There was an aspect to this novel, which I think was well-written and interesting overall, that turned me off from working on it for a while. (This is no insult to the great G-Force, who chose it.) Part of it was how these stories followed each other so closely: One was Whittier's taking advantage of the suburban volunteer mom type, and the other was the journalist who'd commit murder for a Pulitzer. While I appreciate that Palahniuk works with absurdity, as both of those stories reflected (nobody would issue a Pulitzer for a celebrity profile), he still has this agenda he's working for his male, anti-Establishment type audience.
One, take the so-called "soccer moms," who are not as inane or mediocre as people relentlessly portray them. I think Salon has or had a category once called "Soccer Moms Who Think," and it really pissed me off. Starting with choosing to stay home with your kids doesn't mean you're an intellectual lightweight. Or that you would fall prey to the seductive charms of some dying man-kid.
Two, his portrayal of journalists equally offended. I understand these were supposed to be depraved characters, but the absurdity of setting up a man as a pornographer and murderer is obviously a jab at a profession that, within my limited viewpoint, is full of people with a great deal of conscience as a rule.
So yes, both stories develop the characters, but I think it's similar to "Fight Club." That first idea has made Palahniuk a literary legend -- you can still find Web sites of guys who think Fight Club is some kind of religion. So he comes up with other people to target, who are easy to hate, like moms and the media, that his fan base loves to believe are just the way he portrays them.
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6 comments:
First, no insult -- I felt the same way. It was not easy to read quickly because it didn't work as a cohesive novel.
But I didn't see the Whittier's first story as a comment on stay-at-home mom's, but it was part of the soccer mom fetish some men have (that I've heard about from other people who actually watch porn). It was more of a device to set Whittier up as a sleazeball.
And I liked the journalist story. I thought of it as satire that wasn't exclusive to the media, because though I've complained specifically about reporters and their egos, I've know computer techs, filmmakers and now a nursing student or two who'd sell their mothers to get ahead.
Soccer mom fetish. Hmmm. I'll buy it, G. Just hate the prospect of the dumb, vulnerable woman idea.
I saw in the book a pervasive anti-establishment theme, which I hated. Everything was some secret or conspiracy by the man, and I never buy that stuff.
Speaking of Salon, C, there is a scathing review of this author on there — one of his other books — but the reviewer roundly trashes Chuck, with some of the very criticisms you make.
Here are the first two paragraphs:
Imagine some crappy novels. Imagine that they're all written in the same phony, repetitive, bombastic style as this paragraph, all hopped-up imperatives and posturing one-liners. Imagine that they're sloppily put together. Imagine that everything even remotely clever in them has been done before and better by someone else. Imagine that each one flaunts the kind of "research" that can be achieved by leafing through a trade magazine for 30 minutes and is riddled with grating errors. Imagine that these books traffic in the half-baked nihilism of a stoned high school student who has just discovered Nietzsche and Nine-Inch Nails. Does it hurt yet? Now, imagine that every five pages or so the author of these novels will describe something as smelling like shit or piss because the TRUTH is fucking ugly, man. Imagine that he affects to attack the shallow, simplistic, dehumanizing culture of commodity capitalism by writing shallow, simplistic, dehumanized fiction.
But, heck, why go to all the effort of imagining any of this when a new Chuck Palahniuk novel arrives at your local bookstore annually?
You can find the rest here
Then there's this:
"Chuck Palahniuk's rightful place is among literary giants. He combines the masculinity of Ernest Hemingway, the satirical bent of Juvenal and the attitude of Lenny Bruce." —Greensboro News & Record
Masculinity of Ernest Hemingway? Hehe
Oh, that's interesting. I'd give him more credit than the reviewer did, for creativity, but "posturing" is exactly the word that escaped me in my previous criticism.
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