Sushi My Girlfriend
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We have a guy called `Bateman' at work. He looks and behaves nothing like the `hero' of this novel, isn't impeccably dressed, doesn't eat lunch in smart restaurants, doesn't earn a huge 6 figure salary and hopefully.. his nocturnal activities don't match either... but like the central character in this novel.. everyone just calls him `Bateman...'
Patrick Bateman is Hannibal Lector's yuppie nephew preceding our favourite `slice n dice' psychiatrist by a good many years but with a lust for sudden explosive gore-soaked violence that would make his `Uncle Hannibal' proud. Bret Easton Ellis's exquisite, expensively manicured and `his hair was perfect' protagonist is a narcissistic self obsessed over paid and indulgent dealer. His daytime obsession apart from making huge money is to outdo his other vacuously self centred male clique inmates demonstrating one-upmanship - achieve the `perfect' exclusive impossible-to-get restaurant booking, obtain snob-club memberships and flaunt their cartier-gucci-rolex-versace style-brand obsessions.
High powered 80s `new men'...they preen, strut, gossip and whinge their way through their overprivileged expense account lives driven by media trivia statistics. Their biting sneering criticism is a prescient glimpse of the male version of `Sex in the City' - a triumphant win for greed, gadget- materialism and vanity over meaningful existence. They ruthlessly denigrate everyone, sneer and boast, treat waiting staff and service personnel like scum, and of course they all `hate and despise' the jobless, the homeless and the `underclass' with a vitriol that knows no bounds. They drool over ever more contrived minimalist priced-to-insanity menus, celebrity tailoring, skin treatments and `male perfumes'. They talk yuppie `buzzword' speak and act like the spoiled selfish ***holes they are. Above all they 'hate' women, but can't do without them.
Bateman though, has a secret. He compensates. He twists and blurs and warps his view of the world so that amongst his shallow peer group of preening guppies he is really a silk suited, Armani clad, calvin-klein Thin White Shark (with a perfect tan). At night Bateman targets and stalks prey - women (although the odd homeless tramp can be a suitable target for his murderous rage when the mood strikes) As the book progresses, Bateman's off duty serial killer `hobby' grows and grows into an uncontrollable monster. It's an explosive, bloody and visceral gutting, carving, raping, nail-gunning and beating of women, and gets more and more risky, careless and enthralling to him. Like most extreme sensation seekers he soon becomes jaded and needs an ever more outrageous thrill to produce the desired post event calm.
He is carelessly `wasteful' of his girlfriends, even ones he likes and has moments of bitter-sweet regret - one look, one move, one magazine vignette-style frozen moment or a word can set off the kill frenzy. After which he returns to his daily `act' within the indulgent high profile media dominated GQ `men's world'. A swaggering waxed-smooth male model peacock surrounded by yes-friends ` what shall we eat today , where shall we shop?' Bateman's neurotic male cronies make you think `material girls' are not so bad after all.
As famously asked in Hitch Hikers Guide `what is the meaning of life' .? For Bateman and his ilk its a constant keeping up with and humiliating of their peers and all those `beneath them' - rich diets, hi profile cars, designer suits, and vacuous gold-digger girlfriends just part of advertising land's trim and trappings. Bateman's label-scorning, brand obsessed life is a walking `to die for' OCD obsession, every move style-analysed and scored by our studio audience, folks. The rivers of anxiety, envy and resentment run deep and red through his mental landscape. It's the Land of Excess, the 80s aspirant excess-style-dream world.
The book follows his obsessive-compulsive disorderly decline and descent into homicidal madness and bursts of rage filled murderous self indulgence in a vain attempt to cope with his ever increasing thrill seeking and the bleak despair of boredom. A portrait of the veneer generation where fashion trappings, social status and `bling' outweigh values and where the line between normal `observance' of rules and outright pathological rebellion is a thin one. Bateman crosses the line and like Luke Rhinehart's Dice Man he is on the slippery bloody slope. He sets himself against the rest of grudgingly law abiding society...no way back...!
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Good if you're into this sort of thing
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Read this book in about two weeks on and off. Personally I found it dull but interspersed with moments of total, gut-churning descriptions of utmost depravity. I can appreciate why some people think it deserves more than 3 stars but I am not one of them
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Armani Blood - a new fragrance from aids orphans
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This book is about living with perfection albeit of the materialistic splendour variety (poor poor Patrick). Money gives the psycho the resources to visit anyone, anything, anywhere. Psycho only lives in the material world and finds it incredibly irritating and shallow even though he appears to have it all. Porn and extreme violence very mildly produce a reaction otherwise he appears numbed and unemotional, dead really. These drones deserve ultra violence and Bateman is only looking for a real response from them as he mutilates. It is a slight reprieve for him who has to live in the uber chic air conditioned nightmare a milion free air miles cannot take him away from. Platinum amex cards and cocaine are no palliatives for this sterile consumer world, murdering another model might help for a few minutes. Poor Patrick Bateman I pity anyone he comes across. A bit of a bore carrying a carving knife only Phil Collins might be able to persuade him to put down
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Shocking, vile and very good
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Careful with this one. If you haven't got the stomach for graphic descriptions of the most depraved and senseless acts of violence, depravity and murder then, really, don't read it. Ellis leaves no stone unturned in describing the vile deeds of his (anti) hero, the serial killer Patrick Bateman, and the nasty and random brutality inflicted on his victims can be a challenging read.
But the book is not actually about the murders themselves. The reviewers who say that the book is about the failures of capitalism and consumer excess are absolutely correct, however pretentious that may sound - it's the bits in between the killings that are what the book is about. Or - to put it another way - the killings are an integral part of the world of labels, product endorsements, tv serials, chat shows, restaurants and conversations about restaurants, cocaine, GQ magazine, fitness routines at the gym, self-obsession, superficial lifestyles and empty personalities that Bateman lives in.
What he finds out is that endless killing has no more power to make his life meaningful than an endless choice of designer clothes, regional cuisines, CD or DVD technology or skin and haircare products. Consumer excess leads ultimately to disassociation, loss of values and absence of personality.
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The book should be read its an important novel .......but,
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I have just read the book - it is of course shocking in places and only morbid curiosity keeps you going at times - which I believe is Ellis' intention. A few things, one of the first people to review on this page says she read it when she was sixteen and describes it as "a mindless shock-fest posing as social commentary". ????? Why was she reading it at 16. It's an adult book - hello! and IT's SUPPOSED TO BE A MINDLESS SHOCK FEST - THAT'S THE POINT! The described violence gets more and more gory and intense to the point that the reader becomes immune to it. Again that is the point the author I think was trying to make. It's a comment on where society is - where extreme violence becomes mundane and every day.
As a commentary on the featured poor little rich boys it is superb. Their whole lives revolve around their looks, how they dress and how many girls they can pick up, and the biggest decision they have to make in their lives is which restaurant to have dinner in. The boredom in their lives results in one of them going on a rampage of sex and violence - real or imagined - you decide. Read it.
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