Episode 16: American Psycho and the Aesthetics of Boredom

Alternative title: The cursed episode that took us 5 weeks and 2 attempts to get through, children.

Crow wades through the depths of coughing and a lot of mucus to bring you the infamous American Psycho and just one of its many, many controversies. How eyebrow-ripping-ly boring it is. We aren't here to ask whether it is or isn't, because boy howdy is it one of the most painful reads for most human beings. The question we're asking is why? Why did Bret Easton Ellis choose to write American Psycho in a way that made the majority of its readers put it down before they'd absorbed its dangerous message? Well, Professor Julian Murphet and the late Elizabeth Young are here to shed some light on that for us. Tune in and please send Crow all your cough drops. 

Intro music: Beeckmans: Hymne for Theremin, Oboe, String Quartet and Piano (2018) - The Alba Septet (Listen to the whole thing on Youtube, you'll thank us later).

Outro music: Magic Hour by Three Chain Links

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References: 

Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho by Julian Murphet 

The Beast in the Jungle, the Figure in the Carpet  from Shopping in Space by Elizabeth Young and Graham Caveney. 

Repetition and the Ethics of Suspended Reading in American Psycho by C. Namwali Serpell