Books & Authors : So has everyone read Doomed yet? And your thoughts on it are?

I thought the whole point of these ones were his take on juvenile fiction? I haven't gotten to this one yet but I rather liked DAMNED, the first Palahniuk I really have liked for a good while.

I don't read him anymore. Last one I read was Diary and even then I was burned the fuck out on Chucky P. With every new book he publishes, I find it at the local bookstore and read the first paragraph. Then I place it right back where I found it and walk away, usually a little sad. 

I know people feel like his books changed their lives. I credit Chuck for getting me back into the writing game after not being able to complete a short-story for around ten years. But each new book feels like he's grasping at something he had when he started, and now his fingers just barely touch the surface. And yeah, I can hear you all screaming at me, "ONE paragraph...just ONE? That's all you're going to give him, one paragraph? You got to give him a chance, Bob. It gets better, I promise you."

And maybe you're right. But it's not just one paragraph, it's the first paragraph, the most important paragraph, and sure, I might be missing out, but Chuck used to grab me with the first sentence. He used to grab me within the first five words of the first sentence. Now he can't grab me with the first paragraph, which, unfortunately, sounds like the same voice he's been using since he started writing. I will forever love Fight Club, Survivor, and Choke. Those are my favorites, and will always be my favorites. But one paragraph, the first paragraph...yep, he's got to grab me right there. 

Why?

Because that's the only chance he would ever give me. 

I think you misunderstood what Bob said. He meant a book better get his attention right off that first sentence/paragraph because that's the same thing Chuck expects when he picks up a book. He even taught a lesson on the importance of the first sentence.

To be fair, there are probably tons of great books that fail my first paragraph test. Some of my favorite books have failed it, but I managed to trudge on because of the voice the author was using, or the tone, etc. 

I guess my whole thing with Chuck collapsed when I was really getting into his essays, and how younger people seemed to worship every word he ever said about writing. It was then that I realized he was simply repackaging advice about writing in way that made sense to his readers, and I definitely don't fault the guy for doing any of that, yet at the same time I felt he was cheapening the advice, kind of 'dumbing it down' for younger generations, and that made me feel a little ill because it was the same advice I'd been hearing and reading for years from other people. He didn't steal it, but he stole some of its thunder by making it palatable for the younger generation, and while that might be great for them, for an old dinosaur like me who has been writing for longer than some of his readers have been alive, hearing those same old things revamped and retermed for the newbies eventually turned me away from him. 

Nothing has changed about fiction other than the length of a marketable piece for mass quantity comsumption. As attention spans shrink, so do word counts. You still start with a bang, need a middle section that increases drama and tension, and a satisfying climax with an unpredictable, yet logical, conclusion. Stories still need characters, setting, plot, and while your at it, tone, and theme, and style. None of that has changed, and it never will for the most part. The best way to achieve those things is to read the authors you like, and some of the ones you don't like, and write what interests you the most. 

I'm sure one day I'll check out the rest of his books, but I read nothing but his books for a year, mainly Fight Club, like I read that book over and over again, studying it, trying to break it down. For a solid year I read nothing but Chuck, was convinced he was the real deal. Hell, like I said earlier, he started me to writing again, actually completing stories, so I definitely will give credit to him for that. But after a year of nothing but that same voice gyrating in my head, I read some WCB, some Clevenger, and some SGJ, and walked away from Chuck. 

And I haven't looked back. 

Palaniuk used to be a good writer. I guess technically he still is but his voice hasn't evolved. I'm sure his recent books are pretty intriguing plot-wise, but the same voice EVERY SINGLE TIME just makes his work seem like a rerun episode of Friends.

The formats he uses when he switches them up, his novels, I mean - I'm thinking of my favorite, Rant - the story flies by but I remember everything. I read Rant in six hours at a public library. I read Doomed at the same one over the course of two days. I'm not too sure of the difference between reading a book sitting in some place having to dodge homeless fellows asking me for change because they recognize me from jail from when I was banging up five years ago, or downloading the books, but I generally try to go for the library because at least SOMEBODY got paid for that copy. I guess. In the the long trenches before you get to Col. Palahniuk, I think the man might see some fraction of his work in money. Yeah, yeah, you say, advances, this, that, the other thing, but how sure can we be that the kindle isn't going to screw literature the same way the mp3 player did music? Used to be you could make a record or a book and actually have it published and sold to mass markets. The game is rigged, folks. Trust me. I work at this every day and all I really know other than being a dad and making shitty food for strangers at my two restaurant jobs is writing and making music.

And if Chuck ever reads this shit - probably does but who really knows? I've heard the worst thing a public/famous personality can do is google their own name and it really makes sense when you consider the lethal dosage of critical poison some of the less thick-skinned of entertainers/artists can take - I really like the metamorphosis. He doesn't give a shit. Why should he? You create something you want to read for yourself first. Sure, you're too close to the material to ever really get away from it enough to read it new unless you suffer some kind of weird TBI that takes your memory but not your ability to read and process information, but you write for yourself first, and perhaps for someone you have in mind. Everybody else comes after that, and as you trickle down, the less important the opinions should be to you. They'd be important to me, but perhaps that would change if I were to become one of the big earners. I dunno. Maybe.
 

I always really like seeing artists change and grow. Even if I don't like their new stuff, I always give it a chance. Good example - the 2006 album 10,000 Days by Tool. I didn't dislike it, I'm always in the market for quality polyrhythms. It just, I don't know, seemed to speak of hypocrisy. Six years before, Maynard James Keenan penned the song "Judith" for A Perfect Circle. His mother was a crippled Midwestern Baptist, and the lyrics are "Fuck your God, your lord, your Christ, he did this, took all you had and left you this way, still you pray, never stray, never taste of the fruit, never thought to question why, it's not like you killed someone, it's not like you drove a hateful spear into his side, praise the one who left you broken down and paralyzed, he did it all for you..."

Now, that's no b-side. That was the first single from the first A Perfect Circle record, and it got heavy airplay. You still hear it on some radio stations. It's a great song. But six years later, here comes 10,000 Days (which, circa 28, 29 years, was how long she was paralyzed supposedly), with the title track about his mother ascending to heaven. When I first heard the album, I was still young, still not a father, hadn't been in a relationship that lasted longer than a year and some change. I was in one at the moment, but we were at the six month mark and going strong, and we'd have a kid, and she'd leave because it's none of your fucking business. I thought to myself, it's a great album, sure, but what the fuck was he thinking? And now I say to myself, how would you have felt? How fucking guilty would you feel? Do you even have an idea of it? An inkling, of what was going on in that man's soul when he wrote the words to either piece?

It just seems to me that, especially when younger, the artist tends to idealize those whom they admire, forgetting they get out of bed, they get drunk, they get in car crashes and traffic jams and grocery lines just like you and me. Day in and day out, baby. This is water, but the artist is usually the first to forget that, especially the younger ones. And the ones that have some kind of voice, be it whether they failed at their true calling so they were so desperate to stay in the game they became the dreaded CRITIC or not, they're the first ones to draw blood. Ye without sin cast the first fucking stone, okay?

But I think artists are the first to forget how other people are just people, especially those they've put on a shelf or pedestal in their mind, because that's part of the equipment required to create. That weird sense of other, of magic, of something else bigger and better. I STILL make that mistake with women, and I get bit again and again and again, and it hurts but it is the best hurt and there is no other like it, and when you bite back they bite harder and so it goes.

Maybe some of us even fall away from that magic. Losing our suspension of disbelief. It's a terrible fucking thing, man. But you know, I ALWAYS heard and saw Maddie as a 13-year old girl in my mind, maybe not the same kid you saw, but yeah. And the use of extensive vocabulary didn't throw me away from that either, because I've always had my nose in a book and I used, and still use, words that throw people around me off, like "talisman" and "impugnity" and "terpsichorean". So I can step back away from myself enough to enjoy writing. It's the only thing that makes it worthwhile. Go back after you feel the magic with your criti-specs on. But that first read? It should always find parts of you that you didn't know were still there and sting them or sweeten them, but at least you can FEEL them. That's where it's at, the sense of touch within your mind.

Plus, I just can't see how you think his voice hasn't changed, Beck. It changes with every book. His creation of lead characters always reminded me vaguely of Hubert Selby Jr. in that you always knew exactly who was speaking even though Selby never used punctuation or dialogue attribution. He was a jazz cat, that was just how he did it, he found the rhythms of everyone. I kind of get the same sensation from Palahniuk. Every book I've read, the lead is different, although I do get a pleasant sense of the familiar with the concepts he learned from Spanbauer and wrote the essays on. Perhaps that's the repetition you sense?

And like the aforementioned singer said when somebody told him his band had sold out because their sound was evolving (in what is probably the best title for a song about consumers and the concept of caveat emptor, 'Hooker with a Penis') "All you know about me is what I sold you, dumb fuck, I sold out long before you ever even heard my name, I sold my soul to make a record, dipshit, and you bought one."

Hmm. I'm sort of divided regarding Chuck. His books are a bit formulatic and gimmicky, but I can admire his offbeat style and how he's not afraid to confront disturbing topics/put forward his pain from things like his parents death and use writing to cope. My verdict on Doomed was a firm "meh". Not my favorite of his, not my least favorite. I just kind of had trouble getting invested, and while minor, I found it a little weird that a ridiculously precocious girl like Madison would also use words like "Woo-woo" and "doo-doo". I don't know if that's how Judy Blume (who he said influenced this) characters spoke, but real teenagers are a lot less politically correct.