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Palahniuk on 9/11

Ellis

18:22 / 16.10.01

Here

quote: On television, the towers fall in slow motion. The same crowds of people stand around on the West Side Highway, observing. There’s the same jiggling, chaotic shot taken by some cameraman fleeing the cloud of dust. Watching this, David says: “This is worse than The Blair Witch Project.”

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:47 / 17.10.01

Woah, man, that was fucking genius.
That's exactly what we need writers like Palahniuk FOR.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:47 / 17.10.01

What exactly do we need them for, then? What is the point of Palahniuk's piece?

I'm sorry, I know some people felt this way about Grant Morrison's column in response, but at least that was trying to make a point or twelve. Chuck is just demonstrating again that he has precisely one trick, and it's already very old.

rizla mission

12:14 / 17.10.01

agreed.

That guy's like a weird government hybrid of all my favourite 'counter-cultural' writers, but with all their valid ideas and good points removed.

Ellis

12:23 / 17.10.01

Must agree, his piece has no real point to it at all.

Disappointing really, as Fight Club was about anti-capitalist terrorists, I expected his take on whats going on to be somewhat meaningful.

bio k9

12:28 / 17.10.01

I think hes trying to tell us that his friends are all assholes. Thats what I got out of it.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:30 / 17.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Ellis:
Disappointing really, as Fight Club was about anti-capitalist terrorists, I expected his take on whats going on to be somewhat meaningful.

I can't find find any meaningful investigation into the politics of anti-capitalist action in my copy of Fight Club... Don't get me wrong, I like the book, and it may well be quite a good "trigger" for certain ways of thinking (the film even more so), but it's hardly a core text...

rizla mission

12:44 / 17.10.01

Watching Fight Club the film, it seemed like the moral/political contradictions were added deliberately to be ambiguous and thought provoking..

Reading his books, you realize that he doesn't really *have* a moral/political ideology. He's obsessed with the imagery and glamour of rebellion and self-destruction but never uses them to make any coherent point..

rizla mission

12:45 / 17.10.01

(woah. Lots of big words in that post. My studenting must be working)

Ellis

13:13 / 17.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Flyboy:

I can't find find any meaningful investigation into the politics of anti-capitalist action in my copy of Fight Club... Don't get me wrong, I like the book, and it may well be quite a good "trigger" for certain ways of thinking (the film even more so), but it's hardly a core text...

That wasn't what I was saying Flyboy, what I meant was that having written a book about anti-capitalist terrorists, Palahniuks article would have been more... interesting relevent to the situation, his fiction coming true et all, not that Fight Club was a "core text" (actually the more i read the novel I find i like it even less).

Molly Shortcake

09:44 / 18.10.01

I liked the piece and thought it's 'point' was clear. What should it of said? What makes it not serious; less valid?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:44 / 18.10.01

I didn't think there WAS any kind of point...
I just thought it was an honest, immediate (though obviously written later) reaction, without any subtext... just a kind of "account" rather than anything else.
And as such, I thought it was great.
May well have missed the point, though.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:44 / 18.10.01

Just read it again. think I MAY WELL have missed the point. pissed now again though.

Regrettable Juvenilia

09:44 / 18.10.01

quote:Originally posted by stoatie:
I just thought it was an honest, immediate (though obviously written later) reaction, without any subtext... just a kind of "account" rather than anything else.
And as such, I thought it was great.

Sure - but there are 1001 weblogs at which similar accounts haver appeared since 9/11. What makes Palahniuk's piece "fucking genius" any more than these are?

Ice Honkey: if you thought the point was clear, what was/is it?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:02 / 18.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Flyboy:

Sure - but there are 1001 weblogs at which similar accounts haver appeared since 9/11. What makes Palahniuk's piece "fucking genius" any more than these are?

No-one here either asked me for an opinion on, or directed me to, any others. I offered the answer asked for. running... out... of... words... mustsleepsoon....

Cherry Bomb

12:05 / 18.10.01

Hey, as far as "Fight Club" the film went, the narrative and style and which it's done has more to do with David Fincher than with Palahniuk.

See, the thing that annoys me about Chuck is that he IS a talented writer but he wastes his talent by doing the same thing with everything he writes. It seemed clever in "Fight Club," but by the time one gets to "Choke," enough all ready. It's as formulaic as a Grisham novel, he just has an edgier voice.

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