one lit student

'American Psycho' by Bret Easton Ellis

Well, I read it.

This post has been quite a while in the making because I just didn’t know how to express my feelings on the book. I guess I liked it, as much as one can like a book written from the perspective of a narcissistic, sociopathic serial killer with a severe sadistic streak and taste for prostitutes who serves as a cipher for the materialistic society we’ve lived in since the mid 1980s. It’s not that I don’t care about books with a message, I do, but an angry 20-someething year old’s frustration with consumerism doesn’t really intrigue me. Maybe that’s coming from a delayed perspective in that ‘cultural satire’ (or as I affectionately call it “I’m Young and Feel Anger About Things” Lit) isn’t a rarity for me. No, not that, more that it isn’t new at this stage in publishing. It almost feels hackneyed. Which leads in to my issues with the modern novel, in its need to have a message. Bret love? I don’t really care about your nihilism.

When the book was published in 1991, it created a shitstorm of controversy. Which, I think, it fairly caused. After all, scenes involving genital mutilation, rape, cannibalism and of course, horrific murders are bound to cause some kind of controversy. I’ll admit, those parts made me distinctly uncomfortable. As much as I am aware that the book was written as a satire, intended to be a visceral attack on the yuppie lifestyle, one has to wonder about the mental state of someone who can write such graphic descriptions. It’s not like CSI where the blood is definitely not real and the murders often ludicrous. These murders exist in Ellis’ head, have been acted out, portrayed in great detail within his mind. That? Makes me very uncomfortable. And to be honest, did you really have to be so graphic Bret? Did you not feel this was the tiniest bit gratuitous?

I did. I’m really not a fan of violence for violence’s sake, regardless of the medium through which it is presented. . I didn’t mind the fact that Bateman was a serial killer, in fact the very insouciant way in which Bateman accepts his dual personality amused me. Passing mentions of the murders were at times particularly funny; it’s just that details of torture really doesn’t do it for me. There is one particular instance which the main details of which are quite hazy, but the horrific use of rats and a coat hanger still remain quite vividly in my subconscious.

Weirdly enough however, drug abuse I am apparently okay with. This may be the result of being given ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ aged 14 by my father - an excellent primer for all I’ve ever needed to know about drugs: that shit’s not all that fun. It was in these descriptions of the horribly pretentious and vacuous society that Bateman lives in that I found the most rewarding to read. It was there that I think Ellis was writing funnier, clearer and actually making his satirical point better. (Or maybe it’s just because I really don’t like graphic murder scenes when I’m reading in the bath.) Though Ellis’ ‘technique’ of listing the brands and prices of every item of clothing, while naked and essentially clever in its intent, just got really fucking irritating after a while.

Overall, I can’t say I wasn’t warned, and I did enjoy some parts of it. But it’s not a book I would read again, not for a long, long while.

'Revolutionary Road' by Richard Yates

I’ve been meaning to read this book properly for years and never really got around to buying a copy, but, with the advent of the film adaptation here, I thought now would be the time (or rather, it gave me the impetus I needed).

RR is a great novel, but not a happy one, such is Yates’ bent I presume. There are some absolutely beautiful passages no doubt, but these are not why this book has been so loved and adored by such an elite few.

The real draw of this novel is the despairing reality of it. At no point to you ever feel that Frank and April could not exist, that out there somewhere, live a couple just like them. The pain and frustration of this once bright couple is absolutely palpable. Their fights and their dreams and their loneliness is inescapable and feels totally real. Relentlessly depressing to some, but I feel, shockingly truthful to most. I’ll admit that I did have to stop and do something else at various intervals because things get continually worse when you think they can’t. Most people do not suffer to the extent that the Wheelers do, nor do they take matters into their own hands like they do, but who has not had regrets or abandoned dreams? And it isn’t just Frank and April, but the unrequited want of Shep Campbell, the faltering cheer of Mrs Givings, the innocent hope of the Wheeler children.

These brief shifts into the minds of the secondary characters are what separate this novel from the sea of domestic frustration novels that sit in our bookshops. These are bright spots, for example, when Frank and April decide on Paris. It’s a wonderful moment of harmony that their daughter notices and though we feel, or even know, that the peace won’t last, the possibility that it does keeps us reading.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect of this book, how I would feel upon reading it at long last, but I am behind all those that have come before me in praising Yates for his keen observation and analysis of the ordinary who could’ve been something else.

'Looking for Alaska' by John Green

Having followed John Green’s video blog with his brother Hank for several months, I became intrigued by John’s career in writing Young Adult literature. Fortunately for Christmas, a friend bought me his first novel ‘Looking for Alaska’. Not knowing anything about the plot I delved right in. It chronicles the goings on with a 17 year old boy Miles at boarding school before and after a certain event - SPOILERS IN THE NEXT SENTENCE - which is later revealed to be the death of his friend and first crush Alaska Young.

The book was surprisingly moving and wonderfully written, even beautifully at times. I say this with surprise because it’s been a long time since I read YA and from what I remember, with the brief exception of Tamora Pierce and JKR, it wasn’t very good. Therefore I’ve pretty much stayed clear of the genre. If John is anything to go by, I may have to get back into it (yes, I know, I’m at university and studying Literature, but I need some downtime and frankly? American Psycho is not cutting it - more on that in February).

I have to say, the first half of the novel is refreshing and funny. I like that Miles’ experience are so recognisable to me. The sneaky drinking, the wanting to be so much more than you are. Miles isn’t perfect, none of them are and that’s okay. It was also nice to read something written for teenagers that doesn’t patronise you. That said, whilst I did enjoy that first half, it is Green’s masterful descriptions of a teenage experience of grief in the second half. In fact, the fact that I say it’s teenage at all makes it sound like I’m belittling it or somehow suggesting that adults experience grief in a different way. That’s not the case. I’m not sure I’m explaining myself particularly well.

What I particularly loved was the sense of growing up throught this grief, that Miles comes to the realisation that he doesn’t have a monopoly on grieving her, as one of his friends once puts it. What was even better is that at first, he knows that, but continues to act the way he was before. It’s not a morality lesson, it’s not a guidebook for behaviour as YA lit does tend to do. It’s just beautifully written, and funny too.

Thank god for Brotherhood 2.0 and YouTube for bringing the Green Brothers, and this book, into my life.

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

Well I finished, (started and finished) the book in under two hours which isn’t bad going since I’ve not read anything for pleasure since the middle of the summer (Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood). As for what I thought of it? I liked it. Much more than I thought I would.

I love the way Winterson writes, which is something of growing importance when it comes to my relationship with books. For a long time, I cared mostly about plot, about characters and while that remains important, the writing style has to capture me as well. High scores for Winterson there. One thing I have a real issue with is detail. I’m very Goldilocks in my approach to it, I need the little details because they fill the time, tend to be very pretty and give much more away than you initially think. But then there extraneous detail. Homer, I’m looking at you. Winterson toes the line really well, keeping my interest through the detail but never irritating me with it.

It took me a while to settle into the novel, mainly because I had no idea what to expect. I, unusually, like to come to a book with some idea of what will unfold. It’s the same with films and CDs. I look at the DVD case whereas my dad just opens it up and pops the disc in. I cannot do that. This knowledge need not be detailed, it need not be a full plot summary, it could even just be its genre and that’s more than enough for me. But I do need that kind of miniature introduction. Think of it as holding out your hand and saying “Hi, my name’s Isobel and you are?”

I felt that the blurb on the inside jacket sleeve was both exactly what the novel was about and yet, almost too grand. To me, this is a novel about love, past loves, current loves but most specifically, lost love. After all, the first line of the novel is:

Why is the measure of love loss?

Because I had no real idea of what to expect, it came as a pleasant surprise to me. I thought the love story of our narrator and Louise was convincing emotionally (which is key for a story of this kind obviously) but a little too set-piece-artistic in its contrivance. Perhaps it’s just a part of my rowing frustration with the modern and post-modern movel, in that it’s always readching so hard and so high for grand statements on the human condition when in actual fact, you can say just as much by just focusing on the characters themselves instead of the characters as ciphers for a larger issue.

As I said, it is a book you have to settle yourself in, become accustomed to. Oddly enough, the ambiguously gendered narrator was not a part of that problem for me. I will admit that in my head, I cast a man because to me there seemed too many points that indicated a male protagonist. However, I do see how the narrator could be cast as a woman, particularly when the narrator talks about a past boyfriend requesting the removal of all body hair to ‘increase sensation’. Now, I’m not up on the practices of gay men but it didn’t initially strike me as a request from one man to another. The rest of the passage contradicts that though, to me, since the narrator is left for a man, Robert, who was ‘taller, broader and thinner than me’. I don’t know and personally, it makes no difference to whether or not I enjoyed the novel.

I think the reason you have to sttle into it is because it feels lke a monologue, a stream of consciousness that is initially disorienting - which is how I felt as I started The Waves by Virginia Woolf that I unfortunately never got to finish since it was due and I had work to do. But this is something you can get past by further immersing yourself in the novel. Once you become acclimatised you can begin to really appreciate the beauty of what’s being said.

Overall, I think this tale of love and loss is beautifully written and well worth the read. I think I need to find a new way to say that.