Student Zone

In "American Psycho" the story continues with Bateman suffering from an anxiety attack. He is stranded somewhere and no one he talks to is able to understand him. He speaks on the phone with one of his friends and she thinks that he is trying to find out about a restaurant. he wanders into a diner that is Kosher and he can't figure out why they won't give him cheese. Later Bateman is out to dinner with Owen. Owen believes he is another man named Halberstam, in fact Owen confuses him often for this man. Unfortunately, on this day Bateman has an ulterior motive. Owen proceeds to get very drunk at this dinner so much so that Bateman gets him to pay the bill. However, Bateman remains unsuccessful in trying to get information about the Fisher account. Owne is so drunk that Bateman gets Owen over to his place and it is only when Owne wonders about the lawn chair placed on a bunch of newspapers that he considers there might be something wrong. By this time it is too late. A gruesome scene of Bateman chopping Owen in the mouth ensues. Bateman takes the body to an apartment that he rented in advance. Then he goes to Owen's place and packs the man's stuff to make it look as though he went away on a trip. The story ends with Bateman and his friends at the bar and discussing the inauguration of Bush. They are having the usual time of crude jokes and questions a acceptable fashion.

With, My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist, an odd journey takes place. A man is traveling to Las Vegas to tell his sister the news of their mother's recent death. On this journey he encounters surreal moments of men picking sunburnt scabs from their bodies so big that the main character had to swerve to keep from getting stuck in them. He stops at a diner and sees a cowboy and a asian waitress in ornamental dress. A bit of poetry about his sister being "a beautiful day" follows and in the midst of this he points out that he has, "overdosed on television." The adventure continues in twists and turns and at some point a Big Squirrel gives a kung-fu kick to Yogi Vithaldas's head. There is also some speak of protecting a family heirloom which just so happens to be a groin protector.

"It's Six AM., Do you know where you are?" starts in a bar and ends with a man craving bread and the things of home and the life he once had. In the bar he speaks to a bald woman and is happy when he is no longer talking to her. He hopes to meet the type of woman that he wouldn't meet in the bar. Then it's getting late or early and once he realizes he has no more money for drinks he decides to leave. He wanders aroudn for a bit not knowing what to do, then he sees a man taking out some bread to take to a shop. He trades the man his pricey jacket for a bag of bread, and he begins to eat it hungrily.

4. Is American Psycho a more straightforward, slow-motion version of Gastroenterologist? Is the excerpt from McInerney likewise another variation on Image Fiction?

American Psycho and Gastro are two different thought patterns. Since there are both a flash of sensory perception, the odd images in
Gastro and the label overload in American Psycho, they could be seen as similar. But they have different missions. American Psycho is making a social comment on a not so distant era, and Gastro is trying a new form of storytelling. The McInerney can be seen as a piece of "image fiction" if only because it reminds me of one of those "make your own adventure" stories. The way the story is being told allows the reader to insert his own feelings in the piece. This one aspect of the writing allows for each reader to experience a different emotion while reading it.

In reading the excerpts of American Psycho for the first time I found it simply hilarious. To me this is similar to the "I love the 80's" on VH1. Now for people that have actually lived through this decade does the social commentary have a more biting wit or is it even possible to comment on that since everyone has been given time to distance themselves from that decade?

What are the rules for wearing a white sport coat with a protective groin cup?

We catch Patrick Bateman in the midst of a severe anxiety attack in a phone booth downtown. With no anti-depressants or other related pharmaceuticals (save for three Nuprin) to aide him, he’s rendered infantile––even forgetting who and where he had lunch. Mustering the strength to list off his outfit in its entirety, he calls Jean. Falling to new depths of vulnerability, he pleads for help, wailing, “I am not going to make it.” Jane doesn’t catch his despondency, and tactfully relays secretarial information; she even fails to notice Patrick calling her a bitch, mistaking it for an inquiry for dinner reservations.
Fumbling around the city, lost in panic, he’s followed by the Madonna lyric, “life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone” (Ellis drives this in at different points throughout the story). Bateman manages to weave his way into Conrad’s and a local hardware store, blindly purchasing items. He ends up in a kosher Deli, oblivious to his surroundings, demanding dairy products.
In the “Paul Owen” chapter, Patrick has lured Mr. Owen to dinner at Texarkana, under the guise of Marcus Halberstam (who Owen repeatedly confuses Patrick for). Displeased with the restaurant, (he could have gotten them into Dorsia) Owen appeases himself with booze and falls right into Bateman’s hands, inebriated. Owen’s so drunk, Bateman coerces into paying the check and even admitting, “…what a dumb son-of-a-bitch he really is.” Despite this, Owen never divulges any enlightening information about the Fisher account, to Patrick’s frustration. Bateman invites Paul over after dinner, executing him via ax-to-the-face. He travels to Owen’s apartment, making it look like he up-and-left for London, creating an Alibi. After a simple clean-up and disposal of the body at a rented loft in Hells Kitchen, he fails miserably to avoid contact with Evelyn.
In the pivotal “End of the 1980’s” chapter, Patrick meets Jean for lunch at Nowheres on the Upper West Side. After Patrick orders a “decapitated coffee”, they engage in a very deep conversation on the nature of need; the desire to make someone happy. Patrick opens up and reveals to the reader his “desert landscape” view of the world. Individuality and good-nature are delusions in his opinion, and only evil and the surface remain. Jean admits her love for Patrick, getting through to him in an odd way. This forces him to admit to himself that his evil has gained him no “catharsis” saying, “I 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.”
The Book ends with “At Harry’s” where he in fact is, having drinks with his colleagues (including the “eerie” return of Price). As their conversation goes nowhere, they become enamored in President Bush’s inauguration as Ronald Reagan gives a speech. The guys (save for Batemen) are baffled at the cool, collective appearance of Reagan, despite recent controversy (I’m assuming Iran Contra?), which piques the empathy of Bateman. A revelatory point about man’s potential to be teeming inside with evil while looking “great” on the outside is not made, and Patrick, now comfortable in his misery accepts the situation.

In “It’s Six A.M., Do You Know Where You Are?” by Jay McInerney, the story begins with the unnamed main character in a New York nightclub, strung out on cocaine. This is the tail end of a multi-destination party marathon orchestrated from his friend Tad Allagash, who’s now disappeared. The main character is despondent, lonely, trying to rationalize another coke binge with the prospects of meeting a beautiful girl, but is caught talking to an unattractive bald woman. Escaping, he does more “Bolivian Marching Powder” and catches the attention of a pretty lady for a few minutes, but to no avail, he ends up alone. Outside, he’s broke and forced to walk home. He stumbles past a delivery truck for a local bakery and persuades the driver to throw him some scraps.

Mark Leyner’s “My Cousin, My gastreoentonologist” starts with the main character’s trek to Las Vegas to inform his sister of his mother’s death (her respirator unplugged). This is a sci-fi, futuristic world, much like the Interzone of Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch”, with the excerpt building to television star Buddy Squirrel’s epic battle against Walid Jumblatt’s Druse Militiamen. In the emotional crest of the story, Buddy Squirrel emplores the main character to return his protective groin cup (a relic passed down from Buddy’s wife’s family) to his wife if he’s killed in battle. A short autobiography of Leyner’s is included at the end.

McInerney’s and more importantly Ellis’ work are in no way applicable to Foster’s criticism of Leyner’s. Both McInerney and Ellis’ story form complete, whole ideas that don’t wade in the pool of the “45 seconds of near-Zen concentration” Foster describes, but rather craft powerful themes and raise difficult questions about society.
Citing American Psycho, the final conversation between Jean and Patrick offers powerful insight into Bateman’s character that opens up the text to multiple interpretations.
Drifting off, Bateman admits to the reader, “…Where there was nature and earth, life and water, I 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 eel backward, unable to take it in. It was a vision so clear and real and vital to me that in its purity it was almost abstract. This was what I could understand, this was how I lived my life, what I constructed my movement around, how I 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 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. Individuality no longer an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define reason. Desire––meaninglessness. Intellect 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. Live cannot be trusted. Surface, surface, surface ws all that anyone found meaning in…this was civilization as I saw it, colossal and jagged…”
Citing “It’s Six A.M…”, the main character is very frank with the reader about his night at the club and the anxieties it has brought ( and has brought many times before) on him. This theme can be applied several ways in regards to wasted youth, talent, desecration of self etc. This is shown as he tears into himself for succumbing to yet another coke binge, saying, “Somewhere back there it was possible to cute your losses, but you rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder and now you are trying to hang onto that rush.” He reaffirms this in his search to justify his actions and stave off his extreme alienation, saying, “On the other hand, any beautiful girl, especially one with a full head of hair, would HELP YOU STAVE OFF THIS CREEPING SENSE OF MORTALITY” (my emphasis).

QUESTION: Did Jean’s admittance of love for Patrick allow him to be more “comfortable in his skin” at the end of the book? Or was it the realization that even after his confession, nothing would change, and therefore taking solace in the hopelessness of the desert landscape of his life?

The latter half of Ellis’ “American Psycho” begins with Patrick Bateman having a panic attack on a New York City street. He is becoming obsolete and ignored, “people pass, oblivious, no one pays attention, they don’t even pretend to not pay attention” (150). Similarly, the predatory and capitalistic philosophies of the 1980’s, which Bateman represents, are also beginning to phase out of favor. The anxiety attack seems to be only a moment of weakness, as Bateman is back on his regularly scheduled killing spree around 64 pages later. The victim, Paul Owen, is a business associate of Bateman’s, and he makes the unfortunate mistake of wasting Bateman’s time one evening, as Bateman tries to pump him for information regarding a deal. In Bateman’s mind, this is a grave offense, punishable by an ax to the skull. Later on, Bateman analyzes his pectoral muscles in the gym with the same clinical detachment he uses to analyze three vaginas he has gouged out of various women. Bateman, again symbolizing the “label-whore” mentality of the 1980’s, has even tied a bow from Hermes around his favorite. The section titled “End of the 1980’s” involves Bateman and his character foil, his naïve secretary Jean, having lunch together on the Upper West Side. In this scene, Jean and Bateman represent two starkly contrasting views of human nature; Jean believes that people are inherently good, while Bateman states “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” (375). The novel ends with Bateman’s group of friends out at a bar, debating where to have dinner. The political atmosphere is changing, as indicated by the T.V. at the bar; however, the philosophies, dynamics, and behavior patterns of this group are exactly the same. They tell the same racist jokes, make the same catty remarks, and debate the same topics of fashion and which restaurant to go to.

Jay McInerney’s short story “It’s Six A.M….” is, in many ways, very similar to “American Psycho”. Interestingly enough, it is written in the second person perspective, immediately placing the reader in the action of the story. The protagonist, who is essentially the reader, is at a seedy lounge in the early hours of the morning, strung out on coke, and desperate for a human connection. The themes of drugs and alienation, also contained in both “American Psycho” and Mark Leyner’s “My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist”, are apparent immediately. The story flashes back to earlier in the evening, and traces the night’s inevitable progression “from the meticulous to the slime” (346). The journey parallels a cocaine binge; what starts out as a high-flying adventure full of fascinating people and exotic places eventually descends into a pit of despair and desperation. Eventually, after an unsuccessful attempt to “hook up”, the protagonist/reader leaves the club and enters the “special purgatory waiting out there” (350). Destitute and utterly alone, he has gone from sipping champagne on the Upper East Side to begging for rolls off an early morning bakery truck.

Of the three selections this week, Mark Leyner’s “My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist” is the most deconstructed (read: f--ked up) structurally and stylistically. The narrator states that he is driving to Las Vegas to inform his sister of their mother’s death. It appears as if he lives in a sort of futuristic, Asian-influenced world, not unlike America during the 1980’s. He is addicted to human growth hormone and anabolic steroids, and has become a massively muscular man-like-thing with a voracious appetite. The piece is structured like an ADD-riddled brain; a series of images, often violent and random, “channel-surf” past the reader. In this respect, Wallace is completely accurate in his assessment of Leyner. The themes of the piece – technology replacing humans, drugs and chemicals replacing food, freak-shows replacing children’s shows – all appear and disappear in a series of images. The effect, as Wallace states, is indeed an extended dichotomy. The intense and vivid images, often combining elements from ancient and modern society, lend an air of sophistication to the piece. However, the lack of any well-developed characters or plot structure leave the reader feeling profoundly empty. Perhaps the point of the piece is an exercise in nihilism. If so, it is well-executed, because after reading it, I simply do not care about it.

QUESTION:

Doesn’t the Big Squirrel character remind you a little of The Vigilante from “Naked Lunch”? Also, what’s up with Pepsi making several appearances in both the Leyner piece and the Ellis novel? What’s so special about Pepsi?

I don’t agree or disagree with Wallace’s assessment of Leyner. I see what Wallace means in regards to the “ 45 seconds of near-Zen concentration”. Leyner reminds me of those overly-hyped funny super bowl commercials. They catch your attention, but at the end you have no idea what the product was. For example, “Today I have a yogic bowel cleansing exercise that can save you kids a lot of big gastroenterologist bills”. What the hell is he talking about? Unlike Wallace, I wouldn’t compliment Leyner’s lack of concepts and developed characters. However, I do see how this empty style of writing is funny and witty. I do agree with Wallace that Leyner does have a good “image-fiction” writing style. Leyner definitely had me trying to visualize Leyner “defecated(ing) the missing 18-minute section of Watergate tape.
I don’t think that American Psycho is a version of Gastroenterologist. Though American Psycho does have the same shallow feeling to the characters, Psycho’s characters also have substance. While Bateman is self-reflecting during his conversation with Jean he shows an unpredictable side. He thinks “each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity”. I don’t think that Ellis excels so much in “image-fiction” but more like a mind manipulation writing style. Bateman gets to say crazy, revealing things, but only the reader notices or reacts. When Bateman is on the phone with Jean he says “what do you say, you dumb bitch?” No response from her. Am I to laugh or feel afraid for her? Ellis name dropping style was also a manipulation tool to have you feeling “uncool” compared to his superficial shallow characters.
McInerney’s piece seemed to be a version of how Bateman would feel if he was a sane individual. McInerney piece deals with feelings of loneliness, self- worth, longing, all in a four page snapshot. Unlike Bateman, McInerney character after his failed evening of being with someone still has hope. McInerney states “You will have to go slowly. You will have to learn everything all over again.” Bateman reflects and thinks “In fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape”.
My question: Considering America’s assumed short attention span, would modern day literature benefit more if writers concentrated more on writing in a “shock and awe” style instead of classical literature writings like Shakespeare, or would literature be at a disadvantage and have the same value of reality T.V. in a book?

To answer questions one and two that you have posed for the class, I do believe that Wallace’s assessment of Leyner is dead on. And I also believe that the same goes for Ellis but to a lesser extent McInerney. I have to admit to being extremely lost in Leyner’s work, and aside from the final story, found the content to be disinteresting. I am not sure if that is due to the lack of understanding for the content or my lack of concern over the characters. That being said, my lack of concern for the characters is something that is shared with all of the characters in this weeks reading. (With the exception of Al the bum and Jean the assistant both from “American Psycho.”) We have been given our fill of shallow stories and shallow characters this week, and unfortunately this shallowness is probably the only way to describe the sentiment and the attitude of the eighties. The late seventies recession was over, and the U.S. was beginning to pull away from the soviets in the cold war, with the impending doom of communism as well as a strong economy, what seemed to make sense was celebratory overindulgence. This idea is clearly shown by both Ellis and McInerney.
In the “American Psycho” reading Patrick Bateman is beginning to get a sense of his lack of importance or rather is disposability. There are clearly signs of this leading back to page 23 where Patrick is talking about Price. As he speaks to Evelyn about Patrick’s status, being rich and in shape she comments on how everyone is. The conversations among this groupn are exactly the same. That’s why they swap partners with one another and not care; they all revolve around the same kind of emptiness. Lives that you money and alcohol and drugs to compensate for a lack of real meaning and importance. Then we flash forward to his dinner with Paul Owen, and the fact that he didn’t know who he was, it could have been anyone, and this is the turning point in the story because Patrick knows it. The killing in the second half is secondary. If the first part of the book was about shallowness at it’s worst then the second half was about self discovery, that once again is at it’s worst. Patrick discovers how shallow his existence is and yet does not seem to care. He is not oblivious to anything and he’s fine with where he is.
As far as McInerney there is a definite sense of longing in the character that I believe makes this story quite different from the others. The Decadence and indulgence is still there but so is the desire for something more. I believe this is a person with money who is able to attain almost anything he wants but in the end the one thing he wants is almost impossible to get. The bread at the end of the story is extremely important. To me the bread represents everything that is good and wholesome, all of the things that seem to be far removed from his current existence. The jacket represents everything that he has become. (And in typical eighties fashion it is important to note that the jacket is silk.) In trading the jacket for bread he is clearly making an attempt to trade his shallowness for a better life. And although it is only bread, baby steps must be made before strides can be taken. This understanding is what differs this story from the others.

Mark Leyners's "My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist," is a responssive parody to the critical discription of fictional television, incorporated into the writers imagination and displayed in his story. Taking on characters such as, Big Squirrel, Yogi Vithaldas, Bill, the movies star brother-in-law which once played a penis in a film, Mona, Wali Assam the sex help, Abolhassen Brngazzara, which happens to be the commander of Bergdoff Goodman's internal security police, Huck, Wallid Jumblatt's Druse Militiamen, the Poznzks, and My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist from MT. Sinai. The Poznaks taught me many esoteric and deadly styles of kund fu. ... The gameshow kung fu flick, with a studio audience filled with children starts out my wowing us with Big Squirrel's moves and his title as a master of many styles of martial arts. He is called opon to save the U.S form the militamen, while the story makes you laugh hysterically, trying to pay attention to the plot. The narrator desribing himself and his world in the most perculiar fashion. This sets the pace of the plot, progressing so fast, yet not coming back, you never get a chance to see if Big Squirrel, defeats the militiamen or is it the poznaks. By the time the poznaks are introduced in the story, we are all ready on to the return of the wife from Ethiopia, which had to be kung fu kicked and prescribed Italian food to live a normal life.
Wallcace says, "Leyners work, the best Image Fiction yet, is both amazing and forgettable, worderful and odly hollow." This story with reference to O'Connor Flannery,"A Good man Is Hard to Find," the "Misfit" was a ruthless killer, much like Bret Easton Elliis's "Amerian Psycho," where Patrick Bateman, murdered the Bum and then Murdered Paul Owen for having the fisher account. The same goes for the Big Squirrel He'd shot everthing, and everyone "But he'd never shot an ape-woman this beautiful. Nope." The characters in a couple of these stories display the most shallowest qualities and personality traits, linking them to the post-modern, televised revolution, which is present in our visions of life and now illuminates from American literature. I do agree with Wallaces critisim of the story but I also think, Leyner wrote it humorously, not to be taken seriously. Yet responding to the televised worlds lack of consentration, and peoples attention deficet disorder attributed to, too much T.V and not enough reading. But Leyner, made fictional literature as interesting as watching T.V for six hours straight. Wallaces also says,"And in the absence of any credible, noncommercial guides for living, the freedom to choose is about as "liberating" as a bad acid trip: each quantum is as good as the next, and weirdness, incongruity, its ability to stand out from a crowd of other image-constructs and wow some Audience," (p 79). With reference to Ellis, his story was ploted out differently each character was desribed and later played a key role in the story. Ellis's story was not meant to be funny, altough it was a dark comedy in my opinion. The plot was meant to be taken more seriously.

Question: In McInerney story did he lose his virginity to the bald girl? If Alagash powered him into the club and disappeared was he a real friend? Is his quest to find a girl that would'nt be in a place like this, at a time like this, happen every weekend?

First of all, I don't know how I can follow up to Miguel's post. That was a very good interpretation and a most exellent question. So anyway, here is my post. I can't wait to discuss this.

The stories in Leyner’s book, My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist are fragmented and hard to follow, but I agree with Wallace’s assessment of the text. “Velocity and vividness replace development. People flicker in and out; events are garishly there and then gone and never referred to.” (Wallace) The parts that do make sense were smart, witty, and laughing out loud funny. In Leyner’s, “I Was An Infinitely Hot And Dense Dot,” the narrator is on a road trip to Vegas to tell his sister that he took their mother off the breathing respirator. He stops off for an interesting French meal at a roadside restaurant, with menu items including primordial soup made from ammonia, methane and ocean water, as well as fettuccini with crushed Rolaids. The narrator then goes on to talk about what a beautiful day it is and that he has “overdosed on television.” Later, he reverts back to his childhood in which he claims he was “an infinitely hot an dense dot.” He claims that he was born about the size of a bouillon cube. The doctors said he wouldn’t grow and that Euthanasia would be best. His connection with his mother is reflected as his memory of her right after giving birth, “she had already slipped on her muumuu and espadrilles and was puffing on a Marlboro.” She obviously didn’t let the doctors dissolve him in a cup of hot water because in the next sentence he is watching some guy soak up chocolate milk from the counter at the restaurant. Oh yeah, wasn’t he on his way to tell his sister they had pulled the plug on his mother’s respirator? This story is like one long run-on sentence. This is an unimaginable story that is all over the place. But, I think Leyner ‘s technique of using fragments of stories is to refer to the short attention spans that have become a problem of too much television consumption. I can sense his attitude towards popular culture and television because he uses twisted variations to describe his life.

“Enter the Squirrel” is more like a mesh of Hunter Thompson, Burroughs, and Ellis. I’d like to call it, An American Psycho, Fear and Loathing During a Naked Lunch in Las Vegas. That is all I will say about that story, except that I thought the “yoga bowel cleansing exercise,” was innovative, clever and funny. I am almost sure this is a practice somewhere in the world. Leyner’s self-biography is also very witty, he discusses his numerous marriages and says, “No one knows what the future holds for me.” Who really knows what the future will bring to them?

I think the Wallace argument can be applied to both Ellis and McInerney because both text address “the manner of films, music videos, dreams, and television programs, there are recurring 'key Images,' here exotic drugs, exotic technologies, exotic foods, exotic (bowel) dysfunctions.” (Wallace) After reading both American Psycho and “Its 6AM Do You Know Where You Are?” I thought the stories were exactly the same, with the exception of the narrator’s point of view. McInerney writes in a very rare second-person persona. He is telling “you” what to do, how to feel, where to go, what to think, and who to hate. It is an interesting way of reading a story because now I am the main character. In American Psycho, Bateman mentions several people he hates as well. I began to find some of the text from both stories mirror each other. Many similarities include references to drugs like snorting cocaine and popping Dexedrine. Both stories were similar in expressing the loneliness of looking for someone late night in a NYC bar/nightclub, the depression of solitude and the constant search for self-gratification. “She takes your arm and leads you into the Ladies’. After a couple of spoons she seems to like you just fine and you are feeling very likeable yourself. A couple more. The girl is all nose. ‘I love drugs’ she says. ‘It is something we have in common,” you say.” (McInerney 348) This scene reminds of the scene with Bateman and Price in the bathroom stall sniffing the Sweet and Low laced cocaine. McInerney wrote this piece in the 1950’s, Do you think Ellis drew for this story in writing American Psycho?

All three stories revolve around being a mis-fit. In all three tekst I find the frustration, and loss. The characters are all drugged up, and this is probably the only way they can go on, survive each day. They are trying to survive, but they are actually killing themselves slowly with their sadness, their confusion, their lack of goals. Somehow along the way the have lost themselves, or the society lost them. In all three exerpts we deal with braking the law, with intoxication, with searching the answers for questions upon the characters’ miserable lives. The texts show the society and how lonely people are among others, among crowds. These stories give us, readers sort of a cross section of the live of an individual in relation to the life with drug dealers, killers, busiessmen, poor, rich, happy and sad.
I would say that American Psycho is easier to read then Gastroenterologist rather that making a distinction between which text is more slow motion. Neither one of them is a fast motion for me to begin with, because neither one of these texts give me the chance to go on, to develop, to explore something along with the characters. I actually have the feeling the characters stand still, at least mentally. There is no visible climax in these texts. They start, go a little, then stop, sometimes maybe coem back to the theme, then stop again, then add something on, then subtract something, then maybe stop again, later maybe compare. All is done in a convulsive sort of manner, where you thonk you’ll get somehwere, but you don’t, and you don’t know if you returned, or you were mislaplaced. If anything what I just wrote is legible, good for the one reading it, but if not then, it won’t be a shame for me, since this is the way I understand the recent reading, or I don’t understand, can’t really tell. I think all what I read for tonihgt’s class was Image Fiction. It indeed used a great energy of mine to be able to imagine the characters and their problems. It required even more energy to look for clues why all this was happening certain way. I am eager to draw out more conclusions during the class.

QUESTION: Why would American Psycho be more straightforward than Gastroenterologist?

The left over part of “American Psycho” proved to be a tale of contemporary shallowness and despair of the members of upper income classes. The young men and women, despite seemingly unlimited opportunities, get lost in the splendor of material riches and are unable to find substance and meaning in life. Pop culture and superficial commercialized values become the ways of expressing oneself, and compose his or her identity. Patrick Bateman is the culmination of this trend for he takes it to the extreme; in his attempt to move away from the uncivilized caveman-like image of human being he denies his “earthly” roots and natural parts of animalistic nature (perhaps also due to the idealized images propagated in the media as to who and what humans are or ought to be). He loses the balance, and, as a result, his long-suppressed feelings erupt in a form of rage, killings, drug abuse, and anxiety attacks.
In Jay McInerney’s “It’s six A.M., Do You Know Where You Are?” the narrator, as a main character, seems to be in a somewhat similar position as Patrick Bateman. He doesn’t have as much money or murderous aspirations, but he does have some friends of comparable wealth and attitude. He also seems lost and heartbroken as he unsuccessfully tries to find meaning and self-worth in a midst of a club scene, drugs, and one-night stands. He mistakes shallowness and arrogance for strength, and he attempts to fulfill the TV commercial image of a successful American man that is similar to Bateman’s. On the contrary, however, it appears that he finds some consolation and feels hope descending on him; in the last scene, while eating bread, he is still able to see the beauty of simple things and knows what kind of peaceful life he wants to lead.
Mark Leyner’s “My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist” is a wild ride through the world of sci-fi like characters (cyborgs, monkeys cross-bred with humans, etc.) and surroundings. The piece portrays characters that go through the emotional roller coasters of “up and down” feelings similar to those present in the works of Ellis and McInerney. Leyner’s writing, however, is less about the plot or cause-effect relationships, and more about conveying the emotions themselves. Characters seem to be just the medium through which the author communicates his message of chaos, absurd, paranoia, and superficiality. Shallowness and imbalance, then, are the main reoccurring themes in the works of all three authors. Additionally, in “Gastroenterologist” the vast number of images and the pace at which they appear to the reader are definitely reminiscent of TV projections. Hence, I mostly agree with Wallace’s opinion about Leyner’s narrative, especially with the fact that it was “designed to appeal to the 45 seconds of near-Zen concentration we call the TV attention span”. Leyner makes many references to the pop culture and the gadgets of modern life such as TV shows, politics (Watergate tape), Famous Amos cookies, and chemically derived products including food. He also exaggerates reality and distorts many images by purposely mismatching them with others and creating morbid, as well as humorous combinations to shock the reader. Such technique reminds me of the process used in TV commercials that are designed to surprise, humor, scare, shock, and attract consumers’ attention.
QUESTION: IN “GASTROENTEROLOGIST” THE NARRATOR WRITES, “(…) MY SPIRIT IMMEDIATELY SAGS BECAUSE THE AMBIENCE IS SO MALEVOLENT”. HE SAYS SO AS HE SITS IN THE BAR OF WHICH MAIN FEATURE IS THE ADVERTISED “MALEVOLENT AMBIENCE”. DO YOU THINK HE’S TRYING TO SAY THAT SLOGANS AND COMMERCIALS INFLUENCE OUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND SO MUCH THAT ALL WE EVER SEE IS THE EVOCATIVE IMAGE OR DELILLO’S “MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA”?

I will hear on out refer to the speaker as “the narrator” because I was infinitely confused as to who was telling this story. Reading the excerpts from My Cousin My Gastroenterologist greatly confused me in following a story line, and character blurbs which flashed in and out without much development.

The story begins with the narrator beginning a journey to tell his sister (the beautiful day) to tell her that he has unplugged mother’s respirator. No more is said about this, and the story becomes more focused on a journey to find the narrators sister. The journey continues in a surreal way in which the reader can not relate to literally as the story becomes odder. The narrator asks the “soup de jour”, and is told that it is a “primordial soup-which is ammonia and methane mixed with ocean water in the presence of lightening.” As a reader, I suppose this is a nice little let-on that the purpose of this story has a greater meaning that finding “the beautiful day” or eating a “primordial soup.” In reference to David Foster Wallace’s assessment of the Leyner piece, I do agree that the writing “is less a novel than a piece of witty…television prose.” All of the encounters that the narrator has follows like a television show (I actually thought of a soap opera when I read that he unplugged mother’s respirator-something about family drama came to mind, or possibly E.R.), which gets interrupted by commercials every five minutes. I feel that it is not a piece that should be taken seriously about the events or characters, but to refer to the images in the television experience as well as the “TV attention span.”

The narrator even states that he has “overdosed on television. [He] is unresponsive and cyanotic;” all amidst a story about going to Las Vegas. This leaves me as a reader feeling sure, if of anything, that Leyner is reaching out to his audience to show some sarcasm and criticism of television. I also feel that Leyner has himself watched a lot of television to give his stories the feel of “creative parodic vignettes” as Wallace puts it. His stories mock television as well as portray it. In “Enter the Squirrel”, there is a sense of N.Y.P.D. Blue meets Barney-meeting Kung Fu and cooking shows-all this to show the adventures of Big Squirrel. I felt as if I was reading a script for a SNL skit in which all of the genres mentioned were jam-packed into the parodic television commentary. Wallace calls it “image fiction”, and while reading the piece, I completely imagined a person dressed up as a squirrel ready for kung-fu and eating frozen egg rolls in front of children.