Week/Class 4 - Kendra

-This is for this past week-

I really found all of the writers intriguing, and I took plenty of notes on distinct qualities of each writer for the sake of using them for later. In particular...

My ears perked up when Heidi mentioned Bret Easton Ellis, but I felt bad because I merely watched American Psycho with my beloved Christian Bale and The Rules of Attraction (which was SUCH a weird movie). I saw glimpses of The Informers because of Amber Heard, but I didn't watch the whole thing. I mean if you're catching on, I never read any of his books, and I'm actually afraid of reading American Psycho because I've heard it's way too disturbing and graphic. But that's what I respect about Ellis from afar: the fact that his work just elicits a strong reaction. I mentioned back in my first blog post that reaction is important to me. Taking a moment to absorb what's happening in the story is useful and great, yes, but there's nothing better to me than seeing someone's immediate reaction to a scene or a bit of dialogue. It's a huge testament to the writer's style and language, and I find it complimentary because there's a strong sense of engagement with that instant response.

Other notes I took about Ellis:

• He has no "forgiveness" for his content, which I respect. This translates into description and dialogue that's just real and uncomfortable. It's not glamorous and romanticized; it's just there in its rawest state.
• There are descriptions of character appearances and location appearances, both which, while readers are given the description for the sake of visualizing someone, also emphasize the characters' awareness and overall personalities. I never looked at characters like that before, and I think that's a great way to describe characters without the overt "He's very meticulous and aware of himself".
• He uses characters from his other stories or connects characters some way (i.e. Patrick Bateman in AP and his brother Sean Bateman in RA), which I may start doing.
• There's a question of how much shock value is enough before it gets ridiculous, unnecessary, ridiculously unnecessary, or unnecessarily ridiculous. That's something I think about a lot in both literature and movies, especially movies where storytelling is much more visual.

Can you imagine American Psycho directed by Tarantino? I didn't know I wanted this until now...