Ratings6
Average rating2.8
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Chuck has done it again. When I'm reading his work, I wonder where the hell is this all going? And find myself in great need of a shower to wash the unseen filth from myself. Then I get to the end and think “Holy shit. I'm rather glad I read that.” He has a way of making one face the darkest, most grotesque parts of one's own psyche, without judgment. For many, I think they take his writing too seriously in that they get put off and don't understand that that's the whole point. You shouldn't be comfortable when you read his work. This isn't casual beach read fluff. It's meant to change you.
Maybe not forever, but for now.
If you choose to read this, you will suffer. Not forever but for now.
This is brazy because Palahniuk clearly came up with a “voice”, a “style”, and had to ram it down your throat in the first half of this novel. Just unbearably overbearing about the theming and the slang and the convoluted prose. Then at the halfway mark he's like hold on, I've overdone it and now the reader has no idea what is meaningfully happening because of it so let me strip the prose of any voice and go into pure omniscient description. And then in the last third he's sort of figured out a good balance, but most folks aren't going to get that far.
The first part of this was an exhausting and edgy slog, the middle half didn't have enough edge to carry me through it but I was too committed, and the last bits were pretty alright.
C'mon Palahniuk, let's get it together.
Also, we title-dropped way too much in the last third.