparent in The Rules of Attraction, though that book makes a different point. Easton Ellis, to my mind, isn't a sadistic pervert, drooling in a corner over his torture scenes, but a social critic. If someone like Patrick Bateman, whose only real connection with humanity is a series of desperately inhuman real or imagined acts, exists in a society like the one depicted, one that resembles our society magnified for allegory's sake, shouldn't we be on guard? Seeing where it can go, shouldn't we take the lesson to heart? Maybe it's too late.

My allusion was really a reference to Ellis's extreme misogyny which is something he hasn't hidden.  I think he really gets off on fantasizing the torture of women because he really hates women.

That's certainly one opinion, but there's not a lot of evidence for it other than one book that uses the violence as a metaphor.

[Kullervo]

[bwv 1080]

Vollmann is probably my favorite living writer.  This is vol 3 in his Seven Dreams series, each detailing an encounter between Europeans and North American native peoples.  Argall tells the story of John Smith, Pocahontas and the founding of Jamestown.  At 600+ pages written in Elizabethian English it runs the risk of being written off as a pretentious experiment, but the book is engrossing.  Vollmann is able to combine a brutal, piercing realism while at the same time retain a sense of empathy for the characters.  Both the English and the Powhatan are portayed realisticly without any sense of pandering to either modern or traditionalist sensibilities (although the English do come off worse than the Powhatan).  Pocahontas, who was only 10 when she supposedly intervened to save Smith's life (Smith is the only source for this and some doubt the whole story), is a rather tragic character, a lonely daughter among the many children of the polygamous emperor Powhatan (he created the name for himself and the people by conquering and bringing together about 30 tribal groups in Eastern Virginia).

[Bunny]

If that's the case, I'll iterate my point, then Easton Ellis' argument rings true. Were it anything less, most everyone would have written it off as a book about a rich guy who has a BDSM kink. As it is, it's about a monster (on one level or another) who is able to function, with some success, because no one is paying any attention. Why is no one paying any attention? Well, as I read the book, it appears that the fabric of Bateman's society (I've said this above) has broken down to the point where nothing connects anyone. The society that created Patrick Bateman is disconnected, alienated, narcissistic, and oblivious. This theme of a shattered society, filled with narcissistic, amoral pleasure-seekers, is apparent in The Rules of Attraction, though that book makes a different point. Easton Ellis, to my mind, isn't a sadistic pervert, drooling in a corner over his torture scenes, but a social critic. If someone like Patrick Bateman, whose only real connection with humanity is a series of desperately inhuman real or imagined acts, exists in a society like the one depicted, one that resembles our society magnified for allegory's sake, shouldn't we be on guard? Seeing where it can go, shouldn't we take the lesson to heart? Maybe it's too late.

That's certainly one opinion, but there's not a lot of evidence for it other than one book that uses the violence as a metaphor.

You confuse fantasy with reality when you assume that the serial murderer doesn't blend into the society around him.  Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacey, Jeffrey Dahmer were only 3 of the monsters who functioned unsuspected within society.  Serial murderers don't walk around with signs around their necks; they blend very well into society.  Some are high functioning members of society; only consider the "angels of mercy" who routinely put their patients out of their agony.  Many are charming, socially non-threatening, people who are able to take victims by surprise because they seem so "normal."  They are successful because they blend so well into their society.  Consider Dennis Rader, the BTK Strangler (so called BTK for Bind, Torture and Kill).   He lived for decades undetected.  He was on the zoning council of his community and the president of the congregation of his Lutheran Church.  Serial murderers like the Hill Side Stranglers can kill for decades before being caught, or go unidentified like the Zodiac Killer.  They blend into their social milieu with alarming ease.

You find the character satirical because he's so over the top that he can't be real.  I find the character chilling and repulsive because he is so typical of real, highly organized, serial murderers.  You believe the violence to be too fantastic to be other than satire. I know that the level of violence shown in the book is all too real.  You are able to depersonalize it this way; I refuse to depersonalize such violence whether real or imagined.  Graphic depiction of violence should never be considered satirical when such violence exists in the real world because if it's true, it's not a satire.  You characterize society as depicted in the book as "narcissistic, amoral" and consider Bateman a product, no -- a reflection of that society.  For you Bateman is a metaphor for the consumer society that you and Easton Ellis feel have created such a monster.  I submit that this is a a perversion of reality, not a satire.  Let's understand this: monsters like Bateman are real.  They exist.  Saying that a consumerist society is the reason for the existence of such monsters is not true, it is a lie.  It is a lie that twists reality and becomes just another way to fill our society with depictions of violence that more and more people can become desensitized to.  You find redeeming value in these depictions.  I do not.  In the end, the true test of American Psycho would be to read the book with all depictions of violence removed and then decide whether the author has made a work of lasting merit.  I submit that without the shock value and titillation of the violence you will be left with a very ordinary, pedestrian product.

[Solitary Wanderer]

Just picked this up from the library.

I was considering buying it so I'll try it first 

[Renfield]

For you Bateman is a metaphor for the consumer society that you and Easton Ellis feel have created such a monster.  I submit that this is a a perversion of reality, not a satire.  Let's understand this: monsters like Bateman are real.  They exist.  Saying that a consumerist society is the reason for the existence of such monsters is not true, it is a lie.  It is a lie that twists reality and becomes just another way to fill our society with depictions of violence that more and more people can become desensitized to.  You find redeeming value in these depictions.  I do not.  In the end, the true test of American Psycho would be to read the book with all depictions of violence removed and then decide whether the author has made a work of lasting merit.  I submit that without the shock value and titillation of the violence you will be left with a very ordinary, pedestrian product. [my emphasis]

A metaphor does not imply causality. Bateman is not caused by the society, as per the interpretation discussed, he reflects it - corresponds to it, if you will. The point made is not that Bateman is imaginary, it is that Bateman, in his society, is matter-of-fact.

If his society and our society are one and the same, then even more reason for American Psycho's existence.


Also, as a note: among the things I personally kept from that novel were far more the repeated (almost routine) scenes of narcissistic self-aggrandisement, or the various dead-end characters such as Luis Carruthers, than most of the murders, or the violence.

[PSmith08]

A metaphor does not imply causality. Bateman is not caused by the society, as per the interpretation discussed, he reflects it - corresponds to it, if you will. The point made is not that Bateman is imaginary, it is that Bateman, in his society, is matter-of-fact.

If his society and our society are one and the same, then even more reason for American Psycho's existence.

Also, as a note: among the things I personally kept from that novel were far more the repeated (almost routine) scenes of narcissistic self-aggrandisement, or the various dead-end characters such as Luis Carruthers, than most of the murders, or the violence.

This exchange has convinced me that, for the most part, American Psycho is at home with works like Pasolini's Salò, Cavani's The Night Porter, and Cronenberg's Videodrome. If one can get past the superficial, "shocking" exterior, then one can find intense and interesting meditations on all manner of themes present in modern Western life. Indeed, the road from Salò to American Psycho isn't, if you stop to think about it, very long. If one cannot get past the exterior, then it's not very interesting and pretty offensive. Of course, so is the Raft of the Medusa if you take it for what it presents itself to be on the most superficial level. De gustibus non disputandum, however, is about the only reasonable response. I will, however, say that, in response to this:

You characterize society as depicted in the book as "narcissistic, amoral" and consider Bateman a product, no -- a reflection of that society.  For you Bateman is a metaphor for the consumer society that you and Easton Ellis feel have created such a monster.  I submit that this is a a perversion of reality, not a satire.  Let's understand this: monsters like Bateman are real.  They exist.  Saying that a consumerist society is the reason for the existence of such monsters is not true, it is a lie.  It is a lie that twists reality and becomes just another way to fill our society with depictions of violence that more and more people can become desensitized to.  You find redeeming value in these depictions.  I do not.  In the end, the true test of American Psycho would be to read the book with all depictions of violence removed and then decide whether the author has made a work of lasting merit.  I submit that without the shock value and titillation of the violence you will be left with a very ordinary, pedestrian product.

there are two salient points.

First, one necessarily reduces a work of art to garbage when one removes a central metaphor, so I don't find particularly convincing or useful the argument that removing the effect of the violence from American Psycho would diminish the work. Of course it would. You do propose a test, that's clear, though it seems less specific than presented and it has no more power over this work than any work.

Second, you continue to fret over the desensitization effect and its relation to American Psycho. As you present it, only someone desensitized to violence can even really approach the book. Someone who is still shocked by violence cannot approach the book, and that, in your critique, is the appropriate condition. Not to quibble, but that's simply incorrect -- by about 180 degrees, to be honest. Someone really desensitized to the quantity and quality of violence in the book isn't going to notice it. If one does not notice the violence, then it isn't a metaphor. It's wallpaper, so to speak. If someone is shocked by the violence, assuming (apparently arguendo, though I don't accept the premise that Easton Ellis' sexuality/gender-political position has anything to do with the book -- we can have that discussion about The Rules of Attraction, though) it isn't merely base perversion for its own sake, then they'll notice it and its function in the work. One must be shocked for the violence to have the intended effect.

And with that, the gulf being too wide to bridge, I think I've said all I intend to say on the context issues.

[Opus106]

From among those borrowed from the library, today:

The White Tiger
Aravind Adiga

[The new erato]

Philip Normans new Lennon biography. Very wellwritten and illuminating.

[karlhenning]

Philip Normans new Lennon biography. Very wellwritten and illuminating.

Hmm.

[Lethevich]

A big list of synopses, nice casual reading.

[The new erato]

Hmm.

Meaning that you are in doubt if Alfovitch' Lennon is worth reading about?

[karlhenning]

Meaning that you are in doubt if Alfovitch' Lennon is worth reading about?

Not at all;  your comment interests me otherwise.  So far, I've read about two chapters into Jonathan Gould's Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America . . . which (notwithstanding that I haven't touched it for a month) I found engrossing.  (Yes, I'll take it back up sometime ere long.)

[Bunny]

A metaphor does not imply causality. Bateman is not caused by the society, as per the interpretation discussed, he reflects it - corresponds to it, if you will. The point made is not that Bateman is imaginary, it is that Bateman, in his society, is matter-of-fact.

If his society and our society are one and the same, then even more reason for American Psycho's existence.


Also, as a note: among the things I personally kept from that novel were far more the repeated (almost routine) scenes of narcissistic self-aggrandisement, or the various dead-end characters such as Luis Carruthers, than most of the murders, or the violence.

This exchange has convinced me that, for the most part, American Psycho is at home with works like Pasolini's Salò, Cavani's The Night Porter, and Cronenberg's Videodrome. If one can get past the superficial, "shocking" exterior, then one can find intense and interesting meditations on all manner of themes present in modern Western life. Indeed, the road from Salò to American Psycho isn't, if you stop to think about it, very long. If one cannot get past the exterior, then it's not very interesting and pretty offensive. Of course, so is the Raft of the Medusa if you take it for what it presents itself to be on the most superficial level. De gustibus non disputandum, however, is about the only reasonable response. I will, however, say that, in response to this:

there are two salient points.

First, one necessarily reduces a work of art to garbage when one removes a central metaphor, so I don't find particularly convincing or useful the argument that removing the effect of the violence from American Psycho would diminish the work. Of course it would. You do propose a test, that's clear, though it seems less specific than presented and it has no more power over this work than any work.

Second, you continue to fret over the desensitization effect and its relation to American Psycho. As you present it, only someone desensitized to violence can even really approach the book. Someone who is still shocked by violence cannot approach the book, and that, in your critique, is the appropriate condition. Not to quibble, but that's simply incorrect -- by about 180 degrees, to be honest. Someone really desensitized to the quantity and quality of violence in the book isn't going to notice it. If one does not notice the violence, then it isn't a metaphor. It's wallpaper, so to speak. If someone is shocked by the violence, assuming (apparently arguendo, though I don't accept the premise that Easton Ellis' sexuality/gender-political position has anything to do with the book -- we can have that discussion about The Rules of Attraction, though) it isn't merely base perversion for its own sake, then they'll notice it and its function in the work. One must be shocked for the violence to have the intended effect.

And with that, the gulf being too wide to bridge, I think I've said all I intend to say on the context issues.

If I am reading your comments correctly, according to Renfield, American Psycho is more about narcissism; according to PSmith, it is meaningless without the torture -- "a central metaphor" without which the book loses meaning.

Renfield, if Bateman merely reflects his society, then isn't his character a product of that society -- unable to have been envisioned without that society?  And isn't that in effect saying that the society has contributed to the creation of the character?  You posit that the character is imaginary.  I ask, if he's imaginary what does it say about Brett Easton Ellis's imagination?  Do normal people fantasize about torture and murder this way?  You diminish the aspects of the violence and focus on the banality of the other aspects of the book.  Well then, why bother to even include the violence.  For you it's unnecessary; and yet you willingly tolerate it.

PSmith, if violence is the central metaphor of the book and the book is diminished without the violence, that it is "necessarily reduced to garbage" without the violence, then violence has become the raison d'etre for the book.  It becomes a book about violence because the violence is the core of the book, and worse, in your eyes the violence has redeeming value.  That's something I never expected to hear from you.  Btw, movies where the victims of Nazi torture are shown to be the willing participants in the torture are as perverted and despicable as American Psycho.  The existence of the film "The Night Porter" only shows that bad taste has no boundaries, and had American Psycho been "Nazi Psycho" depicting a foppish guard in Auschwitz it would have been as acceptable.  (Come to think about it Bateman shares a lot of qualities with Josef Mengele, who apparently was very vain about his appearance as well.)

Yes, I am concerned with the growing desensitization of our society even more than its consumerism and narcissism.  Violence as a spectacle has always existed: public torture and executions were once routine; gladiatorial contests reduced bloodshed to a carnival act.  Bull baiting and bear baiting were village attractions; cockfights and dog fights are blood spectacles that still exist today in certain cultural groups.  Graphic depictions of violence such as those in movies and American Psycho seem to have become a substitute for real thing.  Only consider how well horror films with graphic depictions of violence do at the box office, and then how well their dvds sell.  People argue that it's fantasy, not reality, but the depictions of violence are as true as the film makers can make them with whatever resources they have. I don't doubt that the viewers of these films have the same reactions as the audiences of blood sports, although there is no wagering on movie violence to enhance the excitement.

Does anyone actually believe that exposure to violence doesn't contribute to the breakdown of inhibitions against that violence?  Is there a gap between the lyrics of a rap song filled with the images of violence of man on man and man on woman and the descriptions of violence in American Psycho?   Those lyrics "reflect" the violence in the inner cities and that violence is real.  The lyrics also validate the violence by bringing fame and wealth to the rappers; they let individuals in the audience, gang members and wannabe gangstas think that casual violent acts are acceptable, and even something to emulate.  While I will never believe that the graphic depictions of violence are the sole cause of societal violence, I have to recognize that they feed the violent impulses in those exposed to the depictions by contributing to the breakdown of the inhibition of violent impulses.

So yes, I am very concerned with desensitization to violence.  For me, it's up there close to global warming as a matter for concern.

[jchen]

I just finished reading The Last of the Jedi #5 A Tangled Web.
Star Wars rock