Chuck Palahniuk is like the schizophrenic, bastard love-child of David Lynch, Edgar Allen Poe, and M. Night Shyamalan (pre-Lady in the Water), who all used hardcore porn to set the atmosphere when he was conceived.
His stories are bizarre, unique, sometimes violent (coughFightClubcough), full of surprising twists, in-your-face punchy prose with waaaaay too many details for comfort.
Palahniuk warns that Invisible Monsters "[has] more of [a] fashion magazine feel, a Vogue or Glamour magazine chaos with page numbers on every second or fifth or third page. Perfume cards falling out, and full-page naked women coming out of nowhere to sell you make-up... Don't expect to find anything right off. There isn't a real pattern to anything, either. Stories will start and then, three paragraphs later: Jump back to page whatever. Then, jump back.
This will be ten thousand fashion separates that mix and match to create maybe five tasteful outfits. A million trendy accessories...and no real clothes to wear them with...
This is the world we live in. Just go with the prompts" (p. 20-21).
Flash. The 10,000 fashion separates piece together a story of a former model turned hideously disfigured. The million accessories make up a dead gay brother, a pill-popping glamazon, an ex-boyfriend being poisoned with female hormones, nuns that fix up mangled hospital patients, and a beautiful face that was eaten by birds. Each character wants to be the star of their life, this story, and the world in general. This seems to be a reoccurring theme in Palahniuk's works and I find it a fascinating concept and a disturbing mirror. Who doesn't want to be the lead character in the story? Who looks at their friends and acquaintances as the supporting actors in their lives? Who examines circumstances in life just to further the plot and possibly make your story Oscar worthy or put on the best-seller list? I certainly don't want to admit to that.
After reading seven of Palahniuk's books I'm finding patterns that are beginning to feel a little old -- hmmm... maybe he's not just Pre-Lady in the Water M. Night afterall... In Invisible Monsters the twists an turns of the story seem less shocking/edifying and more "one of my multiple personalities, which actually turns out to be the real me, falls in love with my uncle, poisons my aunt, and conducts abortions to use fetal materials for face cream" aka plot device # 732 (alluded to in previous post). But maybe I've read too much Palahniuk in too little time.
Overall, I feel that Invisible Monsters is an adequate Chuck Palahniuk tale. That being said, his adequate is still pretty innovative and bad-ass. Although it's nowhere near as clever, horrifying, appalling, and flabbergasting as Haunted, it's also not as forced and nonsensical as Rant. Invisible Monsters still sucker-punches you in the gut and stays stuck in your head for a long time after you've finished.
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I love the originality not only with which Palahniuk writes but also his books presentation. Missing page numbers like in a magazine, that's genius! Doesn't the page numbers in Survivor count backward for some reason?
I have a confession to make. I ruined my copy of Fight Club several years ago. I was cutting paper with a pair of scissors when one of my fingers got between the closing arms. It was a bad cut, blood started dripping down my hand. I had the idea to do this before but this was my chance to try it out. I let blood collect on my hand and and then I pressed it hard on the pages. Several pages I did this to with different patterns until I, for a lack of a better term, ran out of blood. I think it really adds to what the book is about. I'd like to do this to a hardcover version and shoot the cover with a gun and then have it signed. I think Chuck would applicate it.
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