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A review by trin
Rant by Chuck Palahniuk
2.0
Yeah, I just read a Chuck Palahniuk book; I feel like I’m back in high school and should begin loudly listening to Garbage CDs and writing “I <3 Spike” all over my notebook any second now. In fairness, Palahniuk does finally seem to be breaking out of his mold at least a little; I skipped reading [b: Haunted|22288|Haunted|Chuck Palahniuk|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1391152326s/22288.jpg|1602272] because I wasn’t in the mood to be squicked, but what had been irritating me about all his previous books was that they all seemed the same. They all utilized a near-identical style of narration, just with different “choruses” thrown in. And I say this as someone who was totally obsessed with [b: Fight Club|36236124|Fight Club|Chuck Palahniuk|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1523531525s/36236124.jpg|68729] (though more the film than the book) and still gets gleeful amusement out of her memories of [b: Invisible Monsters|36236125|Invisible Monsters|Chuck Palahniuk|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1508534066s/36236125.jpg|849507]. (Which was also the book that introduced me to the concept of “felching”! Chuck, you and [a: Lauren Groff|690619|Lauren Groff|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1330389831p2/690619.jpg] need to have a word.)
Rant, presented in the style of an oral history, is not only quite different in its telling from Palahniuk’s previous books, it’s different from anything I’ve read in a long while. The myriad POVs are cool in that I always like to see characters through a variety of different perspectives. However, the character of Buster Casey, a.k.a. Rant, remains frustratingly obtuse. Palahniuk spends quite some time on his childhood, in which we are treated to lengthy descriptions of menstrual blood stains (mental category: did not need), and strangely less on his adulthood, though we do get lengthy descriptions of his ability to tell what his girlfriend last ate by licking her pussy (mental category: REALLY DID NOT NEED). Palahniuk certainly never runs out of new ways to shock and horrify. Unfortunately, that kind of thing was rather more tantalizing to me when I was in high school.
However, like I said, I really did feel like Palahniuk was stretching himself a bit here; he’s got a sort of interesting time travel plot going on, and I actually really liked the characters of Shot and Echo, and the idea of the dystopian Daytimer/Nighttimer future society. So I guess where I think this book really suffers is in the simple fact that there’s just too much going on. I mean, just on the most basic level there’s: 1) Rant’s fucked up childhood, 2) rabies outbreak, 3) party crashing, 4) future dystopia, and 5) time travel—and these never stop being rather disparate things. Worse, as I mentioned before, Rant remains a total cypher. I think this book would have worked a thousand times better if he’d felt like a real, vibrant anti-hero. Instead, we get pages and pages of Rant the cunning linguist. (Seriously, WTF? Was that supposed to be sexy? Echo seemed to think it was sexy, and otherwise, she seemed almost sensible. I have some weird kinks myself, but OMG NO.) I loved the idea Palahniuk almost seemed to be reaching for toward the end, about the ways Echo and Shot and the other party crashers would remake the world, but it’s surrounded by so much muddle. Ultimately, this felt like the first draft of what could have been a legitimately incredible novel; as-is, it’s just kind of…confusing.
Rant, presented in the style of an oral history, is not only quite different in its telling from Palahniuk’s previous books, it’s different from anything I’ve read in a long while. The myriad POVs are cool in that I always like to see characters through a variety of different perspectives. However, the character of Buster Casey, a.k.a. Rant, remains frustratingly obtuse. Palahniuk spends quite some time on his childhood, in which we are treated to lengthy descriptions of menstrual blood stains (mental category: did not need), and strangely less on his adulthood, though we do get lengthy descriptions of his ability to tell what his girlfriend last ate by licking her pussy (mental category: REALLY DID NOT NEED). Palahniuk certainly never runs out of new ways to shock and horrify. Unfortunately, that kind of thing was rather more tantalizing to me when I was in high school.
However, like I said, I really did feel like Palahniuk was stretching himself a bit here; he’s got a sort of interesting time travel plot going on, and I actually really liked the characters of Shot and Echo, and the idea of the dystopian Daytimer/Nighttimer future society. So I guess where I think this book really suffers is in the simple fact that there’s just too much going on. I mean, just on the most basic level there’s: 1) Rant’s fucked up childhood, 2) rabies outbreak, 3) party crashing, 4) future dystopia, and 5) time travel—and these never stop being rather disparate things. Worse, as I mentioned before, Rant remains a total cypher. I think this book would have worked a thousand times better if he’d felt like a real, vibrant anti-hero. Instead, we get pages and pages of Rant the cunning linguist. (Seriously, WTF? Was that supposed to be sexy? Echo seemed to think it was sexy, and otherwise, she seemed almost sensible. I have some weird kinks myself, but OMG NO.) I loved the idea Palahniuk almost seemed to be reaching for toward the end, about the ways Echo and Shot and the other party crashers would remake the world, but it’s surrounded by so much muddle. Ultimately, this felt like the first draft of what could have been a legitimately incredible novel; as-is, it’s just kind of…confusing.