After Francis Scott Fitzgerald‘s Lost Generation, let’s talk about Brett Easton Ellis’ Generation X. The literary kinship of these two American writers seems obvious to me – the first published his first novel at 23, the second at 21 – and they each embody a generation as disenchanted as the other – although for different reasons.
The Lost Generation is a population born at the turn of the 20th century, traumatized by the brutality of WWI, who sees their young people enlist to fight or volunteer as ambulance drivers. Ernest Hemingway and Francis Scott Fitzgerald, who lived in Europe, share their disgust, their disenchantment and are the most emblematic spokespersons for this Lost Generation.
Generation X is made up of a population born between 1965 and 1976, just after that of the baby boomers. Generation X, whose divorce from conservative values is obvious, is experiencing an era of economic growth but above all oil shocks which make employment less accessible and more unstable. Paradoxically (or not) this generation witnesses the erection of hyper-capitalism and the world of appearances – which will later reach their peak a few decades later with post-capitalism and social media. Generation X witnesses a significant social and economic decline, the explosion of colonial empires and the first concerns related to ecology, pollution and environment. Compared to the baby boom generation, Generation X is often described as sacrificed.
Published in 1991, the novel “American Psycho” reflects the disenchantment of Generation X, but few understood it when it came out. The book, rejected by Simon & Schuster but published by Vintage Books, caused a scandal upon its release – the press and the public remaining mortified by the crudeness and violence of the scenes (which are indeed very clinically detailed) experienced by its narrator and anti- psychotic hero, Patrick Bateman.
Patrick Bateman is a young investment banker who worked on Wall Street during the Reagan era. He is young, he is handsome, he is rich, he is engaged. Yet the emptiness that inhabits him is limitless: appearances dominate his life, he hardly works and he has no feelings – neither for his fiancée nor for his friends. His life revolves around having the most beautiful business card and getting a table at the fanciest restaurant in New York – which is inevitably always booked up. He is surrounded by a clique of other investment bankers who resemble him – so much so that mistaken identities are common, each mistaking the other for someone else in this closed and vain microcosm.
This emptiness, of which the anti-hero seems aware, hides another reality: at night, Patrick Bateman transforms into a serial killer of rare cruelty. He decapitates, he rapes, he slaughters and… he eats.
He kills, out of jealousy, one of his colleagues, Paul Owen, whose apartment he takes over to continue killing other victims in an increasingly disorganized manner.
Soon pursued by the police, Patrick Bateman manages to escape and call his lawyer, to confess on his answering machine all the crimes he may have committed. However, when he meets his lawyer a few days later, his lawyer confuses him with someone else and makes him understand that he considered the confession voice message as a good joke – having had lunch a few days before with Paul Owen – who our anti-hero supposedly killed.
Did Patrick Bateman, who is the most perfect example in literature of the “unreliable narrator”, fantasize about his crimes or are they, facilitated by a dehumanized and inattentive society, very real?
Everyone will have their own opinion – however I am not sure that this question is the most interesting aspect of the novel.
The violence, real or supposed, of Patrick Bateman is only the echo of the violence of a New York, American, Western society, where money, which is king, justifies all social violence.
Wall Street, which is the archetypal and fantasized place where the violence of money is exercised, is populated by golden boys whose financial decisions are the opposite of altruism. Idolized in a hyper-capitalist place and time, these golden boys represent the new American dream of the late 80s.
And this is what Brett Easton Ellis denounces: the emptiness and debility (in the first sense) of hyper-capitalism, which empties people of all humanity. No one really looks at anyone – there are many identity confusions, no one listens to anyone – Patrick Bateman can talk about his murderous tendencies as much as he wants, no one pays any attention.
The world of appearances is the only one that prevails in this world thirsty for money and social advancement – and no one cares about feelings.
Though serialized violence in American Psycho is an extension of the deadening effects of serialized consumer exchanges in an economy where commodities and bodies become interchangeable and indistinguishable, this point largely escaped the notice of the novel’s harshest critics”.
Namwali Serpell, “Repetition and the Ethics of Suspended Reading in American Psycho”
We must obviously talk about the film, which became cult after having been completely despised when it was released in 2000, directed by Mary Harron. The film was initially to be directed by Oliver Stone and the main role was to be played by Leonardo Di Caprio.
I am happy that the film was carried by a woman – because I believe that she was able to perfectly illustrate the violence of the society in which her anti-hero lives – and I am more than happy that Christian Bale was able to play Patrick Bateman and transcribe his cold and empty beauty.
Curling suit – Fendi coat and handbag – Eric Bompard top – Prada flat shoes – Face À Face sunglasses
October 20, 2024
