Similar writting style authors..if it's even possible

The only other one i could think of not on the list on the website already and ppl rarely ever mention as being CP esque is Bradbury.

Or maybe im just crazy.

what about that guy that wrote that book 2 dice off the project mayhem site?

what's his name?

are you guys fans of Neil Gaiman...he doesnt write like chuck (not that anyone could) hes a whole different genre but hes amazing his novel Neverwhere is no doubt in my top 3

Irvine Welsh has a similar raw style. You will though have to learn to read scottish slang. It's not very hard, all phonetic. [i]Trainspotting[/i] has a small glossary so that is probably the best one to begin with.

charles bukowski is amazing..factotum and hot water music......great random babbling....i love it.

Chuck is my fav author. But when I read SATAN BURGER by Carlton
Mellick III, I started to have my doubts. Carlton Mellick's style IS
Chuck's, but with a little more twisted content. Eraserhead Press
(production house) has no distribution, though. Get it from
Amazon, you won't be sorry.

[u]Chemical Pink[/u]

House of Leaves <--- weird weird weird book.

INTO THE WILD <--- definitely read that.

Lets not forget the great Dr. Gonzo, aka Raul Duke, aka Hunter S. Thompson. Although not exactly Chuckesque, his style is both wacky and zany and brilliant and just plain fuckin good.

Gaimen is awesome. Neverwhere was one of the first real books I ever read onmy own. Its like a supped up version of Alice in Wonderland. BUt the author that writes the most like CP is probably Alex GArland author of the Beach. Dont let a movie w/ Dicaprio discourage you the movie rocks and the book is even better.

kurt vonnegut

No no no. Glamorama was one of Ellis's best. It's actually 2 books, so half way throo is when everything changes. Just read the second half.

If you like Chuck, Mark Z. Danewiskisisodisoaoa....I don't know how to spell his name...may be up your brownie alley. I read House of Leaves before I even heard of Chuck. It is a pomo orgy, with an entire chapter devoted to one-word-a-page. Very good writing... inexplicable, but good.

Also, a book by Iain Banks (A Scottish writer) called The Wasp Factory. Dark, twisted, fucked-up, just like Chuck's writing. Also, try to find Nick Cave's sadly out-of-print And the Ass Saw the Angel. It is an attempt at southern Gothic writing by Cave, with often beautiful, lyrical writing...sad, demented, fucked-up once again. Like Faulkner on brown acid. Try amazon.co.uk to find it. Prints here can run upwards of $50.

I think you have it in for me, decalgoue. First, you call my other thread the stupidest one yet; second, you tell me to stand out on the porch for being a dork. I only want to reconcile our relationship, decalogue. Props for the heads up on 21361's reissue, and double props for having a 1st edition of Ass. Lo siento for the loss.

I was going to add something to this, but then I realized that you already have listed every book that I could imagine naming. So, I guess I'll just add Orwell, and say that I'm about 350 pages into Glamorama and I'm really enjoying it

back to Bret Easton Ellis for a minute: I just finished Glamorama and I'm thinking I should have read Rules of Attraction first. It came highly recommended, but I feel like I missed something. I agree with metalgrl - it was hard to care what happened once the story changed focus. Not that I need something easy to digest but it seemed really scattered... I'll just have to read it again.

Chuck's words are so carefully chosen and cutting that it makes Ellis seem whiny and wordy at times. Maybe I only notice it because I read and reread Chuck's stuff so often.

Dec--
I'm new to the forums, so I am a little sensitive. My father was killed by a deranged mental patient that became aquainted with him in the Martha Stuart forums. Apparently this man didn't like my father's Feng Shui approach to Fo Ti. He followed my father to Bed, Bath and Beyond and stabbed him with an origami knife.
No offense taken...
But anyways, being an English-major-shithead, has anyone noticed that NYtimes bestseller lists are fucking bullshit? I think any list like that is a rectal thermometer for the mass psychosis that is America. BTW, read Jean Baudrillard's "America" and Frederick Jameson's "Seeds of Time" if you want a totally new look at America and "post-capitalist" society. POMO warning POMO

BTW...
I have never read Ellis. I know that it is suggested reading. I am sorry.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by fourdegrees [/i]
[B]BTW...
I have never read Ellis. I know that it is suggested reading. I am sorry. [/B][/QUOTE]

I read 'Less Than Zero' when it came out. I won't waste my rare and valuable reading time on Ellis again.

I am reading a James Patterson book, When the Wind Blows. I tell you something that blows...this fucking book. This guy is supposed to be a writer? A *popular* writer at that. I wouldn't wipe my ass with the pages of this book, but it is part of my exploration of pop-writing.

I mean--
I like the idea of the human experiments. I buy that. It's just that his characters are almost superhuman, perfect anglo saxon humans: smart, beautiful, athletic. I don't buy that. The characters are more fake than the girl with wings. I can imagine the people in Chuck's books. I knew some of their real-life counterparts.

On top of that, the story takes place in Colorado. I'm fourth generation Coloradan. This jackass Patterson cannot write Colorado. He writes about fireflies for shit's sake....

I'll be the 80th person to say that Bret Ellis is similar to Chuck, and even though in some ways they're different it's still safe to say that if you like Chuck then you'd probably like Ellis.

I'll also go on the record for saying that I absolutely hated Glamorama. It wasn't just a bad book, it was a really long bad book.

I'd heard that Jerry Stahl was similar to Palahniuk, but I'm reading Perv: a Love Story and not really enjoying it that much.

After browsing the similar writers section I picked up Douglas Coupland's "Girlfriend in a Coma," it was a very bizarre, twisted and surreal kind of tale that I would think would make a great film if someone in Hollywood ever got the balls to do something different for those of us who arent into "Maid in Manhattans".

"Girlfriend in an Coma" sounds like a song by The Smiths, in fact... hmmm... but, anyway... "American Psycho" is my favorite Bret Easton Ellis, followed by "The Informers", then "Glamorama" and "Less Than Zero"... and another thing... I don't know why anyone compares Bret Easton Ellis to Chuck Palahniuk, including myself, because their writing styles are very different, they talk about different things, etc... of course, that doesn't mean they both aren't great, maybe the confusion is that Palahniuk says he likes Ellis, so people think he's like Ellis, or maybe it's because they are often times very disturbing with their grammatical depictions of things often not said, and really I think that their only similarity is that they both write on the edge of what is considered the line between literature and pornography, or so many out there seem to think. Not me. And also they both each had at least one very publicly controversial novel... Ellis with "American Psycho", which was banned in some places, and has received notoriety for being found in book collections of more than a few real-life serial killers with underlined passages, and Palahniuk with "Fight Club" for obvious reasons to any one at this site... I personally don't see the controversy except that most of society is outraged by anything, and most of society doesn't even read anymore, so they deem stuff controversial when they haven't even read it, through hearsay... like I saw in the news back when the film came out that a church group was picketing "Fight Club" at a theater and condemning the book and when the people who were from the church were interviewed they hadn't even seen the film or read the book or anything, which just shows you what hypocrytical a-holes people can be, their ability to turn into mindless sheep, for sure...

re: Serial killers with underlined copies of American Psycho

This may make me a bad Catholic for suggesting it, but wouldn't just as many serial killers be likely to have dog-eared and underlined copies of the Bible? Or the Joy of Cooking, for that matter?

I think Ellis, Welsh and CP are compared simply because they fall under the "hip, edgy writers" umbrella.

Good point rotten. I don't know about anyone else, but i appreciate different writers for their different styles. I realize that some people look for some kind of unity of something in everything they read, but i would rather explore what can be done with the language i suppose. Chuck's style is just that, and i don't want to read anyone else doing chuck's style i guess.

As you and I both pointed out rottenprogeny, and it does make you a bad catholic, it's ludicrous that a book should be judged by who owns it... but try telling that to religious zealots. Catholics... hell, most religions for that matter, do just that on a daily basis. Just look at The Catholic League, always condemning one thing or another... they love to stigmatize movies especially, even though they have never seen them, and if they have, why shouldn't others be allowed to decide for themselves? Because organized religion makes no sense. It's a few people interpreting what some people wrote eons ago, which may or may not have ever happened, then telling their "flocks" how to live their lives. Just me, but Jesus never wrote the bible... men did. Actually not my friend Jesus Martinez either, he just works at Taco Bell making one helluva great-tasting Nachos Grande. You would think that they would pay Jesus more than minimum wage, I mean this is the Bible Belt, but nope... Jesus gets bent over and raped by the government everytime he gets paid his measly check... though I guess he does get free taco's afterhours. Now for penance, grab a football and throw 10 hail mary's, then ask the closest woman to you if you can see her "rosary", so to speak...

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Brock Landers [/i]
[B]...and has received notoriety for being found in book collections of more than a few real-life serial killers with underlined passages...[/B][/QUOTE]

Really? Who?

I never meant to slam religion.. merely to explain my own beliefs on the subject, concerning the reason books sometimes get labeled... and I do believe that way, so I say what I believe instead of sugar-coating it for mass consumption. I also never said definitively that all religions or even one religion in particular ALWAYS does anything.

A generalization is something that is generally true. I agree most people are judgemental, and to stay within the framework of Palahniuk, as this is a discussion board for Palahniuk, I seem to remember Tyler or Victor saying something about how we should be judgemental... how we should discriminate. It is in general terms, and as such should not be applied to everyone and is not always true or right, but that's for the individual to decide.

And like you said... not all religions or people are the same... no shit, like "duh"... which is also generally true, as many if not most are exactly the way they are portrayed, not just by me, but by others.

As far as "judge not" and "cast the first stone"... well... I don't think that christian proverbs, cliches or sayings which are stereotypical of christians, is any way to prove a point about not stereotyping.

You, by preaching biblical rhetoric aka "cast the first stone" and "judge not", have just stereotyped me, as is the case with many organized religions... you are the one judging me right now, which means, you do not practice what you preach, which is also the case with many religious people or any people... they say "do as I say, but not as I do". Sad really. I feel for hypocritical people very much so, and it bothers me that you feel the need to judge others. What ever happened to forgiveness? Or is that another thing preached but not practiced?

Perhaps you should re-read what you wrote and learn from those very quotes. And in general, religion is just the tip of the iceberg. You can apply what I wrote to many things, government, work, etc... but it just so happens that religion plays a large part of "Choke" and much of Palahniuk's writing, in that philosophy and spirituality or the lack thereof are often explored to many varying degrees.

Besides why would I follow the teachings of Jesus if I don't believe he was the son of god... or that god even exists for that matter. Oh, I do believe in Jesus Christ, but he was a carpenter with a cult following of men who wrote what they wanted to believe, or thought they saw, and as they often did back then drank heavily, a historical fact often neglected but true nonetheless... as it had to do with health reasons.

The so-called Holy Land was not clean like "Ben Hur" or any other movies like that. They don't tell you the harsh realities in Sunday School. It's all revised history. Revised to fit what they think you should be. Changed to mold you into what they want... and if you really want to get into this we can, but I suggest a different topic, as I would hate to waste my time here talking about how the bible says to beat women and the whole eye for an eye thing, etc... there are literally hundreds of things that are considered barbaric and wrong about the bible, but hey, look at us christians... we just ignore 'em! God is Good... and you know what? Arguing about religion never gets anyone anywhere, as nothing can be proved.

There is not a single fact that God exists or ever did. Nothing that a person can see. Maybe you feel something in your gut... well, I would argue you need to take a dump or maybe it's gas pain or Mancini would say stomach ulcers perhaps.

Now, decalogue, as you seem to want to jump back on the bandwagon, I suggest you look it up yourself. Just as I am not a unique snowflake. I am not your personal research Gunga Din. I will say that the "American Psycho" film was shot in Canada and the city it was shot in is where they arrested the serial killer in his home... a copy of "American Psycho" on his bedside table. It's in their local paper if you check the film "American Psycho" news clippings. Also Maxim magazine did an article a couple years back about a torturer-rapist-killer who would dump bodies in a lake in Nevada, and his motor home/trailer was his satanic death shop with the said copy of 'American Psycho" on his book shelf...

I love all this stimulating conversation... I could go on forever...

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Brock Landers [/i]
[B]Now, decalogue, as you seem to want to jump back on the bandwagon, I suggest you look it up yourself. Just as I am not a unique snowflake. I am not your personal research Gunga Din.
[/B][/QUOTE]

Hell, I thought you knew.

[B][QUOTE]
I love all this stimulating conversation... I could go on forever... [/B][/QUOTE]

"could"?

Yes, "could". You may remember it from Green Eggs and Ham... you know, grab your copy off the shelf... on a train, in a plane... Sam I am... all that good Dr. Suess stuff. And why would I remember a name of some uninteresting serial killer? I'm not smart... never said I was...

And back to authors for a moment... McCabe's "The Butcher Boy' is a very funny and extremely dark book about a young man comparable to Alex in "A Clockwork Orange" or just about any bad boy up to mischief and mayhem, but allergic to soap. Neil Jordan of "Interview With The Vampire" fame, directed a film version of it as well, but as is true most of the time, the book is better.

Green Eggs and Ham never leaves my bedside, Brock.

It just seemed to me that if some serial killer were arrested in posession of a book which you hold in such high regard - with underlined passages, no less - you might remember a detail about it.

Hinkley and Chapman both had connections with Catcher in the Rye (a book that virtually shares its final pages with Fight Club.) I find this interesting.

Of course, the real question ought to be, "Which passages were underlined?"

Just finished reading Irvine Welsh's "Glue" and I must say it was pretty damn fuckin good. I think I might even like it a little more than Trainspotting. The basis of the story is basically about four best friends living in Edinboro (where else). The book follows them at 15, 25, then 35 years old. In true Irvine Welsh fashion it involves the comedies and tragedies of growing up in the Scottish 'schemes' and trying to make something of oneself. It even has a guest appearances by Renton, Spud, and Franco Begby himself. I truly recomend this one.

re: this whole religious rant
I'm about as Catholic as they come, and am quite capable of thinking for myself. So chill, already. I think my earlier post was misunderstood - By bringing the Bible in as an example I was merely inferring that perhaps one's actions should be more important than one's choice of reading materials. Now, can't we all just get along?!

re: Welsh's "Glue"
I, too, enjoyed it. Welsh rivals Chuck as my favorite writer. I waffle between the 2, depending on how I'm feeling on any given day. If you liked "Glue", try "Filth" - it is a bit darker, and is a good lead-in to his latest ("Porno"). I wasn't overly impressed by "Porno" but it was fun to see where the "Trainspotting" folks ended up.

I could talk about Welsh all day - glad to be back on the thread.

Actually, where did the missionary position get its name? Just curiousm and hoping to get this thread onto something less likely to annoy everyone (people adverse to sex are unlikely to be on a CP site)

I agree with iiliyo concerning the Tao Te Ching... and would also recommend Hagakure "Written In The Leaves" aka "Way of the Samurai"... basis for "Ghost Dog" flick... and the 2,000-plus-year-old Chinese text, "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu is well worth a look-see... for Tzu, war was like life, therefore to win without fighting was best. Bruce Lee was a fan as well. While it applies to competition and conflict in general, it ties are much farther-reaching. It's aim is invincibility, victory without battle and unassailable strength through understanding, not only of the psychics, politics, and psychology of conflict, but in everyday life. It is oftened used comparably in Taoist theory...

david sedaris. chuck on laughing gas.

i started a new form about other Chuck writers and reccommended Jonathan Carroll, he is similar to Neil Gaiman and i think they're friends. My full post is under the "website" forum if you want to check it out.

If you're lazy to go to my other post, check out Carroll's "White Apples", pick it up in the bookstore, without reading the back, and read the first chapter. The book blew me away.

also bret easton ellis. "american psycho" makes "fight club" look like a nursery rhyme.

I really like Ellis though it is completly understandable why people don't like him, he does tend to linger upon very minor things from time to times (I think there is a chapter in A. Psycho that is about 10-15 pages long just talking about a Phil Collin's, or maybe it was a Peter Grabriel, record). I want to read Glamorama but it seems to be rare as hell up in the Pittsburgh area for some reason and that 700+ pages detail kind of scares me.

I also like Vonngegut's stuff (Breakfast of Champions is key yo.), Katie Arnoldi's Chemical Pink is pretty good, though it seems more like a literal adaption of a Cronenberg film and speaking of Cronenberg there is also J.G. Ballard. Irvine Welsh is good too though, as it was mentioned before, his Scottish dialect kind of makes it hard to fully comprehend.

Lately I have been really into Jerry Stahl (see quote.) He use to be a writer for Thirty-something and moonlighting ---but don't let that scare you away (he was on heroin when he was writing these shows.) his books are the exact opposite. Plainclothes Naked is like what the aftereffect of what would happen if John Waters and Quentin Tarantino were locked inside of a crackhouse for a weekend and forced at gunpoint to write. Then there is Perv- A Love Story which is like Catcher in the Rye for the 00's but set in 1970. Then there is his memoir which I haven't read as of yet because it too is pretty hard to find up here despite it is a somewhat well known book, Permanant Midnight which deals with his heroin addiction and Alf.

also check out Hubert Selby Jr.---his books are just so upbeat and joyful (Requiem for a Dream, Last Exit to Brooklyn.) I still need to check out David Sedaris, Strangers With Candy was one of my favorite shows (Amy Sedaris was a writer and starred in it and she is supposedly pretty similar to her brother for dry, sardonic satire.)

That is all I can think of at this juncture, thank you and have a nice day.

i agree with you about the passages in AP...that's why i'm hoping it will be the book club selection, because like it or not there's much to talk about.

kurt vonnegut is great. my favorite book of his is "god bless you, dr. kevorkian." he's one of the few authors who has managed to create a literary style completely his own.

Haruki Murakami, specifically "Sputnik Sweetheart" and his short story collection "The Elephant Vanishes." He's probably my 2nd fav next to Chuck. Yeah, 2nd favorite......so far

Glamorama is the only of Ellis' novels with a narrative. It's quite good.

I also heard a lot about this other novel which I haven't read called "The Ignored" by Bentley Little, I have heard it being compared to Fight Club a lot, I think it is Horror-Fiction too.

"Tomcat In Love" by Tim O'Brien is Chuck's "Choke" only ramped up about a million times funnier. It's so intense, I can't even describe it. Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING - sex addiction, religion, all of it) about it; I mean, I love Chuck so much, but if he and Tim got into the ring (of words) and fought, Chuck would get his ass whipped. Everything O'Brien's written is so good; he's one of the few "mainstream" authors who gets props and totally deserves them. I love, love, love him.

Sherman Alexie, too. He (to me) is the Native American Shakespeare, jack-of-all-trades, Kurt Cobain of literature. Besides the movie "Smoke Signals" (which won some serious shit as Sundance) which he wrote the script for, there's "The Loneranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven," "Indian Killer" (which is so intense - a native American killing white people, the ultimate revenge story), "Reservation Blues" (Native American rock band fights history - it's amazing), and poetry, and nonfiction. And everything. And he lives in Seattle! What's the deal with the Pacific Northwest?

What else? "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" is a "Fight Club" fable. It's about (as my friends and I like to say), "The Tyler Durden of Seagulls." (Hee hee)

That's all I can think of right now. If any of you order stuff of amazon (or live in Chicago near Quimby's, or Powell's in Portland), my acquantance Jeff Yamaguchi's book, "Working for the Man" is like the Office Space of shortstory books. It's won some serious awards. Check out his site: [url]www.workingfortheman.com.[/url]

All I can think of right now... I'm really being coherant tonight, aren't I? Is this what not having Nyquil is like?

The closest author to Chuck that I can think of is Anthony Burgess. He wrote Clockwork Orange, The Wanting Seed, and The Doctor is Sick, as well as many other great books. They are kind of satirical with a biting sense of humor.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Joe the Coat [/i]
[B]Actually, where did the missionary position get its name? Just curiousm and hoping to get this thread onto something less likely to annoy everyone (people adverse to sex are unlikely to be on a CP site) [/B][/QUOTE]

I heard this story once, not sure if it's true or not. Probably not. There were some missionaries doing work in the South Pacific or something like that way back in the day and all the natives had ever known is what is commonly referred to as "doggy style." Well, the natives saw the missionaries getting, ahem, "intimate" on the beach, spawning the missionary position of the man on top rather than from behind.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by willtupper [/i]
[B] And he lives in Seattle! What's the deal with the Pacific Northwest? [/B][/QUOTE]

What can I say, man? We PN-dubbers just know how to do it right. I'm thinkin' it's the rain. The rain and the hippies. Yeah.