Old Chuck VS. New Chuck

I definitely prefer the older works, but I did enjoy Rant. As they say, you spend your whole life writing your first book/album/whatever, and after that you're cranking them out one per year.

I do wish he'd slow down a bit, maybe do some more nonfiction collections, and then get back into form.

I just finished Lullaby last night, I liked it, but it definitely wasn't my favorite of his books.
I really enjoyed Choke and Fight Club.
Fight Club is probably my favorite of the books I've read, but I recently read Diary, and I loved it.
There are things about his old way of writing that I liked, but I like things about his new style.
I don't think one style is better than the other, just different.

I prefer older, still ploughing through Pygmy. But when I recommend Chuck to friends, I get them hooked with any of the first four, and when I think they're ready--boom--hit them with Rant. One of his best, thoroughly underrated imo.

I understand what people mean by comparing Old Chuck to New Chuck, and yes his writing style has changed, but I don't think its a bad thing. I enjoy the fact that his work is changing. Pygmy was brilliant and one of my favorite books because it was so different, yes I had to read it twice but still. The fact that his work has started to diversify and go different directions is good. If I wanted to read a book that was like Fight Club or Choke, I would just reread those books. But I don't, I want something different and new. I do love old Chuck with a passion above all else, don't get me wrong, but if he kept writing the same thing people would get bored with his work, and Chuck would get bored writing it.

As for getting a book every year this isn't something he scrambles to do. He has several stories in the works at all times and generally he decides he likes one more than another and runs with it. He slows himself down to a book a year so he doesn't rush things.

[SPOILERS]

I couldn't get into Rant. I thought Snuff was utter shit. I didn't even consider touching Pygmy, nor will I touch Tell-All. I've pretty much lost a lot of respect for him with this book a year business. Every April or May there is a new book. Like Mike said, he needs to slow down. There is something special about looking forward to a book that takes a while to come. There is nothing special about expecting one to come out every year in April or May.

I don't mind his dealing with identity issues, it might be a repeated theme, but it was done with completely unique characters each time (referring to the first four books). They really only share that they are in some way eccentric, maybe a little nuts. What I want him to get away from is this 'super shocking twist' business. Every book has to take some crazy turn at the end. In Fight Club, it was brilliant. In Choke, it was minor, but I sure didn't expect the nurse to be a patient. In Invisible Monsters, I saw it coming the whole time, I knew it was her brother. In Snuff... it was just ridiculous. It was too extreme and just boring. I'm over giving his new books a chance. When he writes one and a few key people around here rave about it, then I'll read another Palahniuk book.

what's this one book a year thing ?
the man writes like three or four books a year ha

i was thinking
the man cant not write a novel. so many people will say they are through with chuck or whatever, but theyll be back. snuff was a filthy little book, somewhat enjoyable but certainly not worth taking seriously ha and i just downright didnt like choke, even though the novel was constructed very well.. i didnt like victor; all that dude did was complain. (i did like denny, though.) but ive enjoyed all of his work.

i remember when haunted came out, there were many members here who were pissed. they kept wanting to read survivor for the first time again. and after haunted, many new members came who fell in love with chuck's work after reading haunted. e.g., the lovely imke

i became a fan of fight club halfway through the movie.
i became a fan of survivor when i read it. i became a fan of invisible monsters when i read it.
i became a fan of chuck when i read lullaby.

my woman became a fan when she read diary.

new fans flock here after each new release. all of his books are very different. i mean, seriously, there were stacks of novels at the local barnes store--in this red state--about an oral biography [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER] of a serial killer who got his rocks off by being bit by rabid animals and car crashing and time traveling filled with pussy plug talk and yadda yadda. that's fucking insane. just stack after stack, an impressive display.

that was like nothing ive ever seen.
AND the book did not disappoint !

pygmy certainly brought a new fan base, and it might be my favorite of his books. and tell-all is gonna bring an even wider fan base, i have no doubt. chuck can literally write about anything and you feel immersed while reading it. i wish chuck a long, fruitful life.. that said, i hope i outlive him and his full collection of books comes out, because i wanna read them all before i croak.

that said, yeah..
chuck's probably my favorite writer right now. i think baer's a superior writer. i think clevenger is even better. steve erickson. cormac mccarthy had two incredible books, the writing just devours you. but the work is so far apart, it's reliable entertainment when it publishes. i love my chuck fix once a year. he's one of those very rare authors who became a millionaire and still reinvents himself every single year. bret ellis doesnt do that. nobody does that. i think vonne was the only author to do close to that. i mean, there have been authors with a lot of output. like donald westlake. he has something like seventy-six novels, all good. but how many were continuation novels. how many had the same characters? et cetera.

let's run the gambit..
im -a story written in the design of a glamor magazine
survivor -told through the little black box
fight club -identity crisis, told through a narrator through a narrator
diary -told through a coma diary
lullaby -a story about a culling song but constructed like a newspaper article
haunted -told through various writers of stories and poems at a writer's retreat, like a workshop--his fucked up version of the canterbury tales
rant -told as an oral biography
snuff -written through the form of a live action porno
pygmy -told through the broken speech of a teenage 3rd world country terrorist

he'll keep changing the book. it's hard not being a fan of that.

chuck seems to be stuck in pushing some envelope that no one but him is aware needs moving. experimental fiction is fine with me, and so is tinkering with voice. but these are things chuck seems to put paramount to the actual story now. with the exception of RANT, all of his books post lullaby seem to be gimmick over actual skill as a writer.

hey Jkabol I've been looking for some good books to read. I recently found out who Craig Clevenger and plan on reading his books over the summer. But who's Baer? what's his full name? And you mentioned cormac mccarthy had "two incredible books". What are the titles of those books? I really want to read some good books and your post interested me. If you could name some of those good books it would be great. Thanks!~

baer, will christopher

This is what I liked about TELL ALL. Although short, I have to admit that I did enjoy the fact that it wasn't a shock contest. It was more mature. What's funny is that this traditional take on writing is probably his most experimental to date in comparison to his body of work.

WHOA WHOA WHOA
brandon.tietz you read Tell-All? I thought its going to be released in May?

Yep...advanced copy.

there are a few of my thoughts here:

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000009/suggestions-please#comment-22395...

i spent like an hour on my post.

the two mccarthy books are the road and blood meridian.

as for baer, get the trilogy, but make certain [if you cant locate an omnibus] that you get the hard cover of hells half acre, because the softcover cuts out the last chapter for some unknown reason. (that chapter is one of my woman's favorite chapters of any book.)

baer is incredible. a very visual writer, but the work is tight, harsh. hard as granite and about as soft as crushed glass.

S P O I L E R

looking forward to an opinion on act ii scene i haha when the hell did chuck become a grammarian? that was way more precise than i expected. i prefer the way baer shotgunned the movie scene in chapter twenty-two of hells half acre; but, that chapter of tell-all was quite visual and fun. the entire book had me immersed. it seems there's nothing chuck cant write.

dude. phil, seriously. why is there a penguin as your avatar? i need to start calling you stan. you love him. dontcha? just gut wrenching, just l o o o o v e him.

What it is, though, is that Chuck is clearly a clever guy, and Survivor is a fucking grand book, so I'll never be able to hate on Chuck too much. My problem with what he seems to be doing is that for all his experimentation, he's still stuck in a formula:

shock value + unpleasant characters = profit!!!!

I tried reading Pygmy and I just didn't get it. No, it's not very hard to read, but it's hard to see what he was trying to do. Was he just bored? If so, fine. But if he was really trying to do something great, then I don't think he succeeded.

That's the thing: He keeps trying to reinvent himself, but he's doing it in a way that keeps things the same. He's trying out new forms, but not new content, like changing outfits but staying the same person. And that's not a reprehensible crime, but eventually it gets a bit dull to read.

"Guts", no matter what anyone has tried to tell me to this day, remains a repulsive story with no qualities that I could consider redeeming. Ever SINCE "Guts" he's been pushing and pushing and it's just boring.

I do think he'll manage to make a comeback, though. He's very good at satire. Survivor proves that, and I feel that he could outdo Survivor if he tried... it would certainly be more up my street than the stuff he does nowadays.

Chuck was never the reason that I started to read, or the reason I started to write, or anything like that, so he means much less to me than he does to many other Culties. To some people here, he really kick-started their writing life, or even their READING life... ay, Jesus, no mames! Not so for me, and thus I was able to "outgrow" my infatuation with him quite quickly.

I don't look down on anybody for LOVING LOVING LOVING Chuck, but I do get sad for those who never seem to move beyond him. Even if Chucks stays your favorite author, why not try something COMPLETELY different for a few months?

Kabol, your love of Chuck seems to be exactly the kind of author-love that I feel for other writers, so I wouldn't even think of trying to piss on that. I'd certainly read Chuck over Baer But then, you read way more than just Chuck --- whereas some of the peepz who come in and out of here don't seem to. That's really unfortunate. You can get Chuck-thrills and Faulkner-thrills at the same time; it doesn't have to be one or the other.

This is a small glimmer of hope.

And I hate that I so heartily disagree with Kabol here. Not that I don't respect you opinions, they just differ a lot from mine. I like baer, but I don't think he's anything to rave about. I preferred PD to KMJ, but I still haven't read HHA. As for the Road. I thought it was utterly boring.