Disappear Here: A Closer Look at Two Social Critics - Part I

Here it is a for your reading pleasure- Dostoevsky Vs. Ellis

Russia in the mid-nineteenth century was a time and place of dramatic changes that unfolded over a very short amount of time. It was a landscape of a people who had to begin identifying and catching up with a rapidly modernizing world in which conflicting ideologies were being pitted against one another. One man who stood up and used his pen to voice his opinions on those changes and on the world he lived in; his name was Fydor Dostoevsky. Fast forward a hundred and thirty years to the continent of North America. Here other conflicts are brewing regarding human interaction, materialism, drug use, celebrity, terrorism, serial killers, college, and the suburbs ---- notably in the American cities of New York, Los Angeles, and any random college town. This time the man voicing the issues of the day is a daring wordsmith named Bret Easton Ellis.

These two literary thinkers have both blurred their works into the realm of social criticism by using their writing as a lens to look at the world in which they are living with a scathingly, satirical eye. Despite the time differences, they both look at the larger human issues that began to surface based on the circumstances of their respective times. They both critique the larger issues of what it is to be modern, man’s nihilistic tendencies, family relationships (and how they reflect the larger whole of humanity), and the ideal of salvation and transcendence over this world. They also both have been critiqued in similar ways, by people of their day, of being potboiler writers, having too many characters, loose narratives, and writing in the current/common vernacular. After reading the major texts of both authors the similarities became abundantly clear, and clearer yet with Ellis’ use of directly referencing Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground to begin his book American Psycho:

Both the author of these Notes and the Notes themselves are, of course, fictional. Nevertheless, such persons as the composer of these Notes not only exist in our society, but indeed must exist, considering the circumstances under which our society has generally been formed. I have wished to bring before the public, somewhat more distinctly than usual, one of the characters of our recent past/ He represents a generation that is still living out its days among us. In the fragment entitled “Underground” this personage describes himself and his vies and attempts, as it were, to clarify the reasons why appeared and was bound to appear in our midst. The subsequent fragment will consist of the actual “notes,” concerning certain events in his life.
(preface, American Psycho, Dostoevsky)


This passage serves to illuminate the reader of what they are stepping into- right from the start they know they are on Dostoevsky-ian territory. It is cueing the reader up for certain things to stand out in order to understand, with more clarity, their current situation.
Even the concept of modernity itself is fair game for these authors to attack. Dostoevsky, like many Russian souls was grappling with a rapidly modernizing landscape. Almost over night Russia became torn between trying to forge a Western European identity – rife with capitalism, utilitarianism, Catholicism – and its Eastern Slavic Asian roots. Even this is reflected in Dostoevsky’s own life where he at an early time in his adult life showed some interest in the liberal radical groups that were making their way around Russia calling for change; it resulted in his near execution, four year long imprisonment, and five year Siberian Army stint. Rather than this punishment driving him further towards the left, it had the reverse effect and sent him into exploring deeper themes of spiritualism, psychological confusion, and existentialism through a lens of Slavophilia on a rapidly modernizing nation.


This theme of modernity shows its face in many of Dostoevsky’s key works where the characters he’s created, like the protagonist in Crime and Punishment, are testing out the limits of the newly modernized world. The story centers on Raskolnikov as a man who lives in one of the most Westernized cities in Russia, St. Petersburg. He is a student who plots and carries out a murder of a pawnbroker – thereby logically solving his money problems and ridding the world of an evil person. He quickly learns that this utilitarian thinking of straight logic doesn’t always lead to its rational ends. The novel plays out symmetrically, where the first three parts chronicle the crime and admitting, and the second three parts bring the reader through the punishment and eventual salvation. Dostoevsky tackles a world in which man is his own God and sets him up to fail, only to be redeemed after he suffers. From Chapter 2, “What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be." (Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Part I, Ch. 2) At the end Raskolnikov is redeemed by his confession and acceptance of his role under God. The dingy St. Petersburg becomes a strong symbol for what was considered progress of the day and Dostoevsky portrays it in such a negative light it is impossible to consider it a place of good and hope.



Fast forward in time and place, and this same scenery is played out in Ellis’ American Psycho. The New York City of the 1980’s is a far different New York than the dream of Rudy Giuliani’s today. It was a place where dark alleyways were not to be entered, people were just learning of AIDS, and the gap between rich and poor was at its largest. American Psycho attempted to represent the vacuous nature of this world through its protagonist and shell of a human, Patrick Bateman. Bateman represented all that was glorified of the day; he dressed in the height of fashion, had a great body, great tan, great job, great women, and to top it off was a completely insane misogynistic serial killer. He represents a culture raised on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and porno films. The book explores the many banalities of modern life through Bateman’s exhaustive monologues. In these Ellis is trying to capture the minutiae of status in the 1980’s that seem ridiculous when simply stated as they are.

Before leaving my office for the meeting I take two Valium, wash them down with a Perrier and then use a scuffing cleanser of my face with premoistened cotton balls, afterwards apply a moisturizer. I’m wearing a wool tweed suit and a striped cotton shirt, both by Yves Saint Laurent, and a silk tie by Armani and new black capped shoes by Ferragamo. I plax then brush my teeth and when I blow my nose, thick ropy strings of blood and snot stain a forty-five dollar handkerchief from Hermes that, unfortunately, wasn’t a gift. But I have been drinking close to twenty liters of Evian water a day and going to the tanning salon regularly and one night of binging hasn’t affect my skin’s smoothness or color tone. My complexion is still excellent. Three drops of Visine clear the eyes. An ice pack tightens the skin. All it comes down to is: I feel like shit but look great.
(Ellis, American Psycho, p 106)

As one can glean from this passage Patrick isn’t quite ‘normal‘. His bloodlust created a storm of controversy for the book and it’s author when it came out in 1991. Ellis was critiqued for the excessive violence and treatment of women in the book however, he was really just trying to capture the “tone and style” (Charlie Rose interview 4/13/2000) of an era – much like Dostoevsky. Despite the quote from Notes from Underground in the beginning, I certainly relate the structure of the book dealing with more Crime and Punishment like themes.

Continued tomorrow in Part II... check back.