Scary monsters

I’m not easily shocked, me.

I grew up in a household where my parents thought nothing of letting an eight-year-old watch X-rated or even banned horror films on a Sunday morning before returning them to the video shop. I saw the original Evil Dead, I Spit on Your Grave, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Superstition, the Exorcist, Driller Killer….all that good stuff. I also used to read my Nanny’s horror books on visits to her flat (Pan Horror collections – some of the nastiest pulp-horror fiction around). I still love a good horror film or story, but occasionally it backfires on me.

Some films over the years have properly scared the living daylights out of me. After watching Halloween (at the tender age of, ooh, twelve or so), I spent months not looking in the bathroom mirror. Even though this didn’t feature in the film, I couldn’t shake the conviction that the blank mask of Michael Myers would appear in the mirror behind me, and still can’t sleep in a room with an uncovered mirror in it (our full-length mirror lives in our wardrobe!). The Blair Witch Project rendered me sleepless for days. I can watch it again now, but for literally months it haunted me – I just couldn’t shake the last scene from my mind. Books, though? Not so much.

Until now.

I ordered American Psycho a couple of months ago. I started reading it, got about halfway through and moved on to something else – not because I wasn’t enjoying it, but due to my current short attention span. At the point I left it, it was just starting to really explore the skewed landscape behind Patrick Bateman’s eyes. I was loving the book – I know it’s fashionable to slate it, but I really got into the superficiality of Bateman’s world – a world where the material is all, and where the young bucks of Wall Street are so alike in dress, attitude and obsession with detail as to be interchangeable, a world where, even as his life unravels in the most horrific of ways, Patrick is still unnaturally obsessed with his hair mousse. Nobody ever recognises anyone, nobody ever looks further than what they are wearing or where the next gram of coke is coming from. Satire? Yes, and done with masterful understatement.

With this in mind, I picked the book up again on Sunday morning. Mistake.

I understand the detached nature of the language when describing the ferocity of Patrick Bateman’s encounters with his victims. As he descends further into madness these killings, whether real or imagined, become increasingly explicit in their intensity and detail. Bret Easton Ellis has already allowed an insight into the extent of Bateman’s unravelling sanity, and the worsening depravity described as the book progresses illustrates perfectly how thin the line between control and madness can stretch.

But, here’s the thing.

I couldn’t read it any more. I couldn’t have those words, and the images they unavoidably generated, in my head for a moment longer. I've put the book back in the bookcase, and spent a largely sleepless* Monday night resolutely thinking about whiskers on kittens and raindrops on roses - anything to erase those words and images from my head. I know that's the intended reaction - nobody in full control of their mental faculties could feel anything other than horror and revulsion at those scenes**, but I just couldn't read on. So, here's my dilemma.

I hate to leave a book unfinished. I've read reviews of the book that, while not outright spoiling the ending, allude to the fact that it's unsatisfactory. Is it worth me risking another sleepless night just to see how it comes out? It's a matter of pride to some extent - am I really such a wuss that I can't even finish a work of fiction?

In other news, I resigned today. Woo!

* Seriously. I think I managed three hours, tops.
** All you reviewers on Amazon? The ones who just had to point out how funny you found the torture and murder scenes? I call liar. If you can get through either Bethany or Christie's demise without feeling physically sick, you might want to consider some counselling. In my opinion.