filmini hiç izlememiş olmama rağmen henüz okuduğum, etkisinden çıkamadığım, muhtemelen de çıkamayacağım
bret easton ellis romanı. yaptıkları her ne kadar canice ve şımarıkça olsa da, kitapta bazı paragraflar, okuyucunun
patrick batemanla empati kurmasını, ona acımasını, hatta onu anlayıp haklı çıkarabilmesini sağlıyor. en ince detayına kadar anlatılmış işkenceler de, aslında üstün bir hayalgücünün ürünü. okuduğum en iyi kitaplardan, gördüğüm en ustaca yaratılmış karakterlerden.
patrick batemanı anlayıp sevmek için:
"a richard marx cd plays on the stereo, a bag from zabar's loaded with sourdough onion bagels and spices sits on the kitchen table while ı grind bone and fat and flesh into patties, and though it does sporadically penetrate how unacceptable some of what ı'm actually doing is, ı just remind myself that this thing, this girl, this meat, is nothing, is shit, and along with a xanax (which ı am now taking half-hourly) this thought momentarily calms me and then ı'm humming, humming the theme to a show ı watched often as a child -the jetsons? the banana splits? scooby doo? sigmund and the sea monsters? ı am remembering the song, the melody, even the key it was sung in, but not the show. was it lidsville? was it h. r. pufnstuf? these questions are punctuated by other questions, as diverse as "will ı ever do time?" and "did this girl have a trusting heart?" the smell of meat and blood clouds up the condo until ı don't notice it anymore. and later my macabre joy sours and ı'm weeping for myself, unable to find solace in any of this, crying out, sobbing "ı just want to be loved," cursing the earth and everything ı have been taught: principles, distinctions, choices, morals, compromises, knowledge, unity, prayer -all of it was wrong, without any final purpose. all it came down to was: die or adapt. ı imagine my own vacant face, the disembodied voice coming from its mouth: these are terrible times. maggots already writhe across the human sausage, the drool pouring from my lips dribbles over them, and still ı can't tell if ı'm cooking any of this correctly, because ı'm crying too hard and ı have never really cooked anything before."
"...where there was nature and earth, life and water, ı saw a desert landscape that was unending, resembling some sort of crater, so devoid of reason and light and spirit that the mind could not grasp it on any sort of conscious level and if you came close the mind would reel backward, unable to take it in. ıt was a vision so clear and real and vital to me that in its purity it was almost abstract. this was what ı could understand, this was how ı lived my life, what ı constructed my movement around, how ı dealt with the tangible. this was the geography around which my reality revolved: it did not occur to me, ever, that people were good or that a man was capable of change or that the world could be a better place through one's taking pleasure in a feeling or a look or a gesture, of receiving another person's love or kindness. nothing was affirmative, the term "generosity of spirit" applied to nothing, was a cliché, was some kind of bad joke. sex is mathematics. ındividuality no longer an issue. what does intelligence signify? define reason. desire -- meaningless. ıntellect is not a cure. justice is dead. fear, recrimination, innocence, sympathy, guilt, waste, failure, grief, were things, emotions, that no one really felt anymore. reflection is useless, the world is senseless. evil is its only permanence. god is not alive. love cannot be trusted. surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in... this was civilization as ı saw it, colossal and jagged..."
""ı just want to know if you're disappointed in me for admitting this."
how could she ever understand that there isn't any way ı could be disappointed since ı no longer find anything worth looking forward to?"
"...there is an idea of a patrick bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though ı can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: ı simply am not there. ıt is hard for me to make sense on any given level. myself is fabricated, an aberration. ı am a noncontingent human being. my personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. my conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at harvard) if they ever did exist. there are no more barriers to cross. all ı have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem ı have caused and my utter indifference toward it, ı have now surpassed. ı still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. yet ı am blameless. each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. ıs evil something you are? or is it something you do? my pain is constant and sharp and ı do not hope for a better world for anyone. ın fact ı want my pain to be inflicted on others. ı want no one to escape. but even after admitting this -and ı have, countless times, in just about every act ı've committed- and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. ı gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. there has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. this confession has meant nothing...."