I just finished this. I'd like to read something else by Ellis, what do you recommend...

I enjoyed less than zero user

Wasn't he just fucking with the girls when he mentioned Gorbachev in the basement? I mean, yea, he definitely SAYS he killed people and I took it at face value.

The shoot-out scene is a definite outlier though not only because of the content, but because of the sudden change in perspective. Nowhere else in the book does it shift to third-person.

Now, you're likely right; he likely killed a good many people and I may be overthinking it. But that still doesn't explain how easily he gets away with everything. Like the scene where he's brought his dry-cleaning in and the bloodstains are still in the sheets; why does no one notify the police?

Another thing; in one of the last chapters Bateman is abducted by a cab driver and robbed at gunpoint, presumably in retaliation for the cabby he blew away in the shootout, but if that never happened then perhaps this scene was Bateman confronting his guilt somehow rather than an actual event? I know that he himself is confused over the whole incident; he very well could have killed another taxi driver.

I'm just trying to make sense of it, is all. Bateman is clearly a disturbed individual but he has a little too much 'luck' in getting away with it. Even more than a CEO/inheritor of a company should, anyways.

cause he uses an chinese drycleaner the implication is that it is probably run by illegal immigrants is why no one calls.

There's no way all the murders really happened. Too many bodies disappear, the cleaning lady doesn't see blood on the walls, the dry cleaners don't see the blood on his clothes, etc

Honestly I would have to re-read it to get into an in depth discussion with you. I can hardly remember what happens in the novel, for instance I cant remember how he gets away from that cabbie, completely forgot it even happened.

But I do remember one part near the end where one of the girls he brings home freaks out about the smell or some such thing and then he kills her, so obviously he must've really been doing it.

But him getting away with the murders is a pretty big element of one of the themes the author is trying to get across

Taken alone, I can believe that. Mixed in with everything else? Man has the luck of the devil.

What about the way that McDermott, Van Patten, and his other peers treat him then? One would think they're genuine friends at first, but then you realize he's the owner of the company they work for at this point (Since his father died/got old/whatever and his mother seems to either have cancer or some mental illness) and they're likely kissing up to him in a sycophantic manner. But then you realize they're also treating him like an autist; more like a toy than a person, with their incessant questions about the proper manner of clothing to wear (Made apparent near the end when someone jokingly asks him what the regulation width of suspenders is)

One could wave it away as an obsession with status. Which it is, throughout the novel he constantly boils people down to their names and the type of clothing they are wearing and mechanically describes the specifications of any machine he purchases. But he is taking it to a level where even the vain and myopic people around him are saying, "This guy's a nutcase."

>but then you realize he's the owner of the company they work for at this point

when the hell does that happen? I dont remember ever reading that

They never really come out and say it directly, but I believe Evelyn alludes to him being a CEO at one point and one of his other girlfriends mock him when he says he has to get to work, saying he practically owns the company.

It's not 100% etched in stone, but that's the conclusion I drew anyways. I think there's also a throwaway line in the movie about his father owning it as well but the movie is trash compared to the book.

Thinking about it more and reading that the Bateman family is explored more in Rules of Attraction, I'm likely incorrect about the CEO/owner of the company bit, so forget that. My bad.

None of them because all of his books are exactly the same. If you've read one there's no reason to read any of the others.

MOMS GONNA FREAK!

Read Rules then Glamorama.

The point is that they are all insane in their own manner.
I do not think that they jokingly make fun of Batemans autism, they are actually interessted in his answers. Not to mention that they also have their own moments, like Pierce literally having roid-rage/cocaine fits and vanishing for a huge portion of the book to a mental institution, McDermott flipped his shit over Bateman criticizing the pizza at a restaurant. He and Bateman also had a long discussion over the difference between mineral and spring water. There also was a remark about some rich wallstreet guy who practiced some demonic rituals and kannibalism afaik and so on.
To me it seemed like Bateman is pretty new to the whole game and does not realize that this is how things roll around those people. That is why nobody is taking him seriously when he talks about murdering people, apparently it is the normal thing to do for people of their class. To signify that they are all basically the same they even frequently have those conversations where they guess who the hell this guy is who just entered the room and Bateman himself can safely act like he is Paul. That is why it is not about his luck from some point on, his killing spree is way too ridiculous for that. People simply do not give a fuck, because it is normal. It might be both a critique towards the non-involved nature of the average American citizen aswell as towards the sheer depravedness and decadence of most yuppies during that time. Personally not even the stuff Bateman did seemed weird to me, the part that
>made me really think
the most was the one where his secretary told him that she likes him because he seems like a really nice guy, I cound not find a single example where he actually acted nice towards her. Maybe the author tried to point out the halo-effect of the same yuppies aswell.
All of this is only suppossed to highlight the characters as nutcases only to the reader, once you actually try to look at it from the point of the characters themselves, it seems like it is a contained world they live in, which makes some kind of weird sense.

>tfw I actually developed a paranoia where I tried to remember what the last Patty Winters show was about.
>tfw I could perfectly see myself in that situation where he threw a banknote into the coffee of that hippie student.
>tfw actually started to look up brands, because some things were only described by them.
>tfw tried to remember all the girls he killed to this point, but failed. Only remembered the methods he used.

This book really worked on me with its manipulative devices, but saddly the messages condense into "rich people and modern society are evil" way too fast

I'm not sure. I read the book and i had the feeling that it has a certain depth a lot of people seem to dismiss.
It's when Bateman talks about himself. That he is and that every existance has it's right to be. It feels like he is not evil. The selfdoubt, in which he swims while he builds up his world makes him much more questionable - not just in the sense of if he is what he believes he is, but also in the world itself.
I may not be literate enough to expand my point, but i have the feeling there is more to this, than just the gerneral conclusion that consumerism is evil. Maybe it is, because i can't relate to what his world was like.

The Rules of Attraction. It's based in a college, with the point of view shifting every chapter. Everyone is an unreliable narrator and you get to see new sides of the characters and events that occur from different perspectives. It's great.

Rules of Attraction, Glamorama, and Less Than Zero are the other ones you should read.