Before I start this review, let me say that if you plan on reading this book, make sure you can stomach the extremely vivid depictions of incredibly brutal sexual violence. While it is important to look past the violence and see what it represents in the bigger picture, it is VERY graphic. Don't say I didn't warn you...
Now, American Psycho is an excellent book. Right up there in the pantheon of great American fiction with the Great Gatsby (while they are very different in both style and content, they both capture the essence of an era of moral and material excess brilliantly). The book is primarily a critique of the endless, maddening consumption of modern America and, especially, that era that represented the peak of our decadence, the 1980's. Our protagonist, 27 year old, Patrick Bateman (a Wall street exec.) becomes the avatar of yuppie excess and depravity. At first, during the first third of the book, Bateman indulges heavily in drugs, sex and booze (Not saintly behaviour but hardly shocking. It is set in the 80's after all...) and describes in exhaustive detail his various designer products and beauty routine. Boredom is used as a literary device to frame the shocking bursts of horrendous activity still to come.
In the second third, we are taken to the next stage of consumption. Murder. When you have consumed every product on the market, all that is left is to consume life itself. It is the only escape from the mundanity of life (and the inevitably of aging and death). Bateman begins to violently torture and murder everyone from hookers to tramps to co-workers.
In the final third, we gain an insight into the motivation behind such actions as Bateman begins to truly lose his mind (at one point he believes a cheerio is being interviewed on TV). Bateman's crimes reach new, shocking levels of vilence. The acts are described in such detail that they become as mind-numbing as the descriptions of designer clothes, showing us how even the extreme depths of human behaviour can become nothing more than a hollow, futile gesture against the vast nothingness of life. Bateman's life is an endless chasm and he knows it. It pains him how even with his wealth and beauty, his life is worth nothing and, in his own words, he seeks to inflict his pain on everyone. To him this is the only way to impose some meaning on his life. However, like everything else, this meaning is only superficial. It changes nothing.
To conclude, this book is a stunning insight into the dangers of consumerism and a still-relevant warning of how shallow said consumerism is. Unless we try to find something deeper in our lives than items and possessions, our world will descend into madness and depravity. A world of Batemans. If you read this book, do one thing. Heed that warning.
