/lit/ - Literature

>>16302283
apparently you don't get it
he names all the brands because he thinks they give him status
it's also how we know that all the various combinations of clothes he wears don't really make sense

>>16302295
I'm on page 30 Is it like this all the book? or just the beginning?

>>16302319

>>16302283
Smoke reefer before you read it and it will bother you less I prombis

Didn't know there were silk pajamas for man lol

is the brand naming necesary or the writter is using filters? Cuz he's about to filter me.

The brand names are a multi leveled symbol and signifier.

First, they represent the opulence of the character, thinking the writer is using them to show how wealthy Bateman is. But then you realize, this is Bateman giving the descriptions, meaning he's autistic enough to remember every brand name by sight, and know the social order of what is good or bad or doesn't fit. Then you realize that it's a fucking book, and so these brand names mean absolutely nothing as physical objects, at a certain level you don't even know if the names are real. Of course some of them are familiar but some are just out there, meaning that the author put them in the book as a simulacra, a simulation without an original. You are reading about clothes as a symbol, but only a symbol to one man, the one man sees his entire world and self worth through these symbols of clothing. Notice how the only people who get descriptions outside of what clothing they are wearing are the homeless people he murders, and how their descriptions are real, but full of disgust, the same way he describes the physical, non human world around him, thus he dehumanizes anyone that isn't described with clothing, and even then he doesn't see much humanity in the people he speaks with and describes the clothing of. It is a brilliant insight into the mind of the main character by the author with multiple layers of interpretation that just becomes deeper with every scene that passes.

>>16302283
Because all the people in his yuppie world are interchangeable, the only think distinct about them is the clothes they wear. This culminates in the pivotal scene at the end [spolier] when no one believes him that he murdered Paul Allen, because Paul could have been any other suit and no one even realizes he’s gone[/spoiler]

I see now I went straight to read the book without a knowing nothing (not even the movie) I apologize will read more.

>>16302438
Even the clothes they wear aren't distinct, especially the men.

>>16302557
glad you haven't got filtered it's really great actually

>>16302340
anon you've never lived

>>16302321

>>16302321
Sad this scene wasn't in the movie.

The Genesis, Whitney Houston and Huey Lewis chapters are ridiculous. They got a similar significance to the brand naming but just stretched over many pages

>>16302321
I am not even trying to be pol here but why were people even back then, and probably even more so today, so horrified and shocked by a fucking word? It's like everyone is a child scared of the evil naughty word. Like it's a dangerous, powerful magic curse or something.

>>16302675
I always wondered whether those were accurate assessments of their work, or whether it was just meant to showcase his autism

>>16302680
It's funny because Bateman in the beginning is telling his friends not to use the word because he's dating an art college girl and she doesn't like it, but at the same time he has 0 problems with the word faggot

>>16302685
So even in the 80s, they had the stereotype that art students are whiny little crybabies?

>>16302681
He only goes over Genesis's albums after Peter Gabriel left the band and favors the more poppy stuff that came after. I think it exemplifies his need to fit in.

>>16302681
It's a joke at how shallow non-musician music reviews are. They use all these words to describe the thing, but because they have never made the thing, they don't know how to articulate the thing in and of itself, they can only describe it from the outset. And Bateman spends pages and pages describing the music without any shred of actual articulation on what the music is like. This entire ordeal plays into his constant need to be seen to enjoy something, without actually enjoying the thing itself. It is the whole thesis of Society Of The Spectacle. It is not the object, but the perception of others of your perception of the object that is important to the type of person. He needs to be seen as intellectual by his peers, who also don't fucking understand music either.

>>16302283
>I get it
>t. Someone who doesn’t get it

>>16302647
I keep rereading it and waiting for it to not be funny.

>>16302714
So like pitchfork?

>>16302321
Holy shit I need to read this

>>16302781
Yeah, most all music review and criticism isn’t to articulate its musicality or value as a work of art, it’s there to sell music as a commodity. Which plays into the entire commodity fetishizing the book does.

>>16302685
There is a theory that Batemen is a closet homosexual with HIV, and the smudges on characters faces also indicate HIV