Controversial books, a list (not mine)

[Pure]

Hi mlle,
Still no substance as to the merits of the book. You folks are so loath to back up your literary decrees. It's time for a little compliment to Perd, however. Perd, grrrl, you rock!

I did read about half the book and that's as much as I could stomach.

Here's another laff-fest, below, for Perd. 1) Note the author's brilliant denunciation, through Bateman's act, of all the things shoved down women's throats that occurs in our consumerist society.

Only a violent action in the reverse direction--yanking the veins up through the throat can properly evoke our disgust at what the Prada, Vuitton, et al. force upon women.

2)In Ellis turn of phrase, worthy of genius, hear the heart-rending protest against the rampant atrocities we see have to look at, daily (Russia, this week):

Literally, we endure melted eyes running down [our] face mixing with the tears

It's almost as if Ellis had a prescient vision here, of 9-11, where thousands melted, then turned to dark vapours. And our eyeballs literally exploded in utter surprise and horror at the falling towers.

J.
------------

Ellis: American Psycho:

I finally use a Bic lighter and hold it up to both [eye]sockets, making sure they stay open with my fingers, burning my thumb and pinkie in the process, until the eyeballs burst. While she's still conscious I roll her over, and spreading her ass cheeks, I nail a dildo that I've tied to a board deep into her rectum, using the nail gun.

Then, turning her over again, her body weak with fear, I cut all the flesh off around her mouth and using the power drill with a detachable, massive head I widen that hole while she shakes, protesting, and once I'm satisfied with the size of the hole I've created, her mouth open as wide as possible, a reddish-black tunnel of twisted tongue and loosened teeth, I force my hand down, deep into her throat, until it disappears up to my wrist--all the while her head shakes uncontrollably, but she can't bit down since the power drill ripped the teeth out of her gums

--and grab at the veins lodged there like tubes and I loosen them with my fingers and when I've gotten a good grip on them violently yank them out through her open mouth, pulling until the neck caves in, disappears, the skin tightens and splits though there's little blood.

Most of the neck's innards, including the jugular, hang out of her mouth and her whole body starts twitching, like a roach on its back, shaking spasmodically, her melted eyes running down her face mixing with the tears and Mace, and then quickly, not wanting to waste time, I turn off the lights and in the dark before she dies I rip open her stomach with my bare hands.... p.305

 

[MlledeLaPlumeBleu]

Patrick Bateman probably wouldn't recognize himself either.

 

[rosco rathbone]

The Pure/Perdita/MLPB show is always one of the most entertaining to be found here abouts.

Carry on!

 

[MlledeLaPlumeBleu]

We'll be here all week.

 

[Pure]

we'll be here all weak.

 

[Guest]

Rosco, hombre, in these sad times people need something they can count on, however surreal. I count on your uber-chutzpah and your AVs.

Perdita

 

[rosco rathbone]

We'll be here all week.

Or at least until the young man gets his humiliation fix and retires to his little bear house in the big internet woods to fall asleep with a happy porridge smile.

 

[MlledeLaPlumeBleu]

Young man? I don't buy it.

Pure has to be at least fifty.

He's enough of a bastard that if he *was* a young man I'd probably enjoy fucking him.

Good thing he's not, because if that ever happened my erstwhile friends would probably nailgun my netherbits shut with a brutality only hinted at in Ellis...

 

[rosco rathbone]

Young man? I don't buy it.

Pure has to be at least fifty.

He's enough of a bastard that if he *was* a young man I'd probably enjoy fucking him.

Good thing he's not, because if that ever happened my erstwhile friends would probably nailgun my netherbits shut with a brutality only hinted at in Ellis...

I like Pure as the eternal young man, regardless of clock age.

 

[MlledeLaPlumeBleu]

Pithy, accurate. And here I bow to you, insightful man.

God, I had take my nose out of the air. I hope I don't suffocate.

 

[Pure]

Juliette--a controversial* book, not yet mentioned

What an oversight!

Its eclat is best told by by paraphrasing one of our finest critics, here:

I can say without a shred of doubt that Juliette is the most important, the strongest feminist document I have read to date.

Incidentally, Sade didn't have to consult the law enforcement records to do his literary inventing.

Contrast Ellis:

I read a lot of books about serial killers and picked up details from that and then I had a friend who introduced me to someone who could get me criminology textbooks from the FBI that really went into graphic detail about certain motifs in the actual murders committed by serial killers and detailed accounts of what serial killers did to bodies, what they did to people they murdered, especially sex killings.

That's why I did the research, because I couldn't really have made this up. What happened, though, was that once I had all these details and descriptions down and I started writing these sequences, Patrick Bateman's voice entered into the scenario and he perverted them even farther ....

-----
*PS. As a measure of the controversy over Juliette, I suspect there isn't a thread reader here who owns a copy, or who can find a copy, in English, in their local bookstore or library, or local university library.

Perhaps I'll post a feminist excerpt or two if there's any interest.

 

[Pure]

I think Perd is right that this thread about controversial books has too much controversy. That should stop immediately, for in such instances, a number of incorrect, not to say ill-informed, views get publicized.

 

[sincerely_helene]

http://www.geocities.com/jughead_p_jones_12/history.htm

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Hi Lauren,
Your statements are wildly distorted, but thanks for dilating a bit.

You're welcome. When you have a little time, I'd love to know in which instances were my statemensts the least bit distorted, but take your time.

Isn't it odd that Ellis' publisher, displays *first* among review blurbs, a favorable passage from Weldon? A person so ill informed and who has not read the book.

My best guess is that you haven't carefully read Weldon's review, which is generally favorable (and noted as such by other critics).

Don't play dumb, Pure. It doesn't suit you. You know perfectly well - otherwise you wouldn't have posted it as a support of your assertation of American Psycho not being worthy of figuring on a list of "controversial, *but excellent* books" - that Ms. Weldon's review is far from favorable. What she does is recognise the indisputable: that the book is unparallelled for its precise and controlled language, and that Ellis creates an unassailable, viscerally accurate portrait of corporate America.

How did she get to that conclusion without reading the book? The same way you got to the opposite without reading the book: reading what other people say about it.

You know as well as I do, Pure, that if you're going to attack the fundaments of an institution, of a party, of a philosophy, or of an artwork, you need to keep it balanced, or you'll be shrugged off as a biased extremist. Saddam was a monster, but the war on Iraq... No one denies that Shakespear was a great playwriter, but as a poet...

"American Psycho is a beautifully controlled, careful, important novel which revolves about its own nasty bits. Brilliant." But "no one is suggesting that Bret Easton Ellis should be killed, eaten alive, for writing it. Or not yet."

One thing is certain, Pure. If you don't understand the irony, the thrill it must have been to those "nice folk" at Picador when they extracted, from a demolishing diatribe as was Ms. Weldon's, a fragment as the one they did, and to have it printed at the top of the first page of the book, then you will never be able to understand the concept of satire, or even the concept of humour. It's a pity, true, but it's your problem.

You mention errors. Taking the first, above, you claim she "outrageously suggests" an autobiographical element:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/8506/Ellis/ellishotwired.html
[Interview, Hotwired, 1995]

capasso asks: Was Patrick Bateman in American Psycho based on anyone you know?

Ellis: Partly guys I met on Wall Street, partly myself, partly my father.

Hey, but what does he know. You have *the true reading.*

Patrick Bateman is the embodiment of corporate America. As such, he is based on corporate America. Partly guys BEE met on Wall Street, partly BEE, partly BEE's father. Can you seriously say this statement of evidence, worthy of a M. de la Palisse, can justify the gratuitous claim of this paragraph:

"Shall we now consider the society hostesses of Manhattan, who, assuming Bret Easton Ellis's novel American Psycho, featuring a cannibal murderer, to be autobiographical, continue to ask him to parties? He has been heard of. That's what counts. A little excitement, a little thrill. Okay for him to eat my sister's brains, she's on the game anyway, more or less, but I don't suppose he'll do it to me amongst the canapes."

Yes, it all makes perfect sense.

Let me get this straight. Weldon says no one in the novel cares, and you answer, 'the reader cares.' This is one of her errors.

Yes, that is what I said.

True, a number of feminists denounced it, and tried to have it banned. Apparently you don't notice Weldon's in a different camp.

Let's see, besides the blurb already quoted, we have her saying:

FW: This man Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer. He gets us to a T. And we can't stand it. It's our problem, not his. American Psycho is a beautifully controlled, careful, important novel which revolves about its own nasty bits. Brilliant.

Weldon's critical thoughts appear to have incensed you: "brilliant" "seminal" "important" just don't do it. Weldon doesn't see that Ellis is the greatest, so you have to slag and misrepresent her.

See above. Her "critical thoughts" are buzz words, a strategic necessity. You'll notice she comes up with no justification for them. It's just as difficult to justify the brilliance of a book you haven't read as it is to attack it. She does a very poor at both. That is why I know she didn't read any more of it than you did.

However, since you were the one that brought her "review" to attention as a form to justify your opinion on the book, if you now want to take her words for their face value and call the book a "brilliant", "seminal", and "important" piece, I can only congratulate you.

It *is* a good book, though it made me lose my lunch at a couple points.

There are, however, extended boring and unliterary passages, listing the Brand names of each item of clothing and accessory.

And, excuse the boorish question, but why is it that someone so concerned with possessions, looks, and prestige turns out to be a
'serial killer.'??? How plausible is the connection between the thoughts "What a great Rolex watch I have! Can there be anyone so dapper as myself?" And the thought, "I think I'll torture my 'date' tonight and apply a blowtorch to her eyeballs till they explode."

If you've read about serial killers, hardly any fit this bill of ostentatious luxury, though of course many criminals are highly self absorbed. It's a sort of leftie stereotype that a Rolex can be a mark of a serial killer, as opposed to just a shallow, asshole, who may be into a lot of white collar crime he'll get away with (not too many folks get away with murdering 20 people, except for military figures).

OK. It's the author's 'conceit' or assumption: "Our" [US]materialism is of a piece with depraved, conscienceless serial murder." The author does very well with this assumption. Even brilliantly, as Weldon says.

One could write a novel on the assumption that Texas oilmen are pederasts. It might read well and be a fine novel. And funny and satiric, a bit like "Candy." But it would illuminate neither the inner workings of the oilman's mind [an actual oilman] nor the inner workings of the pederast's mind. Or any connection between these mentalities (on the rare occasions when there is such a connection).

So without detracting from Ellis' writerly skills, as shown in his affectless portrait of an psychopathic killer, it doesn't, imo, hold a candle to Capote's picture of a psychopath--indeed an actual
one-- in In Cold Blood .

You know, this is and interesting point. And if American Psycho were a book about bon vivant financial tycoons or about serial-killers, or about any connection between one and the other, it would even be relevant.

As it is, though... est las.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Note: I see Lauren Hynde has taken her screenname from an early Ellis novel, a gesture, no doubt, of tribute, if not worship.
Cool.

I'm sure there's a point in this somewhere.

For the record, and not that it's any of your concern, but I took my nom de plume from the latest Ellis novel, not from the early one you read about, as a gesture of personal identification with a character. It's a happy coincidence that the author of that novel happens to be Bret Easton Ellis, but no more than that.

 

[Pure]

Hi Lauren,

Some of your points are unclear to me, but I get the one that Weldon may have 'salted' her review with a few favorable comments, so as to, overall, be more effective as a damning critic.

It is a possibility; I know of no way of deciding about it, getting into her head as it were.

The only other point i'd comment on, is your original statement and your current defense of it:

LH originally: The outrageous suggestion - I'll be kind to Ms. Weldon and use the word suggestion - that there is an autobiographical element in American Psycho, gratuitously accusing the author of being a misogynous, cannibalistic sociopath;

Though the syntax is a bit confusing, I think you're saying Ms. Weldon, through a suggestion, _accuses the author of being a misogynous, cannibalistic sociopath._

That would be an odd accusation to make, since, from what I can tell in the interviews, BEE is an intense, though mildmannered fellow, who's not known to be a danger to anyone.

Here is the crucial passage you adduce:

FW: "Shall we now consider the society hostesses of Manhattan, who, assuming Bret Easton Ellis's novel American Psycho, featuring a cannibal murderer, to be autobiographical, continue to ask him to parties? He has been heard of. That's what counts. A little excitement, a little thrill. Okay for him to eat my sister's brains, she's on the game anyway, more or less, but I don't suppose he'll do it to me amongst the canapes."

The highlighting is yours.

I believe you misread the passage, in particular

FW:assuming Bret Easton Ellis's novel American Psycho, featuring a cannibal murderer, to be autobiographical,

I think you take it that FW is saying she, FW, is assuming something.

I read it, that *the society hostesses* are assuming something.
(Weldon not giving her view of the matter.)

Likewise
FWOkay for him to eat my sister's brains, she's on the game anyway, more or less, ...

In my view this is a thought in the hostess, the one assuming AP is autobiographical. We don't know what FW thinks of BEE eating the hostess's sister's brains.

I'm not sure how to settle the matter.

The debate about whether a third party has 'read the book' is NOT worth extending any more, or even if it was, thus far.

----
At any rate, you and a number of most excellent writers, like Joan Didion, think the book is exceptionally fine. A number of others are more guarded, though somewhat positive, like Mailer. A few hate it, esp. a certain group of feminists in the mold of Dworkin (who is also a fine writer, btw).

Only the *reasons* for the assessments are of interest. Time will tell.

(Incidentally I have not be able to find yet the Didion and Mailer pieces, but they are widely referred to and quoted.)

Thanks for taking the time to explain yourself a little more fully.



PS: What do you think of _Juliette_?

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Controversial books...?

The Holy Bible tops my list. Caused quite a stir in its day and since.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

PS: What do you think of _Juliette_?

I haven't read enough into Juliette to have a formed opinion, yet. The copy I own is in French, so it will take me a while longer to read than would be strictly necessary. From what I read until now, though, I think it doesn't quite measure up to Justine, in terms of literary excellence. As a feminist document, as I said, I haven't read near enough to make a just judgement.

 

[Kate.E]

Yeah, I like, agree with Pure. Bert Ellis is a shitty writer and an animal hater. I started reading it but nearly threw up too - I mean, Gucci shoes with Ralph Lauren trousers? Who's he trying to kid? To start with, any self-respecting serial killer would never consider such a fashion crime.

And like.....how does he just kill people and get away with it? All he does is talk about clothing labels and never knows people's names and he works in this huge corporate company and seemingly doesn't have a care in the world and is so 'matter of fact' about everything. And set in the 80s? What's that about?

So, I thought I'd watch the movie as it's much better to watch the film than to read the book ... hang on, like, duuh - even the movie sucked! It was almost saved by having her out of Cruel Intentions in it. Not Buffy, the other one. I think maybe cuz it was directed by a woman it was shitty. Everyone knows women can not direct you into a parking space, nevermind shoot a freaking movie.

All Bert's other work licks balls too. He's probably gay. And a killer.

 

[MlledeLaPlumeBleu]

Laughing. My. Ass. Off.


*ouch

 

[Guest]

Laughing. My. Ass. Off.

Ah ha ha. I think Kate.E is B.E. Ellis. Welcome to Lit., Bret.

Perdita

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

... I think maybe cuz it was directed by a woman it was shitty. Everyone knows women can not direct you into a parking space, nevermind shoot a freaking movie.

Women Film Directors with at least one success movie off the top of my head


Amy Heckerling [US]

Kathryn Bigelow [US]

Elaine May [US]

Penny Marshall [US]

Nora Ephron [US]

Barbara Streisand [US]

Jodie Foster [US]

Muriel Box [UK]

Ida Lupino [US]

Mai Zetterling [Sweden.]

Jane Campion [New Zealand]

 

[Pure]

Hi Kate,

Though i haven't seen it, the movie is widely praised.

I think, yes, he is gay or bi, but not a killer. Or not apprehended!

I believe him to be a talented writer, despite the clunky parts of AP, and am going to have a look at his first book.

It's good you have posted an opinion, if it's an opinion not a spoof. It does, at any rate, sound like you're trying to provoke someone. It is sometimes hard to provoke mlledelap, though I usually fall on the other side of that fence.

J.

 

[Kate.E]

Virtual, you should consume some Antonia Bird and Lynne Ramsey. They are also women.

Thanks for the list - I'll make sure to look into Jodie Foster.

(Pause)


I'm sure you'd agree that De Fina and Schoonmaker are almost worthy of a mention too. Perhaps. And Ed Wood.

I'm not trying to provoke anyone, just adding a pov.

Hi Bleu n Perd, good to meetchas.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

. . . I'm sure you'd agree that De Fina and Schoonmaker are almost worthy of a mention too...

As labelled, those were off the top of my head.

I can only balance a finite number of names at that point.