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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Is Chuck Palahniuk getting old?

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18:41 / 29.09.03

I'm just curious as to whether he's distantly related to Jack Palance. Birth name - Vladimir Palahniuk.

Or is Palahniuk the Polish Smith?

Jack Palance in Fight Club instead of Brad Pitt. That would've rocked.

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23:04 / 29.09.03

According to his website he did out himself recently.

Also according to his website, his name is actually pronounced Paula-nick.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

01:14 / 01.10.03

Come ON! Gay or hetero, surely all any book collection needs is Burroughs and Cooper?!

Seriously, though, Sypha, "Choke"? I mean, I loved it and all, but I no way think it's his best. To me it seemed like he was doing "Palhaniuk-by-numbers"... (which is better than no Palahniuk at all)... it was a better read than pretty much anything that came out at the same time, but it seemed he was treading water rather than kicking sharks in the bollocks.

Funny you should mention Cooper, though, because I find the same part of my brain gets impatient when waiting for a new novel by either.

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02:32 / 01.10.03

I dunno, "choke" I read at a very disfunctional time of my life so it struck a kind of resonance with me or something. I loved that simulated rape scene, and for some reason that line "What would Jesus not do" really made me laugh. Beats me.

Actually, the only Cooper book I've read so far is "Closer", but I recently ordered "Frisk", "Period", "Try" and "Guide" so those'll be coming in soon hopefully.

Burroughs, on the other hand, I've pretty much read almost all his major stuff. No easy feat, that.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

20:55 / 05.11.03

A 1/3rd of the way through Diary and I thought it was awful, 3/4rs of the way through I thought it was approaching good, but it never quite made it. Chuck had quite a good idea for a story in there, he should have done the decent thing and passed it on to another writer.

If you took out all the times that Chuck repeats a phrase for effect (such as 'prepare for evacuation of soul' or 'I am Jacks...' as from Fight Club) it would be about a quarter shorter. It gets really irritating, really quickly. The 'hiding rooms' thing is a rather pointless device to get us through the early chapters before Misty's story properly starts. As for her, she's annoyingly passive and weak for a main character, so it's difficult to care when anything happens to her. And what's that with the faked death of her daughter? It doesn't seem to have any effect on any of the characters at all.

And once at the start of the book and twice at the end it mentions what other books he's written. I suspect that his lack of success outside Fight Club is starting to annoy the people that pay him for his works.

21:08 / 05.11.03

I heard that they're thinking about making films of some of the other books. Apparently, Choke (director of Requiem for a Dream), Diary (Tom Cruise as producer), and Invisible Monsters (Paramount Studios). They were making Survivor, but unfortunately it got scrapped, so I suppose the others might as well.

06:13 / 01.12.03

I love Pahlaniuk, but I've yet to pick up Lullaby (bought it for a friend's birthday, never got around to getting it myself) and Diary. Survivor is by far my favorite of the ones I've read, with Fight Club in second, and Choke in third. It all just clicked for him in Survivor. Choke was by far the most entertaining, but it seemed a little too much so (loved the ending, though). As for the Fight Club book vs. movie thing, I have to go with the book. It is, however, one of the best adaptations I've ever seen.

Survivor was sold and being scripted with rumors of Kevin Spacey and Nicole Kidman in lead roles. That would have been one awesome movie. Let's hope it gets brought back from the grave. And if Darren Arronofsky directs anything done by Pahlahniuk, you can bet the farm that its going to be a mind-blowing movie. With that material and Arronofsky's style... damn.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:00 / 13.03.04

The short story "Guts"- the one readings of which have caused passings-out- is in today's Guardian Weekend magazine, for those of you in the UK who are interested. I read it this morning- it didn't make me pass out, but it IS deeply unpleasant. And brilliant. But DEEPLY, DEEPLY unpleasant. And kind of funny. (Don't- as I did- read it while taking a shit, either.) If I was the sort of person who passed out on hearing stories, it would have been the one. I swear.

I'm in the middle of "Fugitives and Refugees"- it's great. It's kind of half travel book (that half doesn't interest me too much because I'm never likely to go to Portland) and half anecdotes/routines (in the Burroughs sense) relating to the place. A little flimsy, maybe not seven quid's worth, but I'm enjoying it, and that's what I paid my money for. I imagine if I were ever commissioned to write a book about Yeovil (in Somerset, geography fans- and, incidentally, the whitest, most violent and racist town in England according to a recent R4 programme- which surprised me none... that's why I don't live there anymore) I'd aim for the same sort of thing. Palahniuk's a far better writer than me, though, so I doubt I'd manage it.

For me, the repeated phrases thing is part of what makes him great- it's like reading Jeff Noon's "Needle In The Groove"- it's like listening to music. It's the hook. Contextualised differently every time... it's like a less "boot to the face" version of what Stewart Home does.

Phex: Dorset Doom

11:26 / 13.03.04

Yep, Yeovil is indeed the most violent and racist town in Britain, I used to live in Sherborne, Yeovil's prissy little sattelite, I evacuated too.

22:44 / 13.03.04

No, "Guts" is not that bad. Almost everything Will Self has ever written is nastier. Chuck keeps riffing on the Urban Myth and fails to connect it to reality. Yeah, fun, but shelve it in SF.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:37 / 13.03.04

Not so much the content... but the line about condoms filled with peanut butter really got me.

07:59 / 14.03.04

Guts is also available in the last issue of Playboy.

Chuck is an eclectic writer with the wordiness of Tolkien, minus some of the large brain. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

As for the observation that his books sound ready-made for movie scripts, I would almost agree, except that I don't think he's writing them for that purpose... they just happen to come out that way.

08:58 / 14.03.04

" One could imagine the original manuscript of Fight Club involving the narrator and Tyler falling in love instead, and a squeamish book publisher suggesting the " split personality " ending because " it would be really cool "

I can just about picture that, but only if it involved said squeamish book publisher stumbling out of the office roughly ten seconds later, with a number of quite, y'know, fairly serious injuries.

I'm not sure if Palaniuk's getting old exactly, so much as maybe putting too many books out, trying to bang the ideas down without perhaps crafting them as well as he used to. Personally, since Fight Club and Survivor, he's seemed a bit less... literary.

Still, apart from Brett Easton Ellis, he's the most fun US writer that you can get these days for your seven or eight quid, I think.

10:22 / 15.03.04

Always worth adding in to any Fight Club related discussion: Is Tyler Hobbes?

16:46 / 15.03.04

I read "Guts" in the online edition of the Guardian. First thought: it's not a short story. It's an well-voiced anecdote. Second thought: it's not that unpleasant. The subject matter isn't exactly teletubbies, but it's too broad to communicate any unpleasantness. Third thought: although it rolls along (un)pleasantly enough, this is pretty bad writing considering what he's capable of (Survivor was the first book I read, and it's like being shot by everybody who works at MTV, but in a good way). Last thought: I wonder if anybody else thinks that the whole "people fainting during readings" schtick is just a marketing ploy?

All these thoughts ran through my head, and then disappeared like the dew in the first morning sun. I'll be buying his next book because at least the man writes interesting.

16:48 / 15.03.04

p.s. Yes, Tyler is Hobbes. And Snoopy is Leviathan. Probably.

Haus of Mystery

21:08 / 15.03.04

No 'Guts' does not quite live up to the hype. Yes 'Guts' made me wince and audibly exclaim (in a crowded room) 'Jesus Christ'. Thought it was a visceral nasty little use of four pages in a weekend supplement that usually ain't worth a damn.

21:33 / 15.03.04

Now, if only they'd used it as a fake Julie Burchill column, we'd all be cheering.

Regrettable Juvenilia

21:36 / 15.03.04

On the strength of 'Guts', Palahniuk is firmly settled into the role of self-aggrandising hack. Repeating a couple of urban myths in the same 'voice' he has been using in every. Single. Novel. Since Fight Club does not a good short story make. As for the subtextual terror of anal penetration - the story begins with mention of 'pegging', and the implication seems to be that it's a slippery slope from taking it in the ass to getting your innards pulled out through your ass - talk about yer fucking issues...

Phex: Dorset Doom

22:13 / 15.03.04

I read the online versh of 'Guts' (which was only a sample, the shops had run out of the Guardian by the time I'd gone to look for it)... damn, assuming it's representive of the whole thing, CP is definately getting lazy. He's not even using the same voice as Fight Club, that would be a bonus. He's using a technique that worked okay in his other books, repeating back an urban legend, and basing a whole piece of work on it. I dunno, i just expected more.
(Oh, and while we're on the subject of Palahniuk and urban legends, in Choke he mentions the one where the girl smears peanut butter on her vagina and gets her dog to lick it off, little knowing that her parents/friends are in the closet waiting to throw her a surprise party. Am I the only one who heard that this story really featured Ricky Martin in the cupboard? I think the dog was named Ricky Martin too.)

15:08 / 16.03.04

"Guts" did indeed make me pass out. However, at the time of reading it I did have the Guardian's Jobs & Money section rolled into a tight tube and inserted up my arse, and had fashioned a fairly strong noose from the Review section, with which I was suspended from the hanging basket hook outside the front door, so it was probably understandable.

03:48 / 19.05.04

I can't believe NO one in here liked Invisible Monsters! I've only read that and Choke, but I thought IM had an immediacy that was totally missing from Choke. I thought Choke was OK, but nothing great. IM was consistently funny, and the plot twists were pretty unexpected. It just seemed stripped down and spat out, like he enjoyed writing it.

00:15 / 20.05.04

Invisible Monsters and Choke are both fine, there just seems to have a bit of a down-turn in quality since Fight Club and Survivor. The former aren't bad books, it's more perhaps a question of diminishing returns.

But Flyboy, in any case, what's WRONG with self-aggrandising hackdom. When I grow up, that's all I wanna be...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:09 / 04.06.07

Nearly finished Rant, and I think the old bastard's regained his mojo. He's still using pretty much the same voice, buyt his narrative technique's different- this is an "oral history", like those biographies where everything's in the words of a witness or friend or something. This doesn't allow him to do so much of the repitition, which I always kind of liked- the rhythmic buildup to a big pay-off (hmm, sexeh)- but it does give him plenty of opportunity to set up some killer punchlines.

It's also science fiction, which put me off at first (strangely, actually, because most of what I love is SF... I just didn't think he'd be much good at it) and which to start with seemed kind of irrelevant... but the way the plot seems to be drawing together, the setting is actually fairly integral to the whole thing.

Hmm. Lazy write-up? Cross between Crash, Vurt and Fight Club. Maybe. And perhaps a bit of Vernon God Little. But that could all change. It's certainly his most unpredictable since Survivor. And probably his funniest, too. One thing I will say- it's fucking GLEEFUL. That's the word that most comes to mind.

17:26 / 04.06.07

I have been meaning to get a copy the new one and read it, but I have not heard all that much good about it. Now I have a reason to get it. I was very excited to find out that it is written like an oral biography, especially since one of his favorite books of all time is 'Lexicon Devil,' but I was unsure how that type of writing would translate into fiction.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:40 / 04.06.07

Be warned- for the first fifty or so pages, I thought the technique was getting in the way of the story, and that he was just using it to hide a lack of ideas. Now it would appear to be a LOT better-plotted than he's trying to make out. The technique, which I actually found a little bleh to start with (though I like it as a technique in actual biographies) is actually starting to seem like something of a masterstroke.

03:33 / 05.06.07

Didn't realise he had a new one out. I shall have to track it down pronto.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

16:37 / 05.06.07

This is on my list of books to purchase. I have friends who say it's fucking ace.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:27 / 05.06.07

I must admit, I approached it with trepidation as I do think he's been going downhill (Haunted would have been ace as just the short story anthology it was originally billed as; the framing device sucked balls, really), but he's totally raised his game again.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:47 / 09.06.07

OK, if my opinion counts for anything then Rant is seriously fucking ACE.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

17:21 / 04.10.07

I'm really, really struggling to get through "Haunted," and hope "Rant" will somehow make up for it.

20:39 / 16.07.08

FYI . . .

Snuff Tour

Camden Roundhouse
Tuesday 12th August, 8pm

Tickets £6.00
Available from Borders Islington or the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road NW1

Borders Islington
T: 0207 226 3602
W. www.bordersstores.co.uk

Roundhouse
Chalk Farm Road NW1 8EH
T: 0844 482 8008
W: www.roundhouse.org.uk

The Broadway, 14 - 18 Broad Street Nottingham
Thursday 14th August, 6pm

Plus a special screening of Fight Club introduced by Chuck!

To book tickets, please contact the Broadway Box Office
T: 0115 952 6611
W: www.broadway.org.uk
14 - 18 Broad Street, Nottingham

*Ticket prices: £6.20/£4.50 concs. For film or interview, with a special joint ticket for both: £8/£6.50 concs.

Edinburgh International Book Festival, RBS Main Theatre
Sat 16th August
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Tickets £9/ £7 Conc.
T: 0845 373 5888
W: http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/

10:02 / 17.07.08

For me Rant was definitely the most interesting. It seemed a real departure from his other books that I've read.
I think that Choke and Fight Club both have the same general idea of inverting some kind of normal expectation - in Fight Club this inversion takes the form that, contrary to what you might expect, people will feel better for having seven bells kicked out of them every now and again; in Choke the inversion is that someone who saves someone's life will take responsibility for that person and it will be them who feels an obligation to the person they have saved rather than the other way round.
I find this kind of inversion interesting as an idea but not necessarily believable and thus I found the books premised on this ultimately unsatisfying. I believe that Fight Club came out in the same year (1996) as Cocaine Nights, another book I have problems with for the same reasons, and which has the same kind of idea of societies being invigorated by events that most would assume would impact on that society in a negative manner. I always think of these books as grouped together though presumably each was conceived without any knowledge of the other.
Anyway, if memory serves me right, Rant does not go for this same trick and is the better for it.

14:39 / 17.07.08

Yes, Chuck's gay, he outed himself after he did an interview in 2003. He thought that the writer was going to print information regarding his boyfriend (members of the press had claimed he had a wife). Turns out that wasn't the case, the writer didn't include anything about his sexual orientation.

I really liked Lullaby, but it's the first Palahniuk book that I read. 'Choke' was great, 'Survivor was really good as well. Some of the stories in 'Haunted' made me cringe but I found that it just kind of dragged... I never actually finished that one. And of course 'Fight Club', I agree, the movie was better.

Has anyone read 'Rant' or 'Snuff'?

14:40 / 17.07.08

Oops.. helps the read page 2 of a thread , eh?

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