Riddled with intertextual references and notorious for their explicit portrayal of sex, drugs, and the occasional rock 'n' roll, the novels of Bret Easton Ellis reveal many layers. The novels are often accused of not making sense--but they instead make many senses. Their semantic complexity is obvious when put under a theoretical lens as provided by Jacques Derrida. His semiotic analysis, which focuses on the instability of meaning and is shaped by key terms such as differance, the trace, and the supplement, offers the ideal framework to look behind Ellis's obsession with surfaces. Aimed at aficionados of Ellis's works as well as students of contemporary American fiction and literary theory, this book discusses the central issues in Ellis's novels through 2019 and offers a new perspective for the practical use of Derrida's ideas. In order to ensure accessibility, a theoretical chapter introduces all the concepts necessary to understand a Derridean analysis of Ellis's fiction. As Rip says in Imperial Bedrooms: "It means so many things, Clay."
Riddled with intertextual references and notorious for their explicit portrayal of sex, drugs, and the occasional rock 'n' roll, the novels of Bret Easton Ellis reveal many layers. The novels are often accused of not making sense--but they instead make many senses. Their semantic complexity is obvious when put under a theoretical lens as provided by Jacques Derrida. His semiotic analysis, which focuses on the instability of meaning and is shaped by key terms such as differance, the trace, and the supplement, offers the ideal framework to look behind Ellis's obsession with surfaces. Aimed at aficionados of Ellis's works as well as students of contemporary American fiction and literary theory, this book discusses the central issues in Ellis's novels through 2019 and offers a new perspective for the practical use of Derrida's ideas. In order to ensure accessibility, a theoretical chapter introduces all the concepts necessary to understand a Derridean analysis of Ellis's fiction. As Rip says in Imperial Bedrooms: "It means so many things, Clay."
A cult classic, adapted into a film starring Christian Bale. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? Patrick Bateman has it all: good looks, youth, charm, a job on Wall Street, reservations at every new restaurant in town and a line of girls around the block. He is also a psychopath. A man addicted to his superficial, perfect life, he pulls us into a dark underworld where the American Dream becomes a nightmare . . . With an introduction by Irvine Welsh, Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho is one of the most controversial and talked-about novels of all time. A multi-million-copy bestseller hailed as a modern classic, it is a violent black comedy about the darkest side of human nature.
Presents an interview with American author Bret Easton Ellis (b.1964) by Mark Amerika and Alexander Laurence. Explains that Ellis has been the author of several controversial novels.
Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Siegen (FB 3 (Literatur-, Srach- und Medienwissenschaften)), course: „Postmodern Fiction“, language: English, abstract: With the attention-grabbing novel "American Psycho" Bret Easton Ellis entered quite a dangerous ground. The bizarre mixture of yuppie satire and splatter horror caused reactions of scathing criticism, indignation, yes, even murder threat. As a consequence, the publishing house that had the first contract with Ellis and was supposed to edit the novel, namely Simon & Schuster, responded to this radical refusal and cancelled the deal already made. This decision, not to publish a book due to the negative responds against it, meant another scandal since it was a sensation in the American publishing business. Anyway, brushing aside all moral standards, Ellis’ shocker was published in 1991 by Vintage books, and for a while, the young writer became the “meistgehaßte[...] Autor der Welt” – evidently, because critics considered his narration too pornographic, sexist, anti-women, disgusting, boring and beyond belief. Yet, American Psycho was regarded with interest – probably last but not least because Bret Easton Ellis had been celebrated as a great talent when publishing "Less than Zero". Meanwhile, countless studies with many diverging approaches manifest that American Psycho may not be condemned and dismissed as a pure splatter work glorifying violence. There are works analysing the publication and the reception of the novel as well as the socio-cultural background; other studies focus on content and stylistic device , or on the motif of the serial killer as postmodern anti-hero. Additionally, some special analyses examine the position of the novel within the American history of censorship or even attempt to draw a parallel from Ellis’ Bateman to Goethe’s Faust. Thus, it is substantiated that the interest in "American Psycho" has spread widely and quickly. And still, 15 years after its publication the ambiguous novel, which was, besides, brought to screen in 2000, offers many subjects of discussion. The aim of this paper is to analyse in what way and to what extent Ellis’ work is distinctive for the period of literary postmodernism. Definitively, there are several innovative and scandalous stratagies applied in "American Psycho", but are these devices really symptomatic for a postmodern perception? To answer a question like that, first of all, an essential condition is of course a definition of postmodern terms. [...]
Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Siegen (FB 3 (Literatur-, Srach- und Medienwissenschaften)), course: "Postmodern Fiction," 26 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: With the attention-grabbing novel "American Psycho" Bret Easton Ellis entered quite a dangerous ground. The bizarre mixture of yuppie satire and splatter horror caused reactions of scathing criticism, indignation, yes, even murder threat. As a consequence, the publishing house that had the first contract with Ellis and was supposed to edit the novel, namely Simon & Schuster, responded to this radical refusal and cancelled the deal already made. This decision, not to publish a book due to the negative responds against it, meant another scandal since it was a sensation in the American publishing business. Anyway, brushing aside all moral standards, Ellis' shocker was published in 1991 by Vintage books, and for a while, the young writer became the "meistgehaßte[...] Autor der Welt" - evidently, because critics considered his narration too pornographic, sexist, anti-women, disgusting, boring and beyond belief. Yet, American Psycho was regarded with interest - probably last but not least because Bret Easton Ellis had been celebrated as a great talent when publishing "Less than Zero." Meanwhile, countless studies with many diverging approaches manifest that American Psycho may not be condemned and dismissed as a pure splatter work glorifying violence. There are works analysing the publication and the reception of the novel as well as the socio-cultural background; other studies focus on content and stylistic device, or on the motif of the serial killer as postmodern anti-hero. Additionally, some special analyses examine the position of the novel within the American history of censorship or even attempt to draw a parallel from Ellis' Bateman to Goethe's Faust. Thus, it is substantiated that the interest in "American
Within popular culture studies, one finds discussions about quantitative sociology, Marxism, psychoanalysis, myth criticism, feminism, and semiotics, but hardly a word on the usefulness of phenomenology, the branch of philosophy concerned with human experience. In spite of this omission, there is a close relationship between the aims of phenomenology and the aims of popular culture studies, for both movements have attempted to redirect academic study toward everyday lived experience. The fifteen essays in this volume demonstrate the way in which phenomenological approaches can illuminate popular culture studies, and in so doing they take on the entire range of popular culture.
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I had no desire to write a novel for the past five years, but out in the desert, between the notes calls and the fear tamped down by Xanax and tequila, the first paragraph of a novel began to take shape. It centered around the bone-white Emser Tile sign situated on a rooftop at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Holloway Drive. #2 I’ve gone five or seven or eight years between books, and I’ve never forced a novel. I write in a way that works best for me, and I never give an audience what I think they might want.
