American Psycho 3

Even though we are almost 30 years on since American Psycho was published, Patrick Bateman continues to be a popular figure. How does Bateman and other themes of opulence, insecurity, and finding deeper meaning in one’s life still resonate today?

American Psycho 2

What drives Patrick Bateman to kill (or to fantasize about killing)? What does he get out of it? In the last 30-50 pages of the novel, most or all of the explicit violence ends. How do these pages help to explain the reasons for Bateman’s violent acts (or fantasies)?

American Psycho 1

American Psycho is, at least in part, a parody of the manners of affluent young professionals in  NYC. What is one moment you found funny and why? If you found not a single moment amusing, why do you think that is? A failure in the novel? Your incapacity to see the humor? The general offensiveness of much of the language and action in the book?

Silence of the Lambs 3

As a book, The Silence of the Lambs, a best-seller, won wide critical praise.  The movie, released in 1991, was also a resounding commercial and critical success, winning seven academy awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Sound.   It also generated heated protest from gay rights activists at many theaters and outside the auditorium on the night it accumulated Oscars.  Jame Gumb outraged the protesters.  In more recent years, the film has continued to be both canonized and criticized.  As you read the book and/or watched the movie, how did you understand Jame Gumb and the politics of sexuality in The Silence of the Lambs?  Do you think the book and movie differ in their understanding or depiction of Gumb?  Is the character an anti-gay (or anti-trans) stereotype or something more or different?

Silence of the Lambs 2

Last time, we just started to think about the ways in which Lecter offers us a particular imagining of the Psychiatrist, perhaps born in part from the anti-psychiatry movement of the 60s and 70s.  Chilton also offers a portrait of the professionally trained therapist.  How would you say one or both of these doctors  presents the profession to readers of the novel?

Silence of the Lambs 1

We’ll talk, of course, about Hannibal Lecter and the asylum he inhabits, but how would you characterize the world outside of the asylum in 1986 as Harris portrays it?  Name and describe one or two of the most salient features (emotional, physical, or cultural) that seem to define life in this fictional world.  Where’s the passage where this feature came into view?

Girl, Interrupted

Though not initially aimed at an adolescent and post-adolescent audience, Kaysen’s memoir became very popular with a “young adult” reading demographic. What are the central features of adolescence in American culture? How do you think the book understands this period in life? Is the young Kaysen unusual (pathological) or typical?

Cuckoo’s Nest II

In previous posts on Cuckoo’s Nest, people thought carefully about what it means to experience the novel’s events as narrated by Bromden, who has experienced a range of emotional trauma and possibly some kind of brain damage–or at least fogginess–from shock treatments.  At the same time, he has a well-articulated view of what the psychiatric hospital is designed to do, the way in which it’s part of the “combine”.  How does another character seem to see the role of the hospital in the larger world?  You could think of Ratched, McMurphy, one of several other patients, or even the aides who work on the ward.