palahniuk.

[shoeless]

there's only so much of him i can take, and i really can't decide anymore whether i love him or whether he's just brainwashing me.

i read choke first, and my mind was blown, because through all the nihilistic bullshit there was really a big sense of hope that i just loved. i read fight club shortly thereafter, and i thought, what the fuck, this is the exact same book, why am i reading this. but i read it slowly enough that it sucked me in, and i recently saw the movie for the first time -- and my mind was blown for much the same reason. (also brad pitt was a sexy motherfucker.)

then i read diary. and i have no fucking idea what i can say about this book, because about half the time it made me want to throw up and the other half the time it made me want to hitchhike to some random german city and start my life as a homeless starving artist.

so far that's all i've read.

so what do you fellers think?

 

[Alexk]

I'm not a big reader, but I have read rant and watched the choke and fight club adaptations. If you feel nihilism is bullshit then maybe Chuck isn't for you, as much of his writing has nihilistic undertones. Although I feel you should give the nihilism a chance, not to necessarily agree with it, but to gain an understanding of what it means. It's not all "we don't believe in stuff."

Personally I love Palahniuk even though I've developed ideas that have changed my once nihilistic attitude.

 

[Jah]

Palahniuk seems to me to regurgitate much of the same concepts and ideas throughout all his work. Fight Club is my favorite of his work.
Though it does have a lot of nihilistic sides, and all his work seems to be lounging out against our "false" ideals and consumerism. Always introducing an Anarchistic youth, in some form, and a few other, easily recognizable archetypes.

It seems, as alexk seems to say, more like an introduction to nihilistic views which we should all at some point digest and move beyond.
Palahniuk is a great introduction to destructive and paradigm-challenging views of nihilism, but most of us should be reading this in our teen years, and then move on. Leaving the nihilist as a temporary view we take to better understand the world we live in.


Sum it up; I believe Palahniuk is great reading for young rebelling teens, and not a representative of a view we are better off by clinging on to as we grow older and develop our moralistic views to envelop deeper understandings. (Now I'm regurgitating stuff I've already written so it's time to move on)

 

[AlisaD]

Read Haunted, please.

I like all of his books, I like the stile, I enjoy nihilism as a sort of a hobby, and I just love the completely grotesque details his books seem to be swarming with. All in all - great fun.

But Haunted is a different story, for me at least. Don't know if anyone read it, but hell, that book shook me up. And I'm generally not and easy person to shake.

It found some parts really, really disgusting, but the general idea was so fucking unbelievably brilliant that it left me completely speechless.

 

[speiss]

I've read three of his books, I think, but not fight club. I read all of them in one shot though, and it was all in the beginning of last year. I read Choke, Lullaby and Diary, and all of them were all very delightfully unpredictable, and books that were difficult to put down. Some parts were kind of, I don't know, disconcerting. Like I said, I don't remember much. Choke was definitely interesting -- especially the crazy doctor that turned out to be a mental patient, WHO I actually believed was from the future for a time. Then of course she came back, unable to find her little time warp or whatever.

Most of it was read when I was 13, so.. I.. my memory is hazy. But I do remember liking him a lot.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

I have read fight club and another of his work. I like them both.

 

[Silas]

Damn I knew there'd be spoilers! *glares at speiss*.
I've read Rant, that was just, magical as a starting Palahniuk book, advanced so well and was quite hypnotic. (splurges more appreciation). Invisible Mosters was amazingly well written, jawdropping at the end, I was just left astounded at how well everything came together and in such a rich and to me intricate, almost luxurious manner.

Haunted was next I think, and again it was just so well put together , the gory details compelling. Such a brilliant idea.
I read Fight Club after that which left me feeling like something was missing, as I felt like I'd heard all the nihilism far too similarly in Invisible Monsters, but still great (and unusually informative, especially regarding explosives). Who knows, I may have been tainted by the film.
Lullaby was realllly good ( you must be getting tired of my banal adjectives by now), though like his other books, seemed to trundle along until the middle, then improved exponentially,
Survivor, was classic Palahniuk. And I'm yet to read the rest.
I agree the nihilism does seem far too similar when reading one after the other.

 

[the internet]

overrated

 

[wires]

I'm generally a fan. Diary was my worst favorite of his. Fight Club is good, but certainly not his best. I've never read Choke.

Personally, I consider Rant, Survivor and Haunted his best works (that I've read, at least). As for whether the nihilism can be overwhelming- I'm a bit of a nihilist myself (in that I believe in humans as an otherwise meaningless scientific coincidence, rather than having purpose).

I'm soon to read Pygmy, which I like the idea of but haven't even touched as of yet, mostly because I'm in the middle of reading Walden, God Is Not Great, Future Shock and the Way of the World... It seems like a bad idea to read too many books at once, haha.

 

[Mr.W]

He writes like an angsty kid who sets up situations mostly for shock value rather than substance.

overrated

/Thread.

 

[Ninjamanda]

I thought the book Survivor was awesome. It's about the last remaining member of a cult. It's a bit disturbing and it has dark humor but thats why I liked it. Also, the pages are numbered backwards .