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mnapoleon's review against another edition
4.0
Started a little slow but eventually it got "good". Odd story that at times felt like a zombie story, at others a sub-culture tale and lastly a story about time travel.
cheeseballs's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore
jwall0804's review against another edition
dark
funny
informative
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Wild ride. Crazy characters and scenarios but that’s kinda the point.
bigvegannerd's review against another edition
5.0
Probably my favorite book of all time.
Funny, devastating, disgusting, heartbreaking.
Rant’s story is told by people who have loved, hated, supported, and questioned him. It’s such a unique format, detailing some absolutely wild and unhinged debauchery that somehow makes us, at times, sympathetic to Rant.
I come back to this book from time to time. It’s a perfect combination of drama, sci-fi, comedy, and satire.
“By the time you read this, you’ll be older than you remember.”
Funny, devastating, disgusting, heartbreaking.
Rant’s story is told by people who have loved, hated, supported, and questioned him. It’s such a unique format, detailing some absolutely wild and unhinged debauchery that somehow makes us, at times, sympathetic to Rant.
I come back to this book from time to time. It’s a perfect combination of drama, sci-fi, comedy, and satire.
“By the time you read this, you’ll be older than you remember.”
squeeze's review against another edition
4.0
Chuck Palahniuk is one twisted motherfucker. Especially wild read in a post Covid world
knsaph's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
millennial_dandy's review against another edition
3.0
"Maybe this is how any religious figure gets created." (p.312)
There's probably no better way to explain this novel than to analogize it with its Goodreads review section (look at us: getting meta already!). If you read through a range of reviews, you'll get a sense of what this novel is about. Probably. Maybe. Because, just as Palahniuk points out in choosing oral biography as his weapon of choice to deliver his plot, even if two people experience the same thing, they aren't going to remember it the same way; certain aspects of what happened may be in sharp focus for one person, but blurry for another. And they could also just be wrong about what they think they remember. And even if they remember the same details, how they felt about those details could be completely different.
"You could argue that we constantly change the past, whether or not we actually go back. I close my eyes, and the Rant Casey I picture isn't the real person. The Rant I tell you about is filtered and colored and distorted through me." (p.313)
And that's the strength of 'Rant.' You read the whole thing knowing that the only things you'll know for sure at the end are a few of the broad strokes (maybe). Namely: there was (probably) a guy named Buster 'Rant' Casey, who (seemingly) was really into a variety of wacky things that may or may not have included baiting various animals to bite him--a hobby that appears to have led to a rabies epidemic because he might have gotten around a lot.
You may be surprised to know, given his positioning as the subject of interest of this oral history, that this novel is decidedly not about its titular character. Rant's bizarre life is just the excuse to talk about a ton of dense, 'big brain' topics.
We get a plague-riddled dystopia, we get 'internet bad,' we get state-sanctioned segregation along sunlight lines (the Nighttimers are the 'degenerates' and the Daytimers are the normies), we get an exploration of capitalism, of counter-culture. And then there's the time travel.
There's a lot going on.
Palahniuk definitely went into 'Rant' with something (well, as we've established, a few things) to say, but were they all equally interesting? Maybe not in their totality.
Palahniuk's take on time travel felt anticlimactic given how self-satisfied he seemed by his own conclusion of 'time is a social construct, actually.' As though this were something no one had ever thought of before. In fact, a lot of his individual threads felt a bit like that to me.
Now, there were a few that I thought worked. I don't think he had anything new to say about the inherent unreliability of memory, but I at least enjoyed the novelty of his oral history format; it served that end quite nicely.
I also enjoyed his musings about the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, etc. and how/whether they impact a child's worldview as an adult.
But he doesn't just leave it there. He goes on to have, stewing in the background and occasionally the foreground, an examination of how imagination and faith can sometimes become toxic, and he seems to indicate that this toxicity culminates in religion.
"Maybe people don't travel back in time. Maybe its lies like that, anything that smells better than the idea of death [...] it's those kind of sexy lies that set up world religions. Maybe Rant is just dead. [...] How weird is that? Instead of a biography, this story will become fiction. A factual historical artifact documenting something that never happened." (p.312-313)
Again, it's not that the process of mythologizing of real historical figures/events is some stunning new insight that no one has ever had before, but he definitely presents it in a style all his own, complete with a (quite literally) rabid Jesus. And given his legions of fans, maybe this is the format a lot of people want to get that insight from, and that's cool. Different strokes and all that.
I could have done without the used tampon sniffing, though. Try as I might, I can't make that make sense, and I'm not sure I want to.
There's probably no better way to explain this novel than to analogize it with its Goodreads review section (look at us: getting meta already!). If you read through a range of reviews, you'll get a sense of what this novel is about. Probably. Maybe. Because, just as Palahniuk points out in choosing oral biography as his weapon of choice to deliver his plot, even if two people experience the same thing, they aren't going to remember it the same way; certain aspects of what happened may be in sharp focus for one person, but blurry for another. And they could also just be wrong about what they think they remember. And even if they remember the same details, how they felt about those details could be completely different.
"You could argue that we constantly change the past, whether or not we actually go back. I close my eyes, and the Rant Casey I picture isn't the real person. The Rant I tell you about is filtered and colored and distorted through me." (p.313)
And that's the strength of 'Rant.' You read the whole thing knowing that the only things you'll know for sure at the end are a few of the broad strokes (maybe). Namely: there was (probably) a guy named Buster 'Rant' Casey, who (seemingly) was really into a variety of wacky things that may or may not have included baiting various animals to bite him--a hobby that appears to have led to a rabies epidemic because he might have gotten around a lot.
You may be surprised to know, given his positioning as the subject of interest of this oral history, that this novel is decidedly not about its titular character. Rant's bizarre life is just the excuse to talk about a ton of dense, 'big brain' topics.
We get a plague-riddled dystopia, we get 'internet bad,' we get state-sanctioned segregation along sunlight lines (the Nighttimers are the 'degenerates' and the Daytimers are the normies), we get an exploration of capitalism, of counter-culture. And then there's the time travel.
There's a lot going on.
Palahniuk definitely went into 'Rant' with something (well, as we've established, a few things) to say, but were they all equally interesting? Maybe not in their totality.
Palahniuk's take on time travel felt anticlimactic given how self-satisfied he seemed by his own conclusion of 'time is a social construct, actually.' As though this were something no one had ever thought of before. In fact, a lot of his individual threads felt a bit like that to me.
Now, there were a few that I thought worked. I don't think he had anything new to say about the inherent unreliability of memory, but I at least enjoyed the novelty of his oral history format; it served that end quite nicely.
I also enjoyed his musings about the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, etc. and how/whether they impact a child's worldview as an adult.
A child who is never coached with Santa Claus may never develop an ability to imagine. To him, nothing exists but the literal and tangible. A child who is disillusioned abruptly, by his peers or siblings, being ridiculed for his faith and imagination, may choose never to believe in anything [...] To never trust or wonder. But the child who relinquishes the illusions [...] may come away with the most important skill set. That child may recognize the strength of his own imagination and faith." (p.63)
But he doesn't just leave it there. He goes on to have, stewing in the background and occasionally the foreground, an examination of how imagination and faith can sometimes become toxic, and he seems to indicate that this toxicity culminates in religion.
"Maybe people don't travel back in time. Maybe its lies like that, anything that smells better than the idea of death [...] it's those kind of sexy lies that set up world religions. Maybe Rant is just dead. [...] How weird is that? Instead of a biography, this story will become fiction. A factual historical artifact documenting something that never happened." (p.312-313)
Again, it's not that the process of mythologizing of real historical figures/events is some stunning new insight that no one has ever had before, but he definitely presents it in a style all his own, complete with a (quite literally) rabid Jesus. And given his legions of fans, maybe this is the format a lot of people want to get that insight from, and that's cool. Different strokes and all that.
I could have done without the used tampon sniffing, though. Try as I might, I can't make that make sense, and I'm not sure I want to.
actuallyjulia's review against another edition
5.0
Not surprisingly, this book is pretty dark and depressing if interpreted the right way. That being said, it really makes you think about some deep and scary topics that you probably wouldn’t have otherwise, and that’s what I think makes a book a good one.