American Psycho ending: plz help #6783428001

No matter what interpretation you believe, the fact that a detective contacts him about it and is investigating the case undermines it.

It's just a poorly written book. That's it.

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>>8798059

I thought it was meant to be a bit of an erractic read, like the start where its so boring with all the materialist listings and a slow deterioration...

...Mind you, i havent read any other books by Bret Easton Ellis, is he a bit of a hack?

>>8798067
Ellis went on record as saying the murders were real and that the point of the book was that the characters were so self-absorbed they just didn't care.

This interpretation isn't really flush with the book, for many reasons, one of which I already said.

(Yeah, he's a hack, btw.)

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>>8798068

Well some guy i saw a video on said the detective awas a 'manifistation of his guilt'...so i guess that meant hallucination. What a load of tripe.

Thanks for clearing that up for me though, if the author says so its enough evidence for me.

I liked this book though, it was a bit dull at the start but i liked the underlying theme of a cold, uncaring place which is both perfect for our pschopathic protaganist and also suffocating him.

Im almost tempted to look into his other works but now ill steer clear if this was just a posative fluke in an otherwise poor literary career.

On a side note: did he take the movie interpretation well i wonder? looking at both, i can see some small changes the film made but now i know they were for the positive. Most of its word for word the book though, which is refreshing.

you see, Patrick Bateman wasn't real, he was his own imaginary friend who did all the murders.

>>8798129

What like a gremlin?

>>8798055
>completely missed the point of the novel

>>8798055
The movie is a stupid circus covered in buckets of blood not worth thinking about after it ends. The book is about how miserable social isolation makes you. The mania and murders are just these things which Ellis felt cranked up to 11.

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>>8798171
like, uh, what did you just say about me you little bitch? Ill have you know i qualified top of my class in Harvard buisness school and have confirmed 0.8% ICBM stocks. What have you got you bum? All i have to do is call my dad on my compact, 15 inch cell phone and i can have you disapear. heres a pic of me and my girl, my brand new soundsystem YOU couldnt afford (TOTAL hardbody) so go fuck yourself.

>>8798055
No, the realtor just cleaned up the murders of the apartment because she, just like every other character in book, is a selfish, greedy asshole that just wants to move forward in the rich upper-class enviroment in the book.

All the murders do happen

>>8798172
I think it is more about the yuppie-lifestyle being so unstable and impossible that when Pat can't live up the ideal of consuming everything, knowing everything about what he consumes, having the best watermark, going to the nicest restaurants etc his old persona, the psychopath-murder that he was born as becomes more and more gruesome and the murders more spectacular because he is now also dealing with the frustration of not being as cool as Donald Trump.

That's how I interpreted it at least - the yuppie lifestyle is so soulless and shallow that it is killing him on the inside and he has to deal with it by taking a paus from it and be his old self some more - the murderer. Also that is like a statement that is saying that not even psychopaths can live up to that ideal

>>8798055
According to BEE, there's no concrete answer on purpose. He left equal evidence in the book for and against so it's up to you to decide.

>>8798067
He isn't a hack, his next book Glamorama is even better and Lunar Park is pretty good too but unfortunately he's given up writing books and is trying to become a film director.

>>8798105
>did he take the movie interpretation well?

Here are his thoughts on the movie
http://breteastonellis.com/american-psycho-view-to-a-killer/

I think the Patty Winters show always was a good indicator. The topics ranged from typical gossip to a talking... peanut? Whenever something outworldly was that days topic I read the chapter as a hallucination, while normal topics made me believe the contents. This also lines up with most outright possible scenarios being reality while most if not all over the top murder sprees are hallucinated. So in the end Bateman is a microwaved-jellyfish eating murderer, but parts like the police chase are products of his drugged, sick, deteriorated mind.

It's all about evil my friend

Evil, hell. Etc etc. Bateman is stuck and trapped in a nightmarish existence. Abandon all hope ye' who enter. It's not specifically about the yuppie lifestyle.

This is a bit like thinking its a shocking end to Planet of the Apes that its turn out they had built an accurate replica of the statue of liberty.

Bateman is a psychopath who gets away with things without even really having to try and he hides in plain sight doing these things. What you have to consider is whether a few graphic murders are really the worst things the people who represents would do in the average day. History since its publication suggests probably not.

The reason its ambiguous is not really that its supposed to be the central plot-twist mystery of the book, its ambiguous because it doesn't really matter.