Am I the only one who noticed this book essentially begins with, "it was a dark and stormy night." Despite that, what a fun read. I felt I was travelling back to a simpler, more naive time and place. It's small town Americana where you can leave your doors open and everyone knows your name. Mayberry with a psycho Otis. (Otis was the fat town drunk for you young folks)
We have to judge the book by the standards of the time. Psycho took on two major taboos: mental illness and the role of women. What I found interesting is how the men, except for Arborgast, were very passive. The action all came from women. Mary stole the money, Norman's mother did the killing, Lila solved the mystery. Talk about your women's movement. As for the mental illness part, sadly I think the portrayal did little to diminish the stigma associated with the mentally ill. Pyscho, the movie, was the Jaws of its day. No one wanted to shower, no one wanted to be around "crazy people" and no one wanted to stay in hotel rooms.
I also found it interesting the way Bloch told us who the killer was pretty early on both in the actions of Norman and the persona of the mother. Even if you somehow missed she was dead all along, you knew they were in it together. So Psycho is not a whodunnit. I can't say it's any kind of "dunnit." It's a "here's what happened" narrative.
Getting back to the women in the story. In the hotel peeping Tom scene, Norman blames Mary for teasing him as he watches her undress. It didn't happen, but that's how he imagines it, right. So he kills her. He kills her because it's her fault. Here's the thing. She's just stolen some money. So does Bloch make it okay to kill Mary because she's been a "bad girl" even though it may not be in the way Norman sees her? When you think about it, Mary's stealing the money is irrelevant to the story other than to get Lila and Arbogast on the trail. Because, I have to say the idea of the private detective tracking down the money to keep everything quiet was a bit hard to swallow. Then again, different standards for the time.
Dialogue a bit stilted and formal, but a fun read. No longer scary I have to say, but I remember being a small boy watching the movie for the first time. I didn't shower for a week.