Tag: 1980s

Review 2556: American Psycho

~ whatmeread ~ 10 Comments

Is American Psycho a satire? a commentary about the manners and morals of young, wealthy Wall Street workers? a faithful depiction of New York City in its seedy 1980s days? a horror story? Or is it all of these things? Whatever it is, it was a DNF for me, although I made it almost halfway through.

I avoided this novel when it first came out, because it caused so much buzz that I knew what it was about. However, when I saw it filled a hole in my A Century of Books project, I was curious enough to get it from the library.

Patrick Bateman is a twenty-six-year-old Wall Street executive who is obsessed by the condition of his body, what everyone around him is wearing, what he eats and drinks, and how wealthy he is. (In a scene halfway through the book, he is angry because two prostitutes he has hired don’t care what he does for a living or how much he makes.) He is exactly like all his friends and coworkers. In fact, a running joke is that they all look so alike that they keep mistaking one guy for another. There is one difference for Patrick. He is a serial killer.

As far as I could tell, there’s no plot to this novel, just one scene after another of he and his friends at dinner or in a club trying to impress each other, and then going out to score drugs or sex. Every outfit he and his friends wear is described, especially including brand names. (In the first scene with two girls in it, they are wearing clothes by the same designers in the same colors.)

There is nothing to like in any of these people. They are racist, sexist, homophobic monsters who think it’s funny to hold money out to a homeless person and then snatch it back. The only seeming difference between Patrick and his friends at first is that he occasionally says something extremely hateful and violent, sometimes to his friends, that they don’t seem to hear (possibly because they’re almost always in loud places or they are so self-absorbed that they’re not listening). At first, these utterances and similar thoughts seem to be just very strange fantasies, but anyone who has heard anything about the book knows they are not.

The novel faithfully depicts late 1980s New York, in all its glitter and grit. It also includes conversations that, unless the men are being crass, hateful, or rude, read as if they’re taken verbatim from stereo brochures, etiquette and travel books. One chapter, thankfully short, is about the musical artistry of Genesis, and two pages are devoted to describing Patrick’s stereo system. The technology passages, meant to show how up-to-date and expensive his equipment is, now just seem dated.

The serial killer part doesn’t come out right away, but I don’t feel like I’m writing spoilers because this book is so famous. There are hints that something else is up besides partying, especially when he describes his expensive overcoat streaked in something dark or is furious because he can’t communicate with his Chinese laundry about getting the blood off his clothes. Finally, after about a hundred pages, he brutally murders a homeless man and cripples his dog. That’s just the first one he describes (although apparently not the first one he commits) and I read another 50 pages but ultimately couldn’t face the nail gun (which I only know about from seeing a picture from the movie).

I hated, hated, hated, this book.

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Review 2283: Foster

~ whatmeread ~ 13 Comments

Foster is so good it made me cry. It is beautifully and sparely written, about a little girl who is sent away to stay with strangers, the Kinsellas, while her mother has yet another baby. Her father, we learn very quickly, has gambled away their heifer and tells lies for no reason. He tells the Kinsellas, “You can have her as long as you want her.” He forgets to leave her clothes.

The girl is scared and mistrustful. When she wets the bed, she expects to be punished and sent home, but Edna Kinsella says the old mattress has been weeping and merely cleans and airs it. The Kinsellas are kind. They give her clothes to wear and feed her well, and she helps Edna with chores. She begins to love living on the farm.

I will say no more except this is a lovely book.

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Day 789: The Fall of Princes

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Cover for The Fall of PrincesI didn’t really think I would like the subject matter of The Fall of Princes, but I enjoyed Goolrick’s A Reliable Wife, so I thought I’d give it a try. I have to say, though, that for most of the novel I found the protagonist repugnant.

As a young man, the protagonist, who isn’t really named but is called Rooney once or twice, becomes a successful trader on Wall Street. Still young, he loses his job and everything else and spends his middle age living in the past.

That’s about it. We learn this in the first chapters of the novel and then it repeats. Each chapter is either a record of excess wherein he and his friends throw millions away on clothes, food, booze, drugs, and sex, or it’s a pathetic present-day story about something like ordering nice clothes and sending them back. Even after his failures, he doesn’t seem to learn a new value system.

The novel is set mostly in the 80’s and is supposed to be a paeon to New York’s glamor, glitz, and grit. But I was appalled by the lack of morals of these people, all engaged in gorging themselves on everything. They are young and perhaps can be excused for getting carried away. However, though the main character learns a few lessons by the end, they are long in coming.

link to NetgalleyThe onset of AIDS at its worst adds the darkest overtones to the novel. The protagonist, who has lived through years of having sex with everything that moves, of course has to worry about AIDS. But this portion of the book is stated so savagely, it’s hard to know what to think about it. It’s as if the author thinks you have to have lived in New York in the 80’s to mourn someone who died from AIDS.

I did find that the last few chapters redeemed the novel somewhat, those and the fact that it is so strongly written. However, in its story of one excess after another, it seemed virtually plotless. These main characters were just too crass and brutal for me. That’s probably the point, though.

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