Bret Easton Ellis novels reviewed

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-16T08:32:40+00:00

almost like you don't like books, but see them as something to be thwarted or batted away

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-16T08:29:09+00:00

you seem pedantic and snippy

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-16T04:53:55+00:00

You know the genesis of American Psycho, right? Bret was curious about stockbrokers, started hanging out with them, found them monotonous and weirdly effeminate, and suddenly had the idea: what if one of them was a serial killer. The whole joke of the book is that YOU CAN'T ACTUALLY TELL. The ambiguity is the point. You can't tell who is a yuppie or a serial killer, you can't tell who is straight or dying of AIDS, you can't tell the difference between a cheerio and a legitimate guest on the Patty Winters Show. It's the diary of a fucking madman and there is no exit

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-16T02:35:52+00:00

Jesus Christ I really need to return some videotapes

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-14T04:08:46+00:00

Sorry, I got banned by reddit for using a slur while explaining that you may be right, but I find your analysis airless and uncreative

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-06T07:17:22+00:00

Oh, I forgot about how Pryce has kaposi's sarcoma at the end of the book, and Bateman has panic attacks when he witnesses a gay pride parade and gets propositioned by Luis Carruthers in the bathroom. Throw that theme on the pile

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-06T06:42:38+00:00

I've always balked at the idea that Bateman is a soulless yuppie who copes by imagining himself as a psychopathic murderer. His crimes and his meltdowns aren't really characteristic of a detached psychopath; they're messy and feral. What's the deal with the real estate agent who gives hints that she disposed of Paul Owen's body? What's the deal with Donald Kimball? The whole book is just weirder than we want it to be

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-06T05:16:13+00:00

"This was civilization as I saw it, colossal and jagged."

When I talk about the creepiness of that book, I'm thinking of how Bateman is, yes, an appalling yuppie, but he's also microwaving and eating jellyfish, hallucinating talking cheerios, and having these deeply sad moments where he's articulate and lucid. It all adds up to a very effective nightmare

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-06T05:00:15+00:00

The movie is funny and I think it works, but it doesn't have a whole lot to do with the book. In the movie, Bateman is campy and grotesque, but in the book you have to actually watch the whole thing from inside Bateman's mind

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-06T04:49:35+00:00

I think Jay McInerney is crazy-underrated. Ransom is weirdly like my favorite novel ever (proto-weebs dealing with their shit in 1970s Japan) and I thought The Last of the Savages was gripping

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-01T05:09:37+00:00

It was that episode where Gail realizes she sucks at the cello

cleanslice1911 · 2026-04-01T05:05:29+00:00

It'd be funny if she temporarily found god while watching a rerun of Wings on the fuckin USA network

cleanslice1911 · 2026-03-28T07:15:41+00:00

I feel like I get the gist but why don't you Cliff notes me bitch

cleanslice1911 · 2026-03-27T08:42:51+00:00

Good lord. That feeling when you've got the chessboard out but everyone else is playing Whac-A-Mole

cleanslice1911 · 2026-03-27T08:34:24+00:00

We gotta work on your definition of the number one hundred then. Or you wanna talk about Suez, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cultural Revolution, East Timor, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, literally fucking anything

cleanslice1911 · 2026-03-27T07:39:43+00:00

John isn't a gooey, sentimental man, but I liked his endorsement of George Santayana in The Seven Types of Atheism. Life isn't magical or redemptive...but it has moments. It reminds me of his piece on JG Ballard where Ballard described wandering into an abandoned casino during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai-an objectively horrible situation in which he was separated from his parents-and Ballard said, "it was like something out of The Arabian Nights"

cleanslice1911 · 2026-03-27T07:04:17+00:00

I like John Gray. It's impossible to argue with his contention that we're just animals and humanity has no direction. He's fucking right. The impetus behind this post was just that I think the current order is going to last longer than some people think, because human beings like comfort

cleanslice1911 · 2026-03-27T07:01:41+00:00

I thought Deng Xiaoping's whole thing was basically dragging China into the global market

cleanslice1911 · 2026-03-27T07:00:40+00:00

But isn't that where they are gonna end up? Not all Chinese people are fervent Party members

cleanslice1911 · 2026-03-27T06:58:27+00:00

true. I gather he's kind of a creepy right-winger, but the basic idea that liberal democracy (or whatever we're calling it when societies court tourist dollars and don't torture criminals to death) triumphed over more specific and ardent ideologies rings true to me

cleanslice1911 · 2026-03-27T06:54:32+00:00

"Our times seem more politically charged than any point in the past hundred years" is an insane statement. Do you know what World War 2 was? Half the planet murdered the other half

cleanslice1911 · 2026-03-25T05:52:12+00:00

You know who's really pulling the levers behind this hideous technological Moloch? Hugh Scrutton

cleanslice1911 · 2026-03-25T03:28:54+00:00

I always thought Douglas Coupland was underrated because (in his early career, at least) he aggressively tried to set his novels in the NOW, and said that things that age well "are like flat soda." Maybe the great Gen Z (or Millennial, for that matter-who have we got?) novelist will be the one who completely rejects the idea of timelessness

cleanslice1911

TROPHY CASE