Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
An off-shoot from the Ms. RM contest:
I just finished Diary. I get so sucked into his books. They build to this incredible pace where you literally feel like the book is moving faster and then, more often then not, I'm unhappy with the ending. I feel unresolved and then have to spend a week dreaming about the book while my brain unravels the shit. Any other thoughts?
Fiction: Choke
Survivor
Fight Club
Lullaby
Invisible Monsters
Diary
Haunted
Non-Fiction: Fugitives & Refugees
Stranger Than Fiction
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Last edited by ¡B! on Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 9:10 am Posts: 17256 Location: Chichen to the Thing
i've read a few of his books: fight club, invisible monsters, choke, and most recently, diary. I enjoyed all of his books and his writing style, until diary. Man, that book just sucked. It was like he was imitating himself the whole time. The narrative was week and gimmicky with the whole referring to a character in the second person.. plus the fate/free will thing went out with the 19th century. i don't know, it wasn't even close to par with the other books that i read. Choke ruled though
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
bondcfh007 wrote:
i've read a few of his books: fight club, invisible monsters, choke, and most recently, diary. I enjoyed all of his books and his writing style, until diary. Man, that book just sucked. It was like he was imitating himself the whole time. The narrative was week and gimmicky with the whole referring to a character in the second person.. plus the fate/free will thing went out with the 19th century. i don't know, it wasn't even close to par with the other books that i read. Choke ruled though
I really hated the second person narative. I had to start Diary 3X before I could get past page 10. Plus, I couldn't tell my wife about about what I was reading.
"The main character ..."
"Who? You?"
"No, my wife ... Peter's wife ... Misty."
"And then, it turns out her husband..."
"She had another husband?"
"No, me."
"You, or the character, you."
"Peter."
That sucked. But after I read the ending twice, I liked it a lot more.
Actually, I'm forgetting the stories in Choke and especially, Invisible Monsters, I want to read them again, but I sold them.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:02 pm Posts: 10690 Location: Lost in Twilight's Blue
I really like what I've read and I've heard "Haunted" is uber-fucked up. I need to check it out but rarely find the time to read anymore. Choke is probably my favorite.
_________________ Scared to say what is your passion, So slag it all, Bitter's in fashion, Fear of failure's all you've started, The jury is in, verdict: Retarded
Haunted WAS way messed up, but what do you expect from Palahniuk? I have read all of his work and yet he still gets to me. Lately it seems like all I am doing is reading and rereading his and Daniel Quinn's books.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:15 pm Posts: 25452 Location: Under my wing like Sanford & Son Gender: Male
I get frustrated with Chuckie P. He has some really good passages and some really clever touches, but then he'll use really heavy-handed and annoying language for pages at a time, and I've never really found any deeper meaning in any of his stuff, which is distressing. Choke was a good read, but I was kinda dissapointed in Survivor. I'll read more of his books simply because they're fast paced and easy reads.
_________________ Now that god no longer exists, the desire for another world still remains.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:30 pm Posts: 7110 Location: the Zoo.
I wrote him a few years ago, maybe 4 or 5. He wrote back a long letter that actually replied to my points (not some carbon-copy), sent a box full of the most bizarre shit you could imagine (fake knives, plant seeds, a night-light of the virgin mary), and a copy of his then-latest book, signed and everything. Fucking rad.
i find myself very interested in the stories he writes but not very interested in the characters inhabiting the stories, which has a tendency to nullify the great ideas for stories he has.
from a thematic standpoint, his novels often strike me as being kind of a mess. For as blunt as a lot of his passages tend to be, by the time i get to the end of a book of his, i'm often left feeling as though he threw whatever thematic concerns he could possibly think of onto the paper and whatever stuck was what stayed in.
talented writer with some great ideas - he's a guy i want to like more than i actually do.
_________________ i was dreaming through the howzlife yawning car black when she told me "mad and meaningless as ever" and a song came on my radio like a cemetery rhyme for a million crying corpses in their tragedy of respectable existence
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:02 pm Posts: 10690 Location: Lost in Twilight's Blue
There's a cool article about him in the most recent Rolling Stone, it talks about all the stuff he sends to fans and just has interesting background info on him in general. The story about his parents' deaths definitely explains where he gets some of the darkness of his stories.
_________________ Scared to say what is your passion, So slag it all, Bitter's in fashion, Fear of failure's all you've started, The jury is in, verdict: Retarded
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:30 pm Posts: 7110 Location: the Zoo.
Mercury wrote:
There's a cool article about him in the most recent Rolling Stone, it talks about all the stuff he sends to fans and just has interesting background info on him in general. The story about his parents' deaths definitely explains where he gets some of the darkness of his stories.
i find myself very interested in the stories he writes but not very interested in the characters inhabiting the stories, which has a tendency to nullify the great ideas for stories he has.
from a thematic standpoint, his novels often strike me as being kind of a mess. For as blunt as a lot of his passages tend to be, by the time i get to the end of a book of his, i'm often left feeling as though he threw whatever thematic concerns he could possibly think of onto the paper and whatever stuck was what stayed in.
talented writer with some great ideas - he's a guy i want to like more than i actually do.
This is why I view him as very similar to DeLillo, their ideas often overshadow their stories. I guess the difference is that I like the chaotic nature of his work.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
EDIT: I'm very good at saying what Mercury already said.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
_________________ i was dreaming through the howzlife yawning car black when she told me "mad and meaningless as ever" and a song came on my radio like a cemetery rhyme for a million crying corpses in their tragedy of respectable existence
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
knuckles of frisco wrote:
is the article available online?
No. And the fans on his message board aren't as dedicated as us. The discussion on the article is 2 pages long with no transciption.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
why do i have a feeling his message board is chock full of people who've seen Fight Club and want to start their own fight club?
_________________ i was dreaming through the howzlife yawning car black when she told me "mad and meaningless as ever" and a song came on my radio like a cemetery rhyme for a million crying corpses in their tragedy of respectable existence
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
_________________ i was dreaming through the howzlife yawning car black when she told me "mad and meaningless as ever" and a song came on my radio like a cemetery rhyme for a million crying corpses in their tragedy of respectable existence
No. And the fans on his message board aren't as dedicated as us. The discussion on the article is 2 pages long with no transciption.
I can scan it in tonight if you guys want to read it, its one you should not miss. good stuff. Its the Jessica Alba Rolling Stone. OR You could just go buy it.
i'd sooner not read the article than pay money for rolling stone, but that's just me, heh.
_________________ i was dreaming through the howzlife yawning car black when she told me "mad and meaningless as ever" and a song came on my radio like a cemetery rhyme for a million crying corpses in their tragedy of respectable existence
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