Does anyone else kind of sort of hate Lullaby?

I've yet to read it.
Goddamn.

I am in the middle of re-reading it but...

I didn't really like LULLABY the first time through becuase I thought Oyster was just another Tyler Durden. The characters are very, very similar.

That being said. I used to hate Invisible Monsters. I re-read it at the beginning of the year and now I love it.
It's kind of like when you have to listen to a record a few times before it "clicks"

I loved lullaby. basically what i gathered from the posts of people who didn't like it is that they thought it didn't create suspension of disbelief, that it, wasn't realistic enough. i suppose you could say all of chuck's previous books could actually have happened, with the exception of fight club, since jack's disorder differs from actual dissociative identity disorders. but the characters have no reason to question the existance of magic. helen and carl experienced the magic of the lullaby over 18 years before the book began. oyster and mona are wiccans, so obviously they believe in magic, if they were serious about their religion. i will grant that the characters could've been a bit more developed. at first i was disspointed with the somewhat indeterminate ending, i thought that carl should have either confronted oyster and mona or decided to give up his search or something. but now i think maybe this was better. the power struggles of the world are still far from over so why should a book about power be wrapped up in a neat little package. perhaps the reason some people hated this book was purely because it is different from chuck's previous works. i mean, no offense, but your criticims remind me of people who bitch about their favorite band selling out; that because they changed their style, it has to have been due to a desire for more $ and more success, and not an artist's personal choice, therefore it sucks. or maybe some of the messages, e.g. oyster's vegan stuff hit too close to home for some of you?

I loved it! In my mind it had the biggest comments about society of any of his books (haven't read invisible monsters though).

If you see past the plot which is pretty irelevant and look at what it's saying you'll like it a whole lot more (but that's the same with any CP book).

Regarding your signature: "It's never too late to stop killing people." I am so glad to see another fine Christian on this forum which is usually so overcrowded with the unsaved and unrepentant that I can barely tolerate to read more than a few posts on any given thread before I am just sickend - Sickened! - and have to lie down a spell with a cold compress upon my forehead.

give it a rest ya' pansy. at least comment on what the tread topic is if you're going to post.
myself, i thought lullaby was ok, not the best, but not the worst.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by John S [/i]
[B]Regarding your signature: "It's never too late to stop killing people." I am so glad to see another fine Christian on this forum which is usually so overcrowded with the unsaved and unrepentant that I can barely tolerate to read more than a few posts on any given thread before I am just sickend - Sickened! - and have to lie down a spell with a cold compress upon my forehead. [/B][/QUOTE]

I hope he's joking.

I felt Choke was his most powerful and most complete work. Lullaby was great and highly entertaining, Fight Club excellent and hilarious, Survivor the most interesting and satirical, in my opinion. Invisible Monsters good, but it was obvious that it was a first, as his style was not yet fully developed.

But Choke was just....I don't know....

It felt like a complete work to me. And especially due to the fact that I heard from people that it was the worst of his books when it first came out. So I had (fortunately) low expectations, because they were far far exceeded.

I was amazed at how great it was.

Now, Lullaby, my expectations were very high. I was just waiting and waiting and craving for more Chuck. The book was great, it was funny, it had a great, fast style that was highly enjoyable. But it wasn't as quick and witty as Fight Club, as interesting and satirical as Survivor, as twisted as Invisible Monsters, or as complete and whole as Choke.

But then again I guess it's just....itself. Lullaby is its own book, and just because it's written by Chuck doesn't mean it should be compared definitively to each of his other books.

Wow. Major contradiction.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by John S [/i]
[B]Regarding your signature: "It's never too late to stop killing people." I am so glad to see another fine Christian on this forum which is usually so overcrowded with the unsaved and unrepentant that I can barely tolerate to read more than a few posts on any given thread before I am just sickend - Sickened! - and have to lie down a spell with a cold compress upon my forehead. [/B][/QUOTE]

Before the Iraq war happened there were a lot of people (in Australia anyway) who didn't support it. But when it actually started a lot of those people said "well since it's happening we might as well get on with it" and my signature is in response to that basically. It's possibly not so relevant now.

lol i thought it said
"It's never too late to start killing people."

I make it a point NEVER to criticize someone's opinions, simply because everyone has different views on different things. So, this is not a judgement or criticism of your point.

After I read Fight Club, I held Chuck's work up to the standard it set. When I read Invisible Monsters and Survivor, I was looking for the same elements. Lullaby totally blew me away. Especially the ending. It made me think about how Chuck is such an artist at pulling the rug out from underneath you. Lullaby is the first book I have ever read that made me conjure up Chuck's quote - "If you don't like this, we have nothing in common." I recommend it to everyone I know, and anyone who doesn't "get it", is not looking or thinking deeply enough. Your opinion is valid, and it is the ONLY reason I wrote this paragraph.

I hope you read it again and find something new in it. I did.

Peter

LULLABY is the fastest I ever read a book--I couldn't put the shit down. So yeah I don't kinda hate it, I like it a lot!

I finally read Lullaby (my cheap ass was waiting for the paperback).

For some reason, Lullaby did not have the same visceral impact on me that Chuck's other novels have had. I enjoyed it well enough, but it is nowhere near my favorite Chuck book. Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Fight Club, and Choke all still rank higher on the list for me.

Hey guys,

Go check out McGowin's review at [url]http://www.oysterboyreview.com under "reviews" --but he's said *Diary* is much better (see "Chuck's Allusions & Parodies" thread under *Diary* in "Forum").

I loved Lullaby...every part of it.

But one thing I hated. Killing time until my girlfriend was out of work I went into a local, smaller type library, and looked as I always do to see if they have Chuck, and if so, how much. After searching, and double searching their books, the only one I found was Lullaby. No Fight Club. No Survivor. No Choke. Just Lullaby, all by it's lonesome, sitting there besides all four hundred James Patterson books. What a bunch of schmucks.

"How dare he put out a half-assed jumbled together short story like this and sell it as a novel. " posted by Lust-E

good one. no really.
oh wait no. except lullaby is not a "half-assed jumbled together short story"
im not one to start fights or yell at people but youre an ape.

i dare you to try and write somethign that has that much impact as lullaby or even get published

i hate you for calling one of his best books that

Die.

Go Bye Bye

Lullaby is awesome

And you know what's fuckin awesome

how whoever started this thread started it as
"does anyone sort of kind of .. umm hate lullaby"

HAAAAAAAAA

someone sounds confused

Nope. I definitely don't hate lullaby. It's fuckin one of his best books.
If anyone likes lagwagon, then this message is and isn't for you
ha
they wrote a song called lullaby, and it really is about the book.
should go check out lagwagon if you like good fast punk music with a lot of good melodies

that song is awesome too its off of their new album

anyways

oh by the way

i used to never finish anything but now i.....

ummm
i just realized that i shouldnta tweaked out like that
plus
Lust E made that post like 6 months ago
so i highly doubt he/shes gonna care

but sorry anyways
i just got kinda mad when i read that

I finished it today and started reading it again. I didn't like it much until almost near the end, when I couldn't put it down.

This was the second of CP's books I've read.

It has such a slow steady buildup, a bit of information here, a jump to a scene there, and you know it's important but you can't see the big picture yet. It's kind of the way he described collecting facts. You notice all the details, you collect the facts. You don't know if they will be important later, but you try to see if there's a pattern. I remember his detailed descriptions of the colors of clothes and how things looked. The easiest way to miss the big picture is to get lost in the details. I think I'm going to like it more the second time.

yea
i think thats the way Chuck writes all his books
he makes them so damn good the second time around
cuz u remember so many things and everything hits you once again
like it did the first time, only with more buildup in your head

I really liked lullaby. It was the second book by Chuck I had read, and maybe it's because his work was new to me, but I thought it was amazing. It ties with Invisible Monsters for my favorite.

Maybe if I hadn't listened to the majority of it on a 6hr. drive from MN to IL while stoned and drifting in and out of sleep. Bad short-term memory doesn't work well while listening to a book.

I'm in no position to judge another authors work but did I enjoy it? No I really didn't, it didn't seem like it was written by Chuck compared to his other books. I love Invisible Monsters, Survivor, and Choke the best. The Fight Club movie was fantastic and being that I saw the movie prior to reading the book I like the movie better.

I think what it lacked is one thing that his other books (and the short stories/essays that I've read) have had and that's a troubled main character that you end up knowing very personal things about. Like a diary?!?! Like when Chuck talks, his books are a reflection of his life and that is so it makes sense that he as a person is as interesting as his books. I think my favorite Chuck books are more about people and Lullaby is more about the story, the mission.

Still I love Chuck and will be reading everything he puts out forever.

This was my first CP book and I absolutely flew through it I loved it sooo much. I bought it for my son and as I was waiting for him to get out of a movie I started to read it. Could not put it down...Brilliant and thought provoking IMHO

what a disapointment!
i previosly read diary which i really enjoyed, it was intreaging.
Lullaby was wierd in a bad way, i couldnt realate to any of the charecters. it was a good idea, but exactly that. an idea.

actually, can you help me here, am i dumb or did i just miss the whole point of the haunted house stuff, maybe thats why i didnt enjoy it much. And my mentall picture of helen was some wrinkly old tart did anyone else think that to?

I couldn't really relate to any of the characters either, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Chuck didn't give an outstanding description of the characters on purpose, so you could use your imagination to figure out how they looked. He does that in all his books. And yes, I didn't really grasp the whole concept of Helen's haunted houses. Helen had many odd idiosyncracies which made her even more loveable.... or is it a spell?

Well i definatly didnt think she was loveable!
I dont think a description ofa charecter is what makes you relate to them, i had no problem with diary, and as you say, he does it in all his books.
Lullaby has totaly put me off reading any more of his books.

Obviously she was loveable, I mean, Carl loved her.

Well I know I liked it! That's why I went into this forum, because I liked the book.

I can't answer your question though: "Does anyone kind of sort of hate Lullaby?" mainly because I don't. But I can tell you why I liked it.

Because it was funny. As with all of his books, Mr. Palahniuk makes me laugh.
Because it was laughable. This is different from funny. The ending was interesting and odd, but I laughed at it, because I loved the book.
Because no one "kind of sort of" hates books. That contradicts everything. Kind of sort of hate it = Kind of sort of love it. You know what I'm talking about!

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by zeropointzero [/i]
[B]Sorry, I didn't mean altogether missing. I'm not sure I would use the word "plenty" though. I mean, I think it took me longer to read Fight Club than Lullaby. Oh, and I picked up on some themes in all, like the whole noise-aholics thing, the irony of a poem that kills when recited and people would have to wear ear plugs or something.
[/B][/QUOTE]

You only found a few underlying themes about society? So much of the novel was about society watching big brother and constructive destruction.

Lullaby was absolutly great stuff. I read it in, I don't how long, it doesnt matter. But aside from it being signature Chuck style(which I cream over), it had so many very great underlying themes. Like the password thing as a descrition of how a person believes they are clever, big brother singing and dancing telling us what to do(remind anyone of fight club?), noise-o-holics, and the way he assosiated the culling song with Oysters anti-corperate bio-sphere ecosystem tree-hugger shit.
I'de say the entire idea of everything being about control just made it one of my favorites(under choke). Love, he says, is about control. The noise, he says, Is all about control.
I absolutly love this book, even more now that I get a chance to talk about it.
In everyone of Chucks books, there is a theme that he always has, which is the idea of accepting Choas. Inviting uncertainty. Breathing smoke.
Lullaby, without a doubt, was great great stuff.

I think that the more books chuck writes his writing will change with them. lullaby was his next book, and so its diffrent then the ones before it. its more complicated, it doesnt lay everything out quite as much as I felt some of his previous books have (ahem, fight club ahem). your left more to your own devices to figure out the greater social and political meanings.
-dave "life goes on" patry

i think, after reading his other work, it would be hard to not become excited after reading lullaby.. it's one of my favorite books. sure, there were a few things i didnt like too much about it, but i thought it was a good follow-up from the last book. actually, when i was finished reading it, my first thought was that Chuck's writing is getting better.

I can't see how anyone couldn't like the book. I thought it was great, awsome plot twist at the end, the part where Helen's son is broken to pieces almost made me sick to my stomach. I also love the social commentary on noise, especially in the beginning when he says that music now-a-days is about noise, not music. Anyway, I thought it was great.

no way. Lullaby is damn GOOD...I adored it. after Survivor. I haven't yet read a single chuck-book I disliked.

I'm going to have to say no, because I enjoyed it and being vegan, I had to laugh at Oyster in my own way. The only thing I don't really care for is the whole idea of black magic, which again only shows how great Chuck's writing is, to actually get me to enjoy something I've never personally cared for.

It was alright. The plot had me on-edge, but the tone was muddled by Chuck's description of Helen. I read this when I was absolutely into my Fight Club, anti-advertisement thing, and Helen just came off as the person I hate the most. All pink and business-oriented. I could NOT feel sympathy. For that, it was weak. I couldn't sympathize with Streator. I'll have to read it again, I suppose. Plus, the chorus-style Chuck applied here was a little much for me. But, again, that was probably due to my frustration with the tone.

how did you find this six and a half year old thread

i mean, i remember nightmonkey because he joined a couple of weeks after i did, and willtupper [of course], but i dont recognize any of these other members. odd, this.