Sady Doyle was making waves in my corner of the Internet recently over her vigorous critique of George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Fire and Ice.” I kind of wanted to have an opinion about this controversy, but actually have no intention of reading so many books, so I was glad to see her write something at length about Brett Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, which I actually have read. Through paragraph after paragraph I kept wanting to say “you’re misunderstanding! you’re misunderstanding!” and thought a clever point to make in response would involve an allusion to Mary Harron’s 2000 film adaptation. Then I see in the last three paragraphs of the post, that Doyle is aware of the movie. She likes the movie. She even links to this interview with Harron and Christian Bale.
But I’m not sure she read the whole thing:
What attracted you to Bret Easton Ellis’ book?Harron: I did feel that it was seriously misunderstood. The people who were attacking it, um, weren’t allowing for the fact that it was a satire on Wall Street, and on these young Turks. I mean, you can argue about the level of violence in the book, and how much of it should or shouldn’t be there, but I don’t think you can say it’s endorsed in the pages. To me then, it becomes an issue of representation. How much you write about it, how much you show. I thought the book was hilarious. […]
How did you prepare for the role, Christian?Bale: I would say that the best source for research was the book. There were so many great details in it. It was informative, but at the end of the day it sort of just confirmed that I didn’t really need to go into any in-depth analysis. And also, the strange thing with this character is that because Bateman is performing the whole time — there was, you know, with most characters, there’s a great fear of showing, revealing that you’re performing. You know, you want to be as naturalistic as possible. With this, I didn’t have to hide that very much. Even when he’s by himself, there is no Bateman there. At all. So, it was a strange sort of mental preparation.
Like Doyle, I think the movie is a better execution of the concept than the book precisely because the book’s performance of Bateman’s tediousness is, itself, tedious in a way that’s not the case with the film. But one of the reasons the film is successful is precisely because it reflects the best possible reading of the source material. That’s why Harmon says the book is misunderstood, and why Bale says reading the book is good research for performing in the film. They have the same concept — a satirical one about Wall Street, privilege, callousness, etc. And while obviously not everyone likes the book, it seems to me that essentially all positive reviews of the book are based on the Harmon reading.