No. People read American Psycho these days because the movie is the Millenials' Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's banal and full of non sequiturs that shock your parents. And Christian Bale is always fun to watch and you get to meme it up with your buddies whenever Genesis is on the radio. It's an over-the-top parody of a book that was disturbing because its violence and sadism is understated and elegant. Thing of it is, all of Ellis' characters are understated, elegant psychopaths. Not saying he is - but he writes them really convincingly. And all of his books aren't a condemnation of the superficial soulless WASPs he writes about, they're a paean to their trappings. If psychopaths were buildings, Ellis would be their Dwell.
I see where the articles going but what I don't completely agree with is this, and this, Because none of this is actually new, we just used to lie to ourselves about how much we love violence.We’ve developed a taste for barbaric libertines with twinkling eyes and some zing in their tortured souls.
Thanks to these characters, and to first-person shooter video games, we’ve learned to identify with the bearer of violence and not just cower before him or her.