This dude really doesn't like Chuck...

That guy is hilarious. I'm buying everything on his hate list!

People bother me...

[QUOTE=jzk87]That guy is hilarious. I'm buying everything on his hate list![/QUOTE]

Yeah, even funnier is his list [URL=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/2BY5KMJ912TI5/ref=cm_aya_av.lm_more/104-2096980-0367959]The Greatest Works of Literary Modernity[/URL]. He should take his own advice that he gives about [I]Ulysses,[/I]

[I]Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean that it isn't as good as a literary work could possibly be. Pure bliss to read and re-read; 100X better than Shakespeare; forever fresh.[/I]

My experience has been when people say stuff like that about [I]Ulysses[/I] they're trying to impress you with how smart they are and how dumb you are. What a fucking poser.

Heh. His list of "Intense, intelligent music" contains 5 T-Rex albums. Now, I [b]love[b] T-Rex precisely becuase their music is simple, light, throw-away bubble gum pop; there is nothing intense or intelligent about it.

How do you rate a reviewer on Amazon? This pretentious hippy needs to bee knocked-down a bit.

"A novelist", my ass.

Hey, I'm a pretensious hippie, and I really resent getting lumped in with that asshole. Please apologize.

[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]Heh. His list of "Intense, intelligent music" contains 5 T-Rex albums. Now, I [b]love[b] T-Rex precisely becuase their music is simple, light, throw-away bubble gum pop; there is nothing intense or intelligent about it.

How do you rate a reviewer on Amazon? This pretentious hippy needs to bee knocked-down a bit.

"A novelist", my ass.[/QUOTE]

there's like stars at the top you can click on or something.

how can you put films on your "best" list that you admit you haven't watched yet?

I figured out how to rate his lists; I wanna know how to rate _him_.

I really wanna read his "novel"... Any one who indicates so frequently that he didn't particularly understand the Kafka and Joyce books he put on his list is so obviously putting them on because he thinks that he is supposed to. Finnegan's Wake: "This book isn't meant to be understood, but READ!" Bullshit. I've read, understood, and enjoyed the fuck out of all of Joyce's books. Sure, some of them a a tad difficult, but that doesn't make them impenetrable.

And he admits to not having seen half the films on his "Best movies ever" list. Someone go get Bohoinkie. This guy needs to be called a Douchenozzle.

[QUOTE=Tuffy the Dump Truck]I really wanna read his "novel"...[/QUOTE]

I can pretty much extrapolate what it'll be like from his attitudes towards any kind of fiction that's even remotely popular.

I'll bet this novel:

1. Is a "work in progress";

2. Has been written and re-written over a period of about five years, with this guy sweating blood over each and every sentence;

3. Has no plot whatsoever and exists only to show off some piece of philosophy or other;

4. Finds its way into every goddamn conversation this guy has;

5. Sucks. Big time.

Fair guess, I'd say.

That's my list.

No, but really, the guy is a poster-child for irritating literary pretension. I can't imagine putting that much energy into running down a publishing writer. It's like something out of The World According to Garp. Maybe this guy has cut his tongue out in protest of Chuck's work and is writing this stuff because he can't talk.

There's lots of publishing writers I don't like to read. So I don't read them. Big deal.

Oh, and as far as Kafka being on his good list. The Trial is one of the most flawed works in the Kafka library, in my view. It ties with The Castle for chief among the manuscripts that Max Brod should have burned as instructed.

And yeah, I just added everything on the hate list that I haven't read to my wish list.

[QUOTE=jzk87]That guy is hilarious. I'm buying everything on his hate list![/QUOTE]

I wouldn't buy the Henry Rollins Poetry book. I flipped through it and totally agree with the dude. I can't really comment on his other opinions because I haven't read a lot of the "trash" he has listed...

Of the ones I have read, Chuck's especially, it seems like he's just jealous. I wish he would elaborate more, because his opinions are too swift and trite to take seriously.

And I hate Kafka... He is totally boring.

[QUOTE=sevenblu]And I hate Kafka... He is totally boring.[/QUOTE]
C'mon, Kafka's not boring. Okay, there are definitely pacing issues, in many ways he's writing riddles, essays, and catch-22's. But nothing of his was published while he was alive, and he told his 'friend' Max Brod to burn the stuff upon his death. Brod turned Judas on him, claiming he asked the one person who could never burn the manuscripts. Personally, I think Brod's ego got the best of him.

Anyway, I've struggled my way through the Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle, and I have to wonder how much is lost in translation. I'm sure some translators do more 'editing' than others. Remember Chuck's comment that it takes him something like 30 drafts before he'll even show something to his agent? Kafka was probably serious about that burning thing.

I burned a 682 page manuscript of a novel I'd spent two years on because it sucked so bad I was afraid some relative or friend would see it and know how awful it is. It takes a lot of time to burn that much paper in a Weber Kettle. Now I work the way Jonathan Lethem does, everything's on disk, everything get's overwritten by the revisions.

Only trouble is, I may need more like 300 revisions before I'd show anything to an agent.

I think Kafka would have burned the things himself if he really want to get rid of them... It was a cheap ploy to get published.

Anyway... I threw out all my poetry and my novel and about 10 years worth of writing because I actually took the time to learn a little about the craft and realize I sucked. Now I have more incentive to write better...

Anyway, I didn't "burn" them. I merely tossed them in the trash and let some Mexicans haul my life away in a dumptrack. I suppose they are rotting in a landfill somewhere. (The manuscipts; not the Mexicans).

---

Kafka is probably lost in translation. Maybe that's why I dislike him so.

the [I]Metamorphosis[/I] was among the stories Kafka had published during his life time (he also had [I]The Judgement[/I], [I]A Hunger Artist[/I] and a few others published too, about five).

Kafka isn't boring, at least all of the time, and he's sometimes a little hard too read (due to translations and how most of what has been published wasn't complete).

[I]The Trial[/I] and [I]The Castle[/I] are two of the most influential works of the twentieth century, helped to define the modern literature movement (aswell as modern life), and they're pretty good reads too.

Brod did the right thing by not burning those books.

I figured it out. This guy was in T-Rex.

Seriously, though, I don't normally take too much offense to someone slamming on something I like. It's irritating, but it's an opinion. The thing that bugs me is that he singled out everything (I think) by Chuck. Does Chuck some ongoing feud with...T-Rex?

[QUOTE=sevenblu]I think Kafka would have burned the things himself if he really want to get rid of them... It was a cheap ploy to get published.

Anyway... I threw out all my poetry and my novel and about 10 years worth of writing because I actually took the time to learn a little about the craft and realize I sucked. Now I have more incentive to write better...

Anyway, I didn't "burn" them. I merely tossed them in the trash and let some Mexicans haul my life away in a dumptrack. I suppose they are rotting in a landfill somewhere. (The manuscipts; not the Mexicans).

---

Kafka is probably lost in translation. Maybe that's why I dislike him so.[/QUOTE]
I burned my manuscript instead of throwing it away because it was more fun and self-indulgent than simply throwing it away. But I dig what you're saying about learning from those embarrassing first steps.

I think a lot of people (including the guy who hates Chuck) don't realize how much self criticism and practice goes into being good at writing (or anything else). I remember John Irving's Jenny Fields character in The World According to Garp, a line about how her typewriter went non-stop when she wrote her book because she knew nothing about the quiet act of revision.

Oh, and stuff doesn't rot in a modern landfill. They have to compact and seal stuff up so well to meet regulation, that nothing biodegrades. Which means your manuscript will be unearthed by archaeologists thousands of years from now, translated from English and taken as an example of the quality of literature in our times. . .

No, I don't think Brod should have burned Kafka's stuff, but I think the request was sincere.

Damn. Thank God I'll be dead before the critics tear it apart.

the funniest thing is he put irrevirsible as the #1 movie ever

[QUOTE=jzk87]That guy is hilarious. I'm buying everything on his hate list![/QUOTE]

Yeah, I'm definitly going to do some research on the books on his least favorite book list, they seem pretty interesting.

The dude has a new Chuck-bashing list on Amazon!!!!!! What a dick!!!!!!!

[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/J87S1SNUKPI/ref=cm_aya_av.lm_more/104-8818827-7838330[/url]

Again kids, that email of his is: [email]j-suglia@northwestern.edu[/email]

I confirmed it's the same guy.

Anyone who's bored, having a shite day and wants to participate in a little e-transferrence... fire away!

What the fuck is that guys problem? He is probably upset that Chuck has been at this for just over 10 years and his has all these books published and this guys has been working on one book for 10 years and still isn't published.

[QUOTE=PGoutis01]What the fuck is that guys problem? He is probably upset that Chuck has been at this for just over 10 years and his has all these books published and this guys has been working on one book for 10 years and still isn't published.[/QUOTE]

He has a book coming out next year, I know that much.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]He has a book coming out next year, I know that much.[/QUOTE]

I'm sorry to hear that.

What bugs me is that this person obviously doesn't understand the symbolism and/or how the style of writing is another way of portraying the characters and mood. So if the writing style isn't just like what we learned in school, it's idiotic. Okay, now I'm pissed. I gotta get an email out.

I just read all of this morons lists. it was like a trainwreck, or heroin: so sad, so damaging that you just can't stop. the strangest thing is, he was occasionally right, but for the wrong reason: it becomes obvious that he was right completely by coincidence. like the kafka: kafka was a great writer, but he is on that list not because this dick actually likes kafkas writing, but because he recognizes the cultural tendency to cannonize kafka, and wants to follow.

[QUOTE=PGoutis01]I'm sorry to hear that.[/QUOTE]

I was glad, it was very encouraging for me and my own work.

Really, the guy is getting published??? I guess it's true that anyone can get published. But of the 50,000 or so books the industry releases in a month, how many take off? A lot of it is entirely based on luck.

But hey, it's art. I think Metallica sucks, I don't even like them among heavy metal bands. Obviously a substantial number of people don't share that assessment. Not that I'd go to the trouble to post Amazon reviews trashing their stuff. Whatever blows your hair back. I don't get where this guy comes from with spending such effort to pose as a literary authority with the apparent desire of scaring people away from some good books.

The best thing that could happen to Chuck or any of us if we get published, is to get banned. Look at the boost that censorship gave to the logenvity of Henry Miller, J.D. Salinger, etc. Maybe this guy can get high school libraries to ban Choke, Surivivor, maybe the Contortionist's Handbook for good measure.

What gets me is this guy is an assistant professor at Northwestern and is acting like a pissed of highschool kid, that's what I find funny.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]But hey, it's art. I think Metallica sucks, I don't even like them among heavy metal bands. Obviously a substantial number of people don't share that assessment. Not that I'd go to the trouble to post Amazon reviews trashing their stuff. Whatever blows your hair back. I don't get where this guy comes from with spending such effort to pose as a literary authority with the apparent desire of scaring people away from some good books.[/QUOTE]

There's a difference between not liking Metallica, and not liking Metallica and buying all their albums and listening to them so you can warn other people to stay away from them.

This has probably been mentioned, but I'm STILL wondering why he has this target so specifically for Chuck. Like Spike said about the Metallica thing, buying the albums just to warn people, why go to the trouble? Did this guy go to one of Chuck's readings and Chuck ignored him or something? It's not even the fact that this guy hates Chuck's, and Chuck himself, it seems, but more that he's spending all this time attacking him. That's just bizarre, and pathetic. Like most people have mentioned, everyone's entitled to their opinions, that's fine, I'm just wondering about the "why" of it...Now that I think about it, it's probably just a ploy to get all of us to pay attention to his crap, so it will somehow publicize his upcoming novel. People will see how many times his lists have been read, etc., and he's marking us, because he knows how loyal Palahniuk fans can be...Eh, oh well.

I think that the dude wrote this review of "stranger than fiction"....

Stranger Than Fiction : True Stories by CHUCK PALAHNIUK

25 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

Literary Retardation, June 13, 2004

Is one allowed to write a negative review of a Chuck Palahniuk book? Because his books make so much money, to say something negative about them is seen as a sin against capitalism, an offence as grave as blasphemy. We must conform, we are told, and worship him as a god.
Palahniuk's novels have gained a huge audience among unintelligent teenagers---precisely because the author is himself an unintelligent, 43-year-old teenager.

Nonetheless, his most recent "effort" (if such a word applies---no effort went into writing this book), the tritely titled STRANGER THAN FICTION risks alienating his rock-audience-sized fan base.

The clichés begin with the title and get worse from there.

The book is essentially a haphazard collection of hastily written notes. Some of them concern the author's own fame and the good things about it. Others concern celebrities he knows personally and who know him.

Palahniuk celebrates himself with all of the enthusiasm of an out-of-work B-movie actor. He tells us that he "SO writes" in order to meet people who look like Uma Thurman and JFK Jr.: "This is SO why I write." How noble. Unfortunately, Uma Thurman, who would not consider herself a writer, is infinitely more eloquent and thoughtful than "the writer" Palahniuk. In fact, Palahniuk is a man on the street who writes as the average man on the street would---except less literately.

There are "essays" (???) on Marilyn Manson and Juliette Lewis that contain nothing but quotes from Marilyn Manson and Juliette Lewis.

In the "essay," "Brinksmanship," Palahniuk laughs at his readers, telling them that what he is writing is "rushed and desperate." But, he also seems to say, "You'll read it anyway. After all, I'm a big name now." In other words, he spits out garbage on the page, and we have to spend our valuable time on reading this drivel. And the writer laughs and laughs and laughs...

There is an entire "essay" on Brad Pitt and his super-gorgeous lips. But, O no, don't be fooled, Gentle Reader. Palahniuk assures us that this isn't mere tabloid celebrity gossip. No. Don't be deceived. Palahniuk writes: "This wasn't really about Brad Pitt. It's about everybody." Really? You don't say!

When the writer makes cursory references to serious writers (ie. those who are not merely celebrities), such as Venturi or Derrida, it seems unlikely that he spent more than 15 minutes reading them.

The tone of the book is EXTREMELY corny. It is that of a ridiculous, self-important Sunday school teacher lecturing condescendingly to the children in his classroom. The style is not simple; it's simplistic. Minimalism is a powerful literary device, but this isn't minimalism. It's infantilism. Minimalism only seems simple; there is profundity in its pregnant cadences and silences. This book reeks of unearned profundity. There is no depth beneath the grade-school-level prose.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that Palahniuk writes like a 5-year-old. Here is what he writes to Ira Levin (whose ROSEMARY'S BABY he ripped off in DIARY): "That's very, VERY creepy!"

Palahniuk seems to believe that his life is interesting and that we will find his life interesting, as well. But the only things that can be important about a writer are the books that he or she writes. A writer's life isn't what is important.

Absolutely boring, self-glamorizing, and unreadable---unless you are Mick, Chick, or Chimp, of course.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]I was glad, it was very encouraging for me and my own work.[/QUOTE]

HaHaHa

I guess if you look at it that way, it is good. There's hope for us all then.

Chuck as a 43 year old teenager? That's supposed to be a bad thing?

I propose that the Cult engage in formal, peer reviewed, research to see how long adolescence can be prolonged.

He definitely must have written this review of "survivor"......

Survivor : A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk

5 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

It's Hip to Be Stupid: Tarzan as Messiah, December 23, 2003

This book, it's called SURVIVOR, demonstrates that it's hip to be stupid. It's written as bad as this lousy Amazon review and stuff. Yeah, Tarzan's fans are a lot like the cultists that follow Tender Branson in this book. They all wear their official Tarzan T-shirts ("You're not special!") and love the simplicity and stupidity of the author's psuedo-sentences, all jacked-up Tarzan-style. And, boy, do they love Brad Pitt!

You will learn in this book how to eat a lobster. Never mind that this passage was taken word-for-word from a book on eating etiquette. Never mind that this book, it's called SURVIVOR, it's about manners and stuff, all special and cool, is completely unmannered and barbaric. Never mind that the lobster-eating passage is completely unrelated to the subject matter of the book. What's really important is that people will think that you are F----ING COOL if you carry this book around with you! You don't even have to read it! Didn't somebody, I think it was someone called "Gertrude Stein," say that the best thing about reading books is to show other people what you're reading and stuff? Yeah, even though you know Tarzan is a bad writer, you can always pretend that he's a good one. Because if you don't, people will think that you're uncool. Or that you have a mind of your own. Or both. And stuff.

SURVIVOR is an Insta-Book. It could have been produced at random by a computer. Somebody, I think his name was "John Barth" or something, once wrote a book about that. Or something.

Oh, yeah. There's also the weakest kidnapping narrative in the history of literature. You won't be gripped. But who cares? The book is EDGY, dude!

Meanwhile, Tarzan looks on the Internet for information on some guy called "Plato" and Tarzan's editor corrects his spelling mistakes.

What's driving me crazy (at the moment) is the 5/23 people who actually found this helpful! Who would listen to a review that uses petty insults and bad English?

[QUOTE=theristes]The dude has a new Chuck-bashing list on Amazon!!!!!! What a dick!!!!!!!

[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/J87S1SNUKPI/ref=cm_aya_av.lm_more/104-8818827-7838330[/url][/QUOTE]
Hehe, he redid all his lists because we tanked the rating so badly: and they're all at or near 1-star again!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS DUDE'S PROBLEM???? He's written more reviews of Chuck than anybody else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hes an absolute DICKHEAD....

Lullaby: A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

A Book for Illiterate Ape-Men, December 23, 2003

Anyone with a shred of rationality can tell that LULLABY is a very, very stupid book. Its linguistic "sophistication" corresponds to that of a gorilla.

Is LULLABY "anti-intellectualist"? No, it's merely anti-intelligence.

It has been said over and over and over and over and over again that media messages infiltrate human consciousness like a plague... Indeed, about 40 years before LULLABY was published, media theorists said this. The problem with all of chuckpalahniuksnovels is that they think that they have "things to say" and no real "stories to tell"---but everything that they say has been said before ad nauseum.

All of chuckpalahniuksnovels explain themselves. But what they say is o-so-very trite. LULLABY says: Our minds are murderously colonized by the media... in the same way a book of spells may kill those who listen to them when they are read aloud, paraphrased, thought, or misread (don't ask).

LULLABY is fiction for illiterate ape-men.

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

8 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

A Hip Book for People Who Don't Read, December 23, 2003

INVISIBLE MONSTERS is the perfect book to bring with you to the coffee shop. Prop it up on the table. You don't even have to read it. Just keep it upright and visible. Someone will inevitably approach you and ask, "Hey, dude, are you reading that chuckpalahniukbook?" If you're honest, you will say, "No, dude, it's trash, but I just want people to think that I'm cool." Then you'll both laugh and walk out of the coffee shop arm-in-arm. You'll've made a new friend.

The plot of INVISIBLE MONSTERS? It's about a disfigured fashion model named Shannon McFarland who steals a turkey and kidnaps her ex-fiancee, Manus who rejected her for being ugly. That sounds like an interesting plot, doesn't it? It is. But the problem is the writing is even more sloppy, diffuse, hapharzard, and artless than this Amazon review---and for that reason, the reader loses his/her interest REAL QUICK. The first-person narrator, her name's Shannon, she doesn't sound like a girl. She sounds like a troglodyte. So does the author in all of his other books.

INVISIBLE MONSTERS is a hip book for people who want to be hip, who watch a lot of television but've never read a book in their lives.

If you like to prop the books that you don't read on the coffee shop table, INVISIBLE MONSTERS is the one for you!

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

3 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

Tarzan, Lord of Bad Fiction, December 21, 2003

The author of FIGHT CLUB, he writes like Tarzan talks. And he's got no original ideas (the "breaking-up of civilization" talk, all overblown and simple, is taken from John Zerzan, who comes from Oregon, just like Tarzan). Yeah, it's written as badly as this Amazon review, all infantile and with lots of cliches and stuff. But who cares? Stupidity is COOL, man. And so is FIGHT CLUB.

The author of this book, he doesn't need to know how to write, he's just cool and stuff. Tyler knows this.

This book, it means that beating people up and getting beaten up is how you get manly. And stuff. Yeah, that's not an idea far removed from one you'd hear at your local beer trough, the kind of place where Palahniuk used to pick fights and stuff. But who cares, man? I mean, Tarzan, he's, like, EDGY and stuff. And if you carry around this book with you, you'll be EDGY, too!

If you like FIGHT CLUB, man, you probably also like the music of Limp Bizkit and the movies, like, of Kevin Smith and stuff, too, man. Yeah.

Fugitives and Refugees : A Walk in Portland, Oregon (Crown Journeys) by CHUCK PALAHNIUK

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Fugitives, Refugees, and Mongoloids, December 6, 2003

A transgressive travelogue is a seductive, although hardly original, idea. (This will not escape anyone who has seen an episode of the "reality" television program, "Wild Chicago.") A "guide" that would document the underworld of a city, all of its forbidden zones, its sleaziest grottoes---how fascinating! FUGITIVES AND REFUGEES, unfortunately, is nothing of the sort. It is, rather, a lifeless catalogue of a few tacky tourist attractions, none of which are particularly transgressive or subterranean.

In the most blaise manner imaginable, the book mentions some of Portland, Oregon's oddities: world's largest hairball, a strip club run, a "strip bingo" tournament (it's not as interesting as it sounds). All of this is written in a prose that is both dead and deadening.

The author describes himself as a "novelist." Any genuine "novelist," however, knows that his/her task is to bring an imaginary world to life, to make chimeras breathe and talk. FUGITIVES AND REFUGEES is not vivid. It is not descriptive. It is not even detailed.

We (readers) get the impression that the author has never even visited most of the places that he mentions. Otherwise, he merely lacks descriptive power. If that's the case, then he's not a real writer.

The entire book has a "grocery shopping list" feel and look.

The author seems to feel that his life is, a priori, interesting to his readers. But his anecdotes ("postcards") are hardly captivating. He seems to feel that a writer is a writer even before s/he has written. But the work gives birth to the writer, not the other way around.

The title, by the way, was taken from GEEK LOVE---a real book written by a real writer.

I dont get it ???? he writes like 4 different reviews for every Chuck book!!!!

his review of "fight club" is here---------

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

1 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

Musclehead, January 26, 2004

1.) FIGHT CLUB espouses a mindless athleticism and jock-fascism. It does not merely imply, but states in the most obvious manner, that bare-knuckled fist-fighting makes effeminate men more virile/manly/masculine. Such is the book's childish "message." FIGHT CLUB shouts in the reader's ear: There is only one way to "overcome" the feminized support-group culture which is America. There is only one way to avoid morphing into a woman-man (such as "Bob," a former weight-lifter who grows breasts). Beat up, and get beaten up by someone else! That will make you feel like A REAL MAN! But as everyone knows, getting beaten up is NOT an empowering experience. And to say that masculine violence makes you more masculine is idiotic, conventional, and boring.

2.) This hyper-macho attitude is belied by the novel's OVERT homoeroticism. I am not a homophobe. But it is obvious that this book, which tries very hard to be "male-heterosexual," is homoerotic through and through. Tyler proclaims to the narrator that "another woman is not what we need right now." No, instead they both need each other. The fight clubs are homoerotic associations.

3.) The book DOES proclaim that you are a better person if you gain more muscle. So does SURVIVOR. So does CHOKE. Both Tender Branson and Denny loses their unsightly fat, gain some muscle, and thereby become "holy." Now, if you've ever seen chuckpalahniuk strut around with his muscle-shirt, you can tell that he resembles one of his "jockalicious" characters (if the word "character" is appropriate). To say that muscleheads are BETTER PEOPLE than the flabby or skinny is repulsive AND fascistic.

4.) chuckpalahniuk should concern himself more with the one muscle that matters to serious writers: the brain.

One final note for Amazon customers: Purchase Ballard's HIGH-RISE or CRASH instead. Although it is currently unavailable, HIGH-RISE will come out in paperback soon. chuckpalahniuk stole all of his ideas from Ballard and other, sophisticated authors... and regurgitated them minus the sophistication.

Where did you find these? They aren't in his profile.

you know, it sucks he has such negative things to say about Chuck, but seriously... i think that the higher percentage of us here are the kind of people who read/listen to/watch stuff that is not mainstream, and is shunned or ridiculed by many people. obscure music and movies, controversial or unknown authors.
this guy doesn't bother me at all, i just don't care.

The stupid jerk wrote this review of "choke" i'm sure... these reviews dont have his name on them but you can tell tht there his because of his words... He uses the same words in the lists and the reviews

Here its is

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

8 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

Unintentionally funny, December 25, 2003

The "novel," (is it one?) CHOKE appears to have been written under the influence of rock music. There is nothing wrong with this, of course; contemporary novels SHOULD rock. But when the PROSE of a novel unintentionally resembles bad rock lyrics, there is a definite problem. Rock musicians use lyrics as if they were notes or guitar riffs; the author of CHOKE has written bad rock lyrics completely without irony and outside of a musical context. In other words, the prose isn't musical; it's just full of cliches, infantile, and unintentionally amusing. I read some of CHOKE aloud to friends and we were laughing---not because of the author's one-liners, but because it resembled a short story written by a stoner at a low-tier community college. In fact, the entire book resembles the "work" of a developmental/remedial student. The funniest passage is when the protagonist's life is saved by two police officers in an interrogation room; the scene is supposed to be a emotionally strong, but it is, in fact, unintentionally hilarious. Also amusing are the lines plagiarized outright from "American Beauty" ("The world is so beautiful...") and the climax, which resembles the ending of Spielberg's "Schindler's List."
This is not a forum for literary criticism, merely a place where Amazon.com customers can rate products for the benefit of other clients; I suppose that I WOULD recommend CHOKE for first-year college students who would like to learn how NOT to write. This book could serve as a negative example.

You know, I wish my life could revolve around academia and I could have a James Bond supervillian style obsession with an author's work. That'd be so cool.

"God damn it! I utterly despise Chuck Palahniuk's writing! I can't wait until the next book comes out!"

I think it's a guy who really wants to bone Chuck but can't since Chuck's spoken for, so he figures to pull an Invisible Monster move and hate him.

I wanna fuck you but I can't. Think of this review as a big huge penis...

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

8 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

A Hip Book for People Who Don't Read, December 23, 2003

INVISIBLE MONSTERS is the perfect book to bring with you to the coffee shop. Prop it up on the table. You don't even have to read it. Just keep it upright and visible. Someone will inevitably approach you and ask, "Hey, dude, are you reading that chuckpalahniukbook?" If you're honest, you will say, "No, dude, it's trash, but I just want people to think that I'm cool." Then you'll both laugh and walk out of the coffee shop arm-in-arm. You'll've made a new friend.

The plot of INVISIBLE MONSTERS? It's about a disfigured fashion model named Shannon McFarland who steals a turkey and kidnaps her ex-fiancee, Manus who rejected her for being ugly. That sounds like an interesting plot, doesn't it? It is. But the problem is the writing is even more sloppy, diffuse, hapharzard, and artless than this Amazon review---and for that reason, the reader loses his/her interest REAL QUICK. The first-person narrator, her name's Shannon, she doesn't sound like a girl. She sounds like a troglodyte. So does the author in all of his other books.

INVISIBLE MONSTERS is a hip book for people who want to be hip, who watch a lot of television but've never read a book in their lives.

If you like to prop the books that you don't read on the coffee shop table, INVISIBLE MONSTERS is the one for you!

i really wish this guy would SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!! hes a dickhead

Diary: A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk

3 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

Amateur Night at Tarzan's Bar and Grill, November 25, 2003

It is often said that the publishing world is a difficult field to enter.
Quite the contrary. "Chuck Palahniuk"'s DIARY proves that absolutely anyone can publish absolutely anything.

The author is a very average, very typical human being who worked as a diesel mechanic and thought, like many others like him, that it would be "cool" to be a writer. He ripped off the ideas of fellow Oregonian John Zerzan and put them in a book called FIGHT CLUB and achieved notoriety when the novel was made into a flashy and interesting Hollywood film that is far better than its source material.

DIARY demonstrates, even to his die-hard fans, that Palahniuk is a man of limited linguistic ability and limited intelligence.

There is nothing profound with DIARY's repetitive assertion that "everything's a diary." What Palahniuk means by this is that all writing refers back to the life of the author. This, by the way, is the book's "meaning" and "main theme." Yes, the book is really that stupid and trite.

With the greatest prentiousness and arrogance, the subeducated author throws references into DIARY that any first-year college undergraduate would pick up on with ease. And he throws out these references as if they were erudite!!!! And he misunderstands them (take, for example, his butchering of Plato's allegory of the cave)!

Palahniuk thinks, in DIARY, that Athena is the goddess of love (!!!!).

Along the way, there are also frequent references to excrement. Is this self-referencing at work?

DIARY would have been better titled AMATEUR NIGHT AT TARZAN'S BAR AND GRILL.

He won't stop writing stupid reviews!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

4 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

More than exceptionally dyslexic!, July 5, 2003

If you think (as Palahniuk's blind, sheep-like followers do) that INVISIBLE MONSTERS was deliberately written in an illiterate style, you've been had by a real con-artist.

All five of his books are written in the same way, despite the change in character and gender. He speaks in this way, as well---see his astoundingly stupid interviews, in which he expresses his sincere desire not to write "s---y books."

In other words, he has nowhere proven that he can write in the way that real writers write, EVEN IF HE WANTED TO.

No one is suggesting that INVISIBLE MONSTERS should have been written in "scholarly" style or that the author should have avoided ordinary language. Hubert Selby, Jr., Irvine Welsh, and Bret Easton Ellis are all very great writers who use ordinary language to great effect.

No, the problem here is that INVISIBLE MONSTERS was written at one go, and it shows.

Palahniuk may claim that INVISIBLE MONSTERS was rejected by publishers because it had an "unpleasant" or "offensive" content. I don't believe that for a second. It was rejected because it is sloppily written and childish.

The writer has vomited out several very silly, easy-to-read and easy-to-write books.

Reading INVISIBLE MONSTERS is fine if you're between the ages of 12-16. If your older than that, you might want to carry this one around in a brown paper bag.

i do not understand this dude. at all. he keeps on calling chuck "tarzan"... i dont get it... heres another review of "lullaby"...

Lullaby : A Novel by CHUCK PALAHNIUK

5 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

Tarzan Like Books!, May 23, 2003

Chuck Palahniuk's novels are written in "Tarzan-speak"; no educated person would ever write in this way.

Here is the premise of LULLABY: A news reporter discovers a book of spells. When a culling spell is read aloud, it kills anyone within earshot.

Wait a minute, the writer changes this premise slightly. Anyone who THINKS the culling spell can kill anyone he or she chooses.

No, that's not right. The writer modifies this premise further: Anyone who INTENDS TO KILL someone KILLS THAT PERSON.

Do you find this premise interesting? Do you think that the premise is logical? If so, LULLABY is the book for you!

Is the writer of LULLABY the Tarzan of English-language fiction?