Pajiba

I have a weird relationship with Palahniuk. Fight Club was fantastic, but every book since then has felt like a Fight club rehash. Wise social outcast (Tyler Durden)? Check. Physically/emotionally corrupt love interest (Marla)? Check. Mysterious, passive narrator (Narrator/Jack)? Check. Repetitive verbal gimmick? I am Jack's Check. Random disgusting factoids? Check.

Not that his reads aren't fun, he just hasn't matured or developed through any of his books. It seems like each just wants to be grosser or weirder than the last, to the point where you can predict the unpredictability. Each book celebrates some kind of nihilism, throwing back any kind of social conventions for the sake of raw hedonism or just shock value. It was fun in Fight Club, but I've felt like I've read Fight Club six or seven times now.

I used to live with a batshit-crazy girl who worshipped Chuck Palahniuk and his writing, owned every book he had published. She harped on me to read Invisible Monsters and wouldn't stop until I finished it in front of her. I apparently just didn't get how great and deep Palahniuk is with telling "how fucked-up the world really is."
Seriously. I know how fucked-up the world is, and I can come up with all sorts of creative rephrasings of the sentiment. That doesn't mean I want to waste some trees with my paperback run of Chicken Soup for the Gimp Rapist. (Skitz, it's not about you, don't worry)
Mr. Tusks, your instincts are right on. Chuck Palahniuk is a one-trick pony, whose trick of kicking random people in the genitals has gotten really, really old.

Jim, let me guess, she worked in retail and only "dated" tattooed boys in bands? I know the type. Also, one of the few things that my B.A. in English Literature has given me is the ability to know that a story about a guy who gets off on sitting on pool drains and then accidentally gets his intestines ripped out through his anus is not exactly deep and meaningful. It's just gross.

Interestingly, a review I had read a while ago of "Rant" was just a review of Fight Club, but with Fight Club's characters' names crossed out and replaced with Rant's characters' names.

I like his novels, but I'm still not sure how much I cared for Snuff or Rant. I think Rant warrants a re-read to better make up my mind about it.

It's been a couple years since I read his older books, but I recall that I particularly enjoyed Diary and Lullaby.

I guess I should add a couple of his books to the queue to see how they stand up after a couple years.

I've read several CP books but I had to look at a list of his novels to remember which ones and even then I only remember for sure reading "Pygmy" because it was written in such an eccentric style (though it was reasonably funny).

Anyway, I guess that says all that needs to be said about our relationship.

I avoid CP's books after reading a comment here about how someone keeps having weird, disturbing nightmares while reading one of his books. No thank you, my own dreams are weird enough. I do not need to add gross intestines to it.

I read Fight Club after seeing the movie, and yea, it's a good book but I think my belief in that might be reinforced by liking the movie so much. Because I don't actually remember anything specific about the book or his writing. There's no separation for me. Usually when I read books that were later made into movies, I can actually separate them in my mind. Princess Bride: movie was funny; book was even funnier. Da Vinci Code: movie was action action; book was action action plus bad writing. With fight Club... nothing.

Here's where the tomatoes start being thrown...

I've read everything the man's ever written. Don't get me wrong, he is far from being the best author of all time, and I agree that a lot of his books read the same.

But there are few others out there who write in his style. The way he tells stories is so compelling and different and he's very good at the complicated plot twist that reading him I find is often a breath of fresh air from the same old plodding narratives. I love him for the same reason I loved Time Traveler's Wife, because of the way the story was presented and told it was new and interesting.

and just for reference sake, I am a college girl, but I play acoustic guitar, love my mother, and tend to date the nerdy boys. Not all Chuck fans are the same.

I can't believe I didn't see this post earlier! I was reading the top of the page, happily commenting away on other threads, and here is my first review up! Thanks for the reinforcement guys. I wasn't sure how well I conveyed the meaning of the book without giving away all the plot points.

hm15, did someone else review this book last year? Because I just wrote this review Monday, so you couldn't have read it last year.

Good review. Not a chance that I'm going to read the book, though. I tried one of his as part of a book club a couple of years ago... something about writers and being kidnapped and bad poetry. It was so heavy-handed that I stopped after a few chapters.

UPDATE: The book I tried to read was Haunted, and promises: Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you'll ever encounter—sometimes all at once... oooh, you're so freaky, Chuck, and so dark, and so insightful.

His website is called The Cult. I rest my case.

This is the first Palahniuk book I've read, so I guess the whole one-trick-pony thing worked one me, but it sounds like I wouldn't enjoy another of his novels the same way, if there isn't any differentiation between them.

Dareva, have you read the novel? Her statements are accurate. Some of the things that that particular character does to herself are actually "mutilation", and not all are tied to the gender re-assignment. Not to mention a literal definition of the word:

1 : to cut up or alter radically so as to make imperfect
2 : to cut off or permanently destroy a limb or essential part of : cripple

That is EXACTLY what gender re-assignment does. Also, "tranny" is not a hateword. It is an abbreviated version of "transsexual," not entirely accurate in the character's description, but only just barely. Being close friends to many "trannies" has pointed me to believe very few are concerned with the word, as they all use it themselves.

Know your GLBT trivia before you correct someone on being PC. :)

Now, onto the review. Great job staying away from major plot points, which occur in almost every paragraph. I have had a hard time explaining this book to friends without spoiling something.

This was the first book by him I read, and it hit really close to home, as I was dealing with a lot of the issues mentioned in the review. The rest have seemed really "samey," like watching Lifetime movies done by Frued.

Maybe he's writing the same novel over and over again because it needs to be pushed into the heads of the majority of the world.
The way CP writes is exactly how the world is.
Disgusting, dark and repetitive.

How many crimes have you heard of that didn't start with the same sob story?
It's all the same, just a change of setting and actors.

We're all playing the same game here, people.

What's wrong with a series of similar works?
Doesn't every artist have at least a touch of the same theme in every work they do?