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Chuck Palahniuk

post #1 of 20
11/21/09 at 9:44am
Thread Starter 
Is anyone else here as big a fan of this guys work as I am? Just finished reading Snuff and it was awesome. It managed to be an extremely frank and sexual novel but never titilating in any way. The final few pages were gold. I think it would make a great stage play, i can just see the Daily Mail headlines now "Ban this sick stage orgy"

So for the record my fave Chuck books are:

1. Rant
2. Lullaby
3. Survivor
4. Snuff
5. Invisible Monsters

Right I'm off to start reading Pygmy, anyone else into this god among modern author's?
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post #2 of 20
11/21/09 at 10:31am
Nah, I outgrew him when I hit nineteen.
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post #3 of 20
11/21/09 at 10:54am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake View Post
Nah, I outgrew him when I hit nineteen.
I am 30, I guess I'm just angry
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post #4 of 20
11/21/09 at 11:13am
Survivor and Fight Club are good, but every other book is just ol' Chucky Cheese trying to pull the same schtick; to show you how "shocking" and "unpredictable" he is. Which gets old. Fast. The guy thinks that writing characters is the same as writing people who are defined by their neurosis, and his plots are either so over the top as to be unbelievable, or too understated for you to give a shit.

In short, the guy's incredibly over rated.

But on the other hand, his non-fiction isn't terrible.
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post #5 of 20
11/21/09 at 11:20am
I appreciate his approach and rather liked "Non-fiction" and "Haunted".

I just started Pygmy.
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post #6 of 20
11/21/09 at 2:12pm
Dug Fight Club, thought Lullaby was ok, couldn't get into Choke.
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post #7 of 20
11/21/09 at 2:31pm
I used to love this guy when I was a teenager, but I finally gave up on him after the god-awful Snuff. Haunted and Rant were bad too, but Snuff pushed me over the edge. The only ones I have ever re-read (or recommended) are Fight Club, Survivor, and Choke.
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post #8 of 20
11/21/09 at 2:36pm
Lullaby was the last book of his I read. I really love CHOKE alot, and was really sad to see how they butchered the ending of the film. Ugh!!
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post #9 of 20
11/21/09 at 3:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lloyd Dobler View Post
I am 30, I guess I'm just angry
Maybe. Did you or did you want to start a fight club after reading the book/seeing the movie? Did it upset you when you found out he was gay?

Palahniuk is proof that every single person in the world has one good story in them. Some just don't know when to stop telling it.
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post #10 of 20
11/21/09 at 4:14pm
I read "Guts" in Borders and kept attracting attention because I was laughing so hard. I'll get around to reading Haunted one day.
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post #11 of 20
11/21/09 at 4:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nekkerbee View Post
I read "Guts" in Borders and kept attracting attention because I was laughing so hard. I'll get around to reading Haunted one day.
I got suspended for GUTS (Seriously)

I downloaded an audio file in computer class of the author reading GUTS at a book signing. The principal flipped when he found out and was shocked (Shocked!) by the vile filth such an impressionable young girl was listening to. I thought it was kind of hilarious how humorless he was, since it's a humor story. My mom came in and backed me up saying it's a story from a NYT best selling author, but I still had to miss two days of school

Fascists...

Oh, PS: The way he told my mom was hilarious too. "I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but.." like he found out I was keeping a dead cat in my locker or something lol

PPS: Oh, and even funnier was his face when he realized my mom wasn't exactly scandalized by his shocking report
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post #12 of 20
11/21/09 at 6:34pm
Beach reading for edgy people .

(For the most part. No offense Loyd)
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post #13 of 20
11/21/09 at 7:42pm
After watching Fight Club, I checked out his work that was available at the time. I remember enjoying Fight Club, Survivor, and Invisible Monsters, but my interest waned with Choke and Lullaby.

I'm marginally curious in revisiting those works, as well as the stuff that came after now that I'm much older. But then again, I "got" Fight Club (the film) when I first saw it, so it's not like I was uncritically lapping everything up Palahniuk was serving the first time around.

What I'll always remember about those novels is how Palahniuk would usually include at least one sick or twisted piece of real-life factual information that I had previously not acquired in my (only) comparatively sheltered upbringing. And it was always something I wish he hadn't "educated" me about. It's like seeing things you want to "un-see."
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post #14 of 20
11/21/09 at 9:42pm
I read him up until Lullaby, then I checked out and have no interest in going back.
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post #15 of 20
11/22/09 at 12:40am
I still really enjoy Palahniuk.

He may be a bit of a one trick pony but his sense of humour and writing style amuse me, for the most part even when he's bad he's still kind of good.

Except for maybe in the case of Invisible Monsters, the twist in that book was so ridiculous he lost me completely.
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post #16 of 20
11/22/09 at 2:14am
Choke is one of the funniest books I've ever read. Survivor is great too.
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post #17 of 20
11/22/09 at 7:03am
Survivor is fantastic. Better than Fight Club imo. Those are the 2 really great books he's written.
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post #18 of 20
11/22/09 at 8:06am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan S~ View Post
Maybe. Did you or did you want to start a fight club after reading the book/seeing the movie? Did it upset you when you found out he was gay?

Palahniuk is proof that every single person in the world has one good story in them. Some just don't know when to stop telling it.
Wait a sec, he is gay? WHAT!?!?!

Anyway RANT is an excellent book and I would recommend it to anyone who thinks his books are all the same as its kind of different in a really surreal way. Pygmy is quite different too so far anyway....
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post #19 of 20
11/22/09 at 8:09am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Princess Kate View Post
I got suspended for GUTS (Seriously)

I downloaded an audio file in computer class of the author reading GUTS at a book signing. The principal flipped when he found out and was shocked (Shocked!) by the vile filth such an impressionable young girl was listening to. I thought it was kind of hilarious how humorless he was, since it's a humor story. My mom came in and backed me up saying it's a story from a NYT best selling author, but I still had to miss two days of school

Fascists...

Oh, PS: The way he told my mom was hilarious too. "I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but.." like he found out I was keeping a dead cat in my locker or something lol

PPS: Oh, and even funnier was his face when he realized my mom wasn't exactly scandalized by his shocking report
That is brilliant! we need more of that in our schools. FIGHT THE POWER!!
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post #20 of 20
11/22/09 at 1:29pm
Started reading the guy when I was pretty young, and I loved Fight Club and Survivor. Like Ryan and Mezz have said before me, Chuck just continued to write the same book over and over again (and I fell for it at least twice after I read Survivor.) I recently picked up Pygmy because I heard him speak at a local university (he's quite charismatic in person,) and I hadn't read him since I high school. That was a mistake. The ESL gimmick ran dry after a couple of chapters, and I struggled to get to the end.

Sorry Chuck. This is the end for us. You can't say I didn't try.
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