"To Mick and Chick and Chimp," reads the dedication to
Chuck Palahniuk's latest book. Even though you've just cracked
the spine, the monosyllables rhyme and alliterate in a way
that already conjures in your imagination the question of who,
here (mercifully) few dare. by RICHARD SPEER -- Portland, Oregon Books information for 7/21/2004"
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In Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories, Palahniuk
proves that he's the aspiring Fear Factor and Howard
Stern of contemporary letters. In his collection of nonfiction
essays, many of them reprints of magazine pieces, the author
sends himself on extreme-sport, reality-TV-style stunts that
share with Stern's radio show a penchant for populist-geared
scatology and gross-out imagery. Anal dildos that smell like
stale shit, waiters who blow various wads onto customers'
meals, men afflihere (mercifully) few dare. by RICHARD SPEER -- Portland, Oregon Books information for 7/21/2004"
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If spending 233 pages immersed in a cesspool is your idea
of smart, snappy summer reading, Stranger than Fiction
is for you. Likewise, if you're one of those Chuckophiles
who's convinced that every zany thing the author does is
way-totally-fuckin'-cool, you'll get off on his gonzo
adventures at a bull gonad-eating festival in Montana. But
dude, you'll friggin' piss yourself when you read about his
awesomely rad idea to dress up with a friend in bear and dog
costumes and run through the streets of Seattle just to see if
the cops will chase 'em.
If these sundry charms fail to amuse you, however, you'll
quhere (mercifully) few dare. by RICHARD SPEER -- Portland, Oregon Books information for 7/21/2004"
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Fight Club. In one chapter, he mentions the book three
times within four paragraphs in completely unrelated contexts:
first citing a young male fan who pulled him aside in a
bookstore; second referencing how Fight Club reminded
Hollywood studio execs of things they'd done as teenagers; and
lastly placing Fight Club in the tradition of
"transgressive novels" like American Psycho and
Trainspotting.
Palahniuk also loves to talk about Brad Pitt, star of the
Fight Club movie: Brad's lips, Brad's teeth, and the
things Brad said to him on the film set. In other chapters,
the starstruck author interviews actress Juliette Lewis,
cultural commentator Andrew Sullivan and singer Marilyn
Manson, letting his subjects hold vapidly forth and makhere (mercifully) few dare. by RICHARD SPEER -- Portland, Oregon Books information for 7/21/2004"
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This is not to say there aren't passages in which Palahniuk
drops the fawning and the posturing and actually expresses
real thoughts and real pain. In the book's introduction, he
speaks with wisdom and candor to the bipolarities of
loneliness and sociability in the writer's life. In "The
People Can" he offers an insightful look at life aboard a
nuclear submarine. In "The Lady," he gives one of the most
succinctly brilliant descriptions ever written of any
character by any author: "Ina is German and sensible. Her idea
of expressing emotion is to light another cigarette."
Occasionally he sprinkles illuminating references to Jung,
Kierkegaard, and Heidegger into otherwise sophomoric prose,
and he concludes the book with an affecting account of his
father's murder.
But even these passages are held hostage to Palahniuk's
minimalist mannerisms, which had a novel ring eight years ago
but have since threaded bare. In "You Are Here," he repeats a
here (mercifully) few dare. by RICHARD SPEER -- Portland, Oregon Books information for 7/21/2004"
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It's telling, finally, when Palahniuk interviews Manson,
that it's the eccentric singer who confesses, "The only fear I
have left is the fear of not being able to create, of not
having inspiration." With nothing to prove, the androgynous
rocker drops his guard and yearns for a muse, while the
pseudo-macho man of letters, his notebook full of fragments,
looks for inspiration in a zit, a shit and a bull's balls.
Originally published on
WEDNESDAY, 7/21/2004
here (mercifully) few dare. by RICHARD SPEER -- Portland, Oregon Books information for 7/21/2004"
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