I voted Rant. I fooking love that book. Fight Club and Invisible Monsters are wonderful too, but Rant just has something else about it.
@ Brandon - you really don't like Pygmy do you? It was good for a laugh if nothing else. I still maintain that the last three or four are closer to comedy than anything else.
I have Kevin Tong's Rant print hanging above my bookcase. When I lived in New Mexico for a few months and was reading it, I was thoroughly creeped out by the fence on the west end of town by the golf course that would get all the trash/condoms/etc. blown into it like the story.
i did. it's meh. but i think its the intro chapter to a trilogy. if its not (only the future knows) then its kind of a let down. i dont think its as well written as the rest of chucks books, besides pygmy. i do like the themes, and the social questions being asked, and that might be worth reading, but they could have been asked in a better way... you know?
Hard to pick a favourite - Snuff was the first one I'd read, then I went through everything else. I have to say Haunted is my favourite because the glow in the dark cover caught me by surprise (and creeped me out more than a little), and I really like stories within stories.
Also, of all his books (save Damned which isn't out in Canada yet), Haunted left me feeling the most emotionally used, abused and dirty.
As my anonymous vote indicates, I am a big Pygmy fan!! (yes that one vote is mine). I know it may not reach everybody equally but I found it hilarious, sweet, brutal, unique character, unique style, and when I read it first it reminded me of my first year in the US, so how could I not like it (except I'm not a secret agent - I mean, what have you heard?)
Fight Club, Survivor, Lullabye and Haunted really stood out for me. (Voted for Haunted)
I remember liking Choke more before I saw the movie, but I haven't been able to think of it outside that context so I always think, meh.
But I didn't like Rant at all, and I actually never even finished Pygmy, I hated it.
I'm not in a very good position to defend my vote since I haven't read Haunted in a long time. But the reason I voted for Haunted is simple, Haunted is way darker than any book I would voluntarily read, it's got that whole Saw angle going on IIRC and many of the short stories are these gross-out things (I remember very vividly the story involving a pool drain). Haunted was so not my type of book that I tried to stop reading it several times.
But it stayed in my head and I had to finish it and the book is not without its merits.
As for the overall plot. If I were riding in a car driven by M. Night Shymalan and at the end of our journey he jerked the car around at the last second and we ended up being somewhere I had not expected to be I would not be surprised, that is what he does.
With Palahniuk, if he were driving that car, I have the notion that when we arrived at the "inevitable destination" he would immediately shoot the car over an embankment and make it as far into the wilderness as possible for no apparent reason. I'm not complaining, because it is not uninteresting or unenjoyable, but that is the sort of thing you get at the end of one of his books. Something so over the top that it makes the rest of the book feel very strange. I remember feeling that way when the antagonist of Haunted was explained, but I also remember feeling that way at the end of Diary and even Lullabye, I think Lullabye is probably the smoothest non-sequitur ending, but when it gets into that scooby doo stuff there at the end (I hope I remember that right) it again wierds me out.
But that is just the experience you get out of his books, I understand it, he doesn't want a conventional ending.
It is not a flaw, I don't think many authors would have had the balls to blow up those buildings at the end of Fight Club.
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Rant on the other hand, I'm not sure Rant made sense in the beginning, and so when it went even further over the top it didn't come as a surprise.
I voted for Choke on this one. Finished reading Damned yesterday morning, and will post a review on my blog soon. Not sure how I felt about the ending, but the book as a whole was pretty triumphant; I'm hoping it signals a turning of the corner for Palahniuk into new, slightly more absurd/fantastic territory. I think he should write a space opera next -- exploring the vastness of space, colonizing the stars, as seen through the eyes of Chuck Palahniuk. Doubt he would, but hey, it would make for a hilarious, and even sophisticated, ride.
I want to know who picked Pygmy!
Show yourself!
I got a good laugh out of that.
And Brandon, totally agree on Haunted. I was not a fan. Dennis and I had dinner with Chuck one time in Portland and he was telling us about his next book at the time, which was Haunted. He said it was a book of short stories, but that his editor was pushing for him to turn it into a novel. We both begged him not to do it. Obviously, he didn't listen.
I agree with everyone who picked Rant. There is something about it that makes it different. I own nearly every book except for Pygmy, Damned, and Snuff all of which I have not read.
I bought Tell-All and have not read it yet. I hear Tell-All and especially Pygmy take some getting used to. Does the read get easier/better as you go on?
Thanks for the info guys. Asking other fans is better than reading any review in my opinion. Especially when you can compare them to other novels of Chuck's.
Aaron: I'm with you. Hard to pick a favorite between Fight Club and Choke. They're both so good, and so similar, that I could never choose which one's "better." I think Choke might have more profound themes and ideas behind it, but Fight Club has a level of artistry and craft that's just stunning for a first novel -- and of course the characters and plot are timeless.
Very tough call. I went with Survivor by a hair over Choke. I also loved Diary, IM, Lullaby, and Rant. Took me awhile to get back around to FC, after seeing the film, but I still loved it. Snuff I thought was funny. I liked Haunted, too. Couldn't stomach Pygmy or Tell-All. Have Damned, but haven't really given it a chance. STF and F&R were great reads too. So I guess I'd rank them:
Survivor
Choke
Fight Club
Diary
IM
Lullaby
Rant
Haunted
STF
F&R
Snuff
Damned
Tell-All
Pygmy
I was so disappointed with Rant. I still feel like in literature there's a difference between a "mindfuck" and "this just doesn't even make sense."
It was like a cool idea convention, I don't deny that. It was a brilliant take on "Zombies" with the rabies thing, the idea of splitting up people by day and night was cool, the whole weird time travel thing, "car fight club" and there are probably a dozen I've forgotten. Any one of them would have been a great book on it's own. But I thought they were so muddled the way they piled on to one another and when a Deus ex Machina shows up everyone is willing to get on board just to escape the confusion.
I think Fight Club will always be my favorite. It showed me how much fun reading could be, as opposed to informative and interesting.
Choke is so close a second, it's almost too close to call. After I read Choke, I realized the things I truly wanted to say could be said.
After FC, I think I read everything Chuck had published at the time, up to Haunted, in about two weeks.
I haven't read Pygmy yet, but I have it. I tried for a month to read Tell All, I just couldn't do it.
Never read Haunted so I didn't know. I don't spend too much time in this general genre. I prefer Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I've only read a select few of Chuck's books; Invisible Monster, Survivor, and Pygmy. I'll get through the rest once I get through all the other books I have lined up for myself. I jump back and forth between, classics, fantasy, must reads, new, indies, and the list goes on and on. I love to read, but hate the feeling like I'm behind some unknown power curve. Really weird.
I don't want to read anymore of Chuck's books. I hated Rant and can't say I actually enjoyed reading anything he's written since. But I probably will still read his stuff just because it's different than the average literature fare. I hate reading books I don't enjoy, but sometimes I do.
