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3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
Ah, Palahniuk yet again proving he's a "guilty pleasure" of mine. I'm still thinking about how gross Cannibal is after finishing it a while ago. I could have lived without reading The Toad Prince though.
I went through a Chuck Palahniuk phase in university, which culminated in a highly memorable Edinburgh Fringe event. To celebrate the launch of Snuff, audience members at his Book Festival talk were invited to win the, ah, wonderful prize of blow up sex dolls. Alas, I went out into the world sex-doll-less, but with an abiding love of Haunted, an interlinked collection of Palahniuk's short stories. Lurking in the library this weekend (an outing inspired by my last read, Ali Smith's Public Library), I happened across another such collection and added it to my pile immediately.
Make Something Up was a very uneven read. Some of the stories have little going for them beyond shock value and/or gore ("Cannibal", "The Facts of Life", "The Toad Prince"), while some are forgettable in the extreme ("Cold Calling", "Smoke", "Liturgy", "How a Jew Saved Christmas"). "Eleanor" is essentially just a stylistic experiment. Three of the stories ("How Monkey Got Married, Bought a House and Found Happiness in Orlando", "Why Coyote Never Had Money For Parking" and "Why Aardvark Never Landed on the Moon") share a universe, told in a modern fable style. I enjoyed them, though think they'd lose a lot if the animals were just substituted with real names. The longest is also easily the best - "Inclinations" - the story of a band of boys who conspire to have themselves sent to a homosexual reformatory, only to discover their imagined holiday of hookers and steroids falls far from the mark.
Overall, this collection didn't have me wild for more, and in places was a bit of a slog, but when it was good it was brilliant.
[Review originally published on my blog at Line After Line.]
Make Something Up was a very uneven read. Some of the stories have little going for them beyond shock value and/or gore ("Cannibal", "The Facts of Life", "The Toad Prince"), while some are forgettable in the extreme ("Cold Calling", "Smoke", "Liturgy", "How a Jew Saved Christmas"). "Eleanor" is essentially just a stylistic experiment. Three of the stories ("How Monkey Got Married, Bought a House and Found Happiness in Orlando", "Why Coyote Never Had Money For Parking" and "Why Aardvark Never Landed on the Moon") share a universe, told in a modern fable style. I enjoyed them, though think they'd lose a lot if the animals were just substituted with real names. The longest is also easily the best - "Inclinations" - the story of a band of boys who conspire to have themselves sent to a homosexual reformatory, only to discover their imagined holiday of hookers and steroids falls far from the mark.
Overall, this collection didn't have me wild for more, and in places was a bit of a slog, but when it was good it was brilliant.
[Review originally published on my blog at Line After Line.]
Better than his latest novels, for sure, but some of the stories are just ... Meh. Without any energy or life in them. Some of them, on the other hand, are really good. So it's a nice read after all.
Many of these stories seem to be intended to be shocking. Maybe I'm just jaded, but none were shocking or titillating to me. But some were interesting.
This is my first experience with the author, apart from the movie adaptation of Fight Club. It wasn't what I expected based on that film. The stories are similar to what is called "Bizarro Fiction", though at least one, Expedition, is more like the New Weird Horror of Thomas Ligotti.
My favorite stories were the three that were in the style of Native American stories about Coyote, Raven, and other animals, such as "Why Coyote Never Had Money for Parking". Cultural appropriation, perhaps, but he made it into his own thing and they were fun.
At least two stories make winking references to Fight Club.
This is my first experience with the author, apart from the movie adaptation of Fight Club. It wasn't what I expected based on that film. The stories are similar to what is called "Bizarro Fiction", though at least one, Expedition, is more like the New Weird Horror of Thomas Ligotti.
My favorite stories were the three that were in the style of Native American stories about Coyote, Raven, and other animals, such as "Why Coyote Never Had Money for Parking". Cultural appropriation, perhaps, but he made it into his own thing and they were fun.
At least two stories make winking references to Fight Club.
'Prithee pay heed, the first-most rule regarding the monster is thee must nevermore speak of meeting the monster.'
The stranger continued to speak thusly in the stilted, archaic parlance of his forebearers a century ere. 'The second-most rule regarding the monster is thee must nevermore speak of meeting the monster.'
“Aim low and you won't be disappointed.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread
Plenty of shock, just not enough Palahniuk awe (3.5★).
This book is filled with two dozen of Chuck Palahniuk's short stories. 'Make Something Up' is clear evidence that Palahniuk is the king of grotesque and a sometimes master of the short story. Sometimes his prose is a bit uneven. A few lazy narrative couple trips but a couple of these stories were nearly perfect gems of disgust.
There were times when he seemed to be channeling a more disturbed version of [a:David Sedaris|2849|David Sedaris|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1213737698p2/2849.jpg] (see: 3. Monkey, 9. Coyote, 18. Aardvark). Other times he seemed to be walking instep with [a:Neil Gaiman|1221698|Neil Gaiman|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1234150163p2/1221698.jpg]. To me this is a thicker but more disappointing version a [a:George Saunders|8885|George Saunders|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1355356844p2/8885.jpg] collection. Still there is no real comparison. These stories could have only been born in Palahniuk's mind. Some of them came out ready to walk. Some limped. Some should probably been quietly aborted.
Just to clear my own ADD:
1. Knock Knock - 3★
2. Eleanor - 3★
3. How Monkey got Married... - 4★
4. Zombies - 4★
5. Loser - 3★
6. Red Sultan's Big Boy - 5★
7. Romance - 5★
8. Cannibal - Meh 3★
9. Why Coyote Never... - 3★
10. Phoenix - 4★
11. The Facts of Life - 2★
12. Cold Calling - 3★
13. The Toad Prince - 3★
14. Smoke - 5★
15. Torcher - 5★
17. Liturgy - 2★
18. Why Aardvark Never... - 4★
19. Fetch - 4★
20. Expedition - 3★
21. Mister Elegant - 4★
22. Tunnel of Love - 4★
23. Inclinations - 4★
24. How a Jew Saved Christmas - 2★
― Chuck Palahniuk, Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread
Plenty of shock, just not enough Palahniuk awe (3.5★).
This book is filled with two dozen of Chuck Palahniuk's short stories. 'Make Something Up' is clear evidence that Palahniuk is the king of grotesque and a sometimes master of the short story. Sometimes his prose is a bit uneven. A few lazy narrative couple trips but a couple of these stories were nearly perfect gems of disgust.
There were times when he seemed to be channeling a more disturbed version of [a:David Sedaris|2849|David Sedaris|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1213737698p2/2849.jpg] (see: 3. Monkey, 9. Coyote, 18. Aardvark). Other times he seemed to be walking instep with [a:Neil Gaiman|1221698|Neil Gaiman|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1234150163p2/1221698.jpg]. To me this is a thicker but more disappointing version a [a:George Saunders|8885|George Saunders|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1355356844p2/8885.jpg] collection. Still there is no real comparison. These stories could have only been born in Palahniuk's mind. Some of them came out ready to walk. Some limped. Some should probably been quietly aborted.
Just to clear my own ADD:
1. Knock Knock - 3★
2. Eleanor - 3★
3. How Monkey got Married... - 4★
4. Zombies - 4★
5. Loser - 3★
6. Red Sultan's Big Boy - 5★
7. Romance - 5★
8. Cannibal - Meh 3★
9. Why Coyote Never... - 3★
10. Phoenix - 4★
11. The Facts of Life - 2★
12. Cold Calling - 3★
13. The Toad Prince - 3★
14. Smoke - 5★
15. Torcher - 5★
17. Liturgy - 2★
18. Why Aardvark Never... - 4★
19. Fetch - 4★
20. Expedition - 3★
21. Mister Elegant - 4★
22. Tunnel of Love - 4★
23. Inclinations - 4★
24. How a Jew Saved Christmas - 2★
I had a love-hate relationship with this book. I enjoyed some of the stories and I love Palahniuk's style of writing and the fact that his work seems like he's writing it because he wants to and not because he wants to be loved. But with most of the short stories I felt like I wasn't seeing the whole picture, like I was missing something crucial. I felt like he was trying to tell us readers something but hid it between the lines so well that I just wasn't able to grasp it.
I also thought it was funny how he hinted at his own book, [b:Fight Club|5759|Fight Club|Chuck Palahniuk|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1357128997s/5759.jpg|68729], in some stories.
I definitely want to read more of his work but next time, I'd opt for a novel rather than a collection of short stories. It was nice to read a whole story in 20 mins tops (I mean... Inclinations was pretty long haha) but I always had to take a moment before dwelling into the next one, because I'm so used to reading novels now, that I just forgot the next story wasn't actually the next chapter to the previous one.
I also thought it was funny how he hinted at his own book, [b:Fight Club|5759|Fight Club|Chuck Palahniuk|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1357128997s/5759.jpg|68729], in some stories.
I definitely want to read more of his work but next time, I'd opt for a novel rather than a collection of short stories. It was nice to read a whole story in 20 mins tops (I mean... Inclinations was pretty long haha) but I always had to take a moment before dwelling into the next one, because I'm so used to reading novels now, that I just forgot the next story wasn't actually the next chapter to the previous one.
There were two or three stories here that I liked but overall it wasn't all that I'd hoped it would be. I'm think I'm a bit more into the author's novels versus his short stories, which seems to be a trend with me overall when it comes to short story collections as a general rule. If you're a fan by all means do check it out. The few stories that I really liked were worth the time spent with the other ones.
This is the first Palahniuk I've ever read. It was interesting.