/lit/ - Literature

>>17855216
capitalism bad, idk it's pomo crap there's no moral

what do you think is the moral of the story?

I just want to fit in

>>17855216
not everyone who's successful is mentally stable? or maybe it's that psychopaths can blend-in with normal people with relative ease?

im so fucking high rn

>>17855216
THERE IS NO EXIT

>>17855216
the surreal events of a seemingly inconsequential person who lived a secret second life performing grotesque acts. morale of the story something something prominent people can do weird stuff behind closed doors, always understood it as a thriller novel with not much to derive in terms of some deeper meaning.

>>17855216
Be kind, rewind.

>>17855216
Carpe Diem

Where can I find this version with this cover

>>17855216
Just reread the last few pages.

>>17855216
The pleasures of conformity and following trends

>>17855216
Murdering hookers is cool and funny.

American psycho is about perception of social relations. Specifically through the lens of the spectacle and simulation. Patrick doesn't actually work and yet he performs every social role the job requires besides actually working, he defines people he judges worthy by the brands they wear with the exception of undesirables who get more description and detail than any other character and this is because it is the brief look into the Real, his enjoyment of entertainment is derived by a perverse pleasure in critiquing it without any actual meaning or depth, He doesn't actually enjoy the act of sex he enjoys the power it represents, as shown by his progressively more and more violent sexual acts deriving from orifices that are less and less related to the vagina. His lines about just 'wanting to fit in' show the bateman he shows to others, but not to himself. The bateman he believes he is is the one who commits all the atrocities. The only ever real scene in the entire book is the one where it changes to third person. This is the one glimpse into actual reality we get, not any one subversion of a subversion of an unreliable narrator that projects himself onto his social obligations.

>THIS IS NOT AN EXIT

If you are unable to derive some kind of meaning from this book, there’s no hope.
I personally think it critiques the superficial and performative nature of our society, to the point that IF bateman’s crimes are infact real, nothing really matters because his identity and the identity of others is so often hidden or confused that no one notices “him” or the missing victims.
If you will “because fakeness is so widespread, every the most horrific act becomes muddied and forgettable”

>>17855339
>>17855716

>>17855216
that bateman is gay and spreading aids is bad
https://italkyoubored.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/american-psycho-maybe-not-the-book-you-think-it-is/

It's about the hell of life in the adult world of keeping up appearances and putting on a fake persona to others. Also it's about being rich, like Ellis is, and how image is half of the job. To condense the whole book into a line, it's about how the internal self differs from the external. You walk by people all your life and you may consider their external presenting self to be what is really them, but it's not. Most people are not genuine and they don't want you to be either. Life is about conforming to your surroundings. It can drive any man insane to think most people have an ulterior motive to their actions. It makes one constantly on guard. This book actually helped me become more genuine after awhile. I say what's on my mind and blind people with my autistic nature now. There are consequences for this. I can't be around certain places and it bars me from many types of jobs. I don't say whatever I feel, but who really can?

>>17855216
Paradox of trying to fit into a group and maintain individual identity. Patrick can do neither so he lashes out in delusions. Very sad book about a very sad man we all resemble more than we think

Alienation from modern life thanks to hypercapitalist enterprises and ideals
The Male conflates wealth and material possessions with power, leading to crazy ideologies and mistreatment of women and even other men