"Today, a man called from Long Beach. He left a long message on the answeing maching, mumbling and shouting, talking fast and slow, swearing and threatening to call the police, to have you arrested.
Today is the longest day of the year - but anymore, every day is.
The weather today is increasing concern, followed by full-blown dread.
The man calling from Long Beach, he says his bathroom is missing."
And that completes the first page, and first "entry" into "Diary" the new book by Chuck Palahniuk.
Palahniuk got famous by writing "Fight Club", which got turned into such a good movie that the book itself often gets overlooked, but it shouldn't. He has an incredibly unique style, and it is instantly recognisable - in fact I bet that anyone who has read any of his other books would have picked the opening quote in a second. In fact his style is so distinct that it becomes kind of annoying, because to be honest, every Palahnuik book reads pretty much exactly the same.
The Palahniuk recipe a half dememted but somehow "everyday" person, in a rambling monologue, telling the story of how they got to a certain unusual position, normally spouting off lots of technical "how to" details of whatever particular field they happen to be an expert in. In "Fight Club" it was how to make explosives, in "Survivor" it was manners, etiquette and how to remove unusual stains, and in "Diary", it is the structures of the human body, from the perspective of a well trained portrait artist. It is a cool way to spice up a book, and you do learn things (From Fight Club, the recipe for Napalm, mixing gasoline with styrofoam was particularly memorable), probobably of dubious truth - but it also gets old, and cliched, damn fast.
So after a while, theres not really a lot of difference between "Jack" in Fight Club, telling us how to make explosives and what his half crazy mentor Tyler tells him, and Tender in Survivor telling us how to keep a good house, and what his half crazy brother tells him, and Misty in Diary telling us the details of how our face is structured ("those wrinkles on the top half of your face, the rhytides plowed across your forehead, this is dynamic wrinkling, also called hyperfunctional facial lines, caused by the movement of underlying muscles. Most wrinkles in the lower half of the face are static rhytides, caused by the sun and gravity.......") and what her half crazy teacher named Angel is telling her.
But I can't help but say, even though its pretty much the same book written many times with different characters and themes, its a damn good book being re-written, and they are always solid fun, laugh out loud reads. I still think Survivor is the best of the lot, and, Praise Be to Allah, one day it will be made into a movie. Palahniuk has a great instinct for mischief making and anti social behaviour, from the Space Monkeys of Fight Club terrorising their city, to the Porn Magazine landfill dump in Survivor, to Misty's comatose ex-husband in Diary, who had a habit while renovating peoples homes of walling off a room to make it "dissapear" and scrawling horrible insulting graffiti on the inside walls.
Anyhow, enough of that. If you liked Fight Club or any of Palahniuk's other books, and feel like reading it again with different characters in a different setting, then Diary is highly reccomended.
Today is the longest day of the year - but anymore, every day is.
The weather today is increasing concern, followed by full-blown dread.
The man calling from Long Beach, he says his bathroom is missing."
And that completes the first page, and first "entry" into "Diary" the new book by Chuck Palahniuk.
Palahniuk got famous by writing "Fight Club", which got turned into such a good movie that the book itself often gets overlooked, but it shouldn't. He has an incredibly unique style, and it is instantly recognisable - in fact I bet that anyone who has read any of his other books would have picked the opening quote in a second. In fact his style is so distinct that it becomes kind of annoying, because to be honest, every Palahnuik book reads pretty much exactly the same.
The Palahniuk recipe a half dememted but somehow "everyday" person, in a rambling monologue, telling the story of how they got to a certain unusual position, normally spouting off lots of technical "how to" details of whatever particular field they happen to be an expert in. In "Fight Club" it was how to make explosives, in "Survivor" it was manners, etiquette and how to remove unusual stains, and in "Diary", it is the structures of the human body, from the perspective of a well trained portrait artist. It is a cool way to spice up a book, and you do learn things (From Fight Club, the recipe for Napalm, mixing gasoline with styrofoam was particularly memorable), probobably of dubious truth - but it also gets old, and cliched, damn fast.
So after a while, theres not really a lot of difference between "Jack" in Fight Club, telling us how to make explosives and what his half crazy mentor Tyler tells him, and Tender in Survivor telling us how to keep a good house, and what his half crazy brother tells him, and Misty in Diary telling us the details of how our face is structured ("those wrinkles on the top half of your face, the rhytides plowed across your forehead, this is dynamic wrinkling, also called hyperfunctional facial lines, caused by the movement of underlying muscles. Most wrinkles in the lower half of the face are static rhytides, caused by the sun and gravity.......") and what her half crazy teacher named Angel is telling her.
But I can't help but say, even though its pretty much the same book written many times with different characters and themes, its a damn good book being re-written, and they are always solid fun, laugh out loud reads. I still think Survivor is the best of the lot, and, Praise Be to Allah, one day it will be made into a movie. Palahniuk has a great instinct for mischief making and anti social behaviour, from the Space Monkeys of Fight Club terrorising their city, to the Porn Magazine landfill dump in Survivor, to Misty's comatose ex-husband in Diary, who had a habit while renovating peoples homes of walling off a room to make it "dissapear" and scrawling horrible insulting graffiti on the inside walls.
Anyhow, enough of that. If you liked Fight Club or any of Palahniuk's other books, and feel like reading it again with different characters in a different setting, then Diary is highly reccomended.
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