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Chuck Palahniuk


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I'm guessing we have two Chuck Palahniuk threads because I KNOW I've voiced my opinion on his attempts to gross out and horrify. (Which is that for someone like me, not disturbed by books, that all I see is a gratuituous attempt to do the above with nothing of any depth to substantiate it, ultimately leaving me bored and disinterested.)

 

I'm going to hunt down the other thread and see why there are two.

 

ETA: There's only one Palahniuk thread, but considerable discussion about him in this thread which anyone who wanders in here might like to check out.

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You're welcome! :readingtwo: I'd love for Fight Club to be set as required reading by high schools (though they may not be old enough to fully grasp the feeling of it)

 

I read Fight Club a few years ago (twice) it is a really good story, has to be for me to read it twice. But I cant see it being used in schools:mrgreen: I seem to remember there being quite a descriptive few paragraphs on bomb making!

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He writes short stories as well. Do I really need to point out how dark the story which I've linked is? It's Palahniuk. Of course it's dark. :readingtwo:

 

This is the opening story in his novel Haunted. It's my favourite of all the short stories in the book but when added to the ongoing story running throughout the novel, it's given extra depth as we get to find out a little more about the character Saint Guts Free. :D

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I recently bought a couple of books from HMV, one of which being Snuff. I'm reading something else first but will be reading it next as my girlfriend has started it and is really enjoying it, and she won't read anything that isn't interesting!

I know the structure of the novel and the idea sounds brilliant!

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I need to get onto more of Chuck's stuff. I have Haunted somewhere to finish and I want to buy Choke and Snuff too.

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You're welcome! :friends0: I'd love for Fight Club to be set as required reading by high schools (though they may not be old enough to fully grasp the feeling of it) and university.

I read Fight Club a few years ago (twice) it is a really good story, has to be for me to read it twice. But I cant see it being used in schools:mrgreen: I seem to remember there being quite a descriptive few paragraphs on bomb making!

 

Actually, I remember an English teacher at my school (not mine - I'd been sent to him to take the High School Exit Exam) was reading Fight Club with his junior class.

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Haha, perhaps, but he was working with a bunch of sixteen/seventeen year olds in a small honors class. He probably deamed them mature enough. Anyway, most of them had probably seen the film already.

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I recently bought a couple of books from HMV, one of which being Snuff. I'm reading something else first but will be reading it next as my girlfriend has started it and is really enjoying it, and she won't read anything that isn't interesting!

I know the structure of the novel and the idea sounds brilliant!

 

I love how he plays around with the structure of his novels. It's one of the reasons I love Haunted so much :lol: A mixture of poetry, short stories and a novel in one book. Genius! :roll:

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  • 2 weeks later...

I love the little pieces of random information he has in his books, like the bomb recipes in Fight Club and the cleaning tips in Survivor. It isn't needed in the least, but it never ceases to fascinate.

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I keep forgetting what Snuff is about...

 

@Arewenearlythere: That is a good one - Palahnuik is so quotable. For some reason "This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time" always stuck with me.

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I keep forgetting what Snuff is about...

 

Well the blurb on the Waterstone's website says this:

 

"From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, this is a full-frontal Triple-X novel that goes where no work of fiction has gone before. 'Six hundred dudes. One porn queen. A world record for the ages. A must-have movie for every discerning collector of things erotic'. 'Didn't one of us on purpose set out to make a snuff movie?'

 

Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera with six hundred men, "Snuff" unfolds from the perspectives of Mr 72, Mr 137 and Mr 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax?

 

It's pretty good so far.

 

I have not read any of Palahniuk's books but would like to...where should i start? is he not classed as horror?

 

I wouldn't say he was horror (in my opinion anyway), probably nearing towards extreme fiction. The way he describes either scenes or actions can make your stomach turn if you're squeamish. I'm sure there's a link to one of his short stories on this thread which is also the opening story in Haunted. You should read it and see what you think :lol:

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It's hard to define his work as horror due to the non-supernatural and non-other (which is as good a definition of horror as I can come up with), so I tend to place his work amongst books such as Clive Barker's non-horror output - dark, edgy, but not really true Horror (capitalized). If anything, he's "dark adult contemporary" - a cop-out, I know, but defining anything these days (with so many genres, sub-genres and side-genres being created by marketing and publishing forces) does it really matter? If something is good, it is good... Regardless of what labels are put on the story.

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Yes, I would agree that he isn't really a horror writer. While there are elements to his story that are disturbing and possibly unsettling, he doesn't write to scare his readers. I would suggest starting with Fight Club - it's one of his best, and it's easier to get into the flow of this story than his others. I think it's a good introduction to his style. :)

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So far I've read :-

 

Diary

Choke

Invisible Monsters

Rant

Haunted

Lullaby

Survivor

Pygmy

 

My favourite has to be ermmmmm...... well I don't have a favourite to be fair but probably the one that I wouldn't recommend to people would have to be Rant, just found it a bit long in the tooth IMO. Pygmy was the last one I've read and I absolutely loved it :lol: I'll proably pick up Snuff next then leave Fight Club till last.

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Pygmy was the last one I've read and I absolutely loved it :friends0: I'll proably pick up Snuff next then leave Fight Club till last.

 

I haven't read Pygmy yet but I've now finished Snuff and thought it was pretty good. I loved the structure and it made me laugh out loud in quite a few places, as well as squirm. The ending

where Cassie Wright and Branch Bacardi are burnt together at their genitals "like siamese twins bound by their groins...seared together by a few layers of cooked skin, or muscle spasm, or their soft parts baked into a shared meatloaf"........well what can you say to that?!

And his attention to detail turns the waiting room (where the entire book is set) into an infectious, damp, claustrophobic and unclean place that you just want to get away from.

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  • 10 months later...

I've just read Snuff. It's the first Palahniuk novel I've read. On the strength of it, I'll be reading more. He reminded me of Irvine Welsh.

I think I'll leave it a while before I read another one though. It takes a while for the grim to wear off.

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