/lit/ - Literature

Rather than talking about American Psycho for the millionth time, let’s talk about this instead.


Who else has read it? I’m about halfway through right now.

As you read it does Ballard (the author, not the character) expect us to be getting caught up in the fantasy of it all or what? It seems like it’s a very different experience for the reader if you read from an exterior standpoint that views everything with horror, or is able to ‘get into the heads’ of the fetishists and feel empathetic with them.

As I read this the thing it most strongly recalls is the nihilistic Gen X authors. There is a weird sense that there is actually a lot more cultural continuity between the 70s and now than I realized, at least for a certain upper middle class professional type. Does anybody else get that?

What do you think about this book?