Parkaboy's Review **SPOILERS**

Well I don't think you can expect many more Fight Clubs from an author who works on a book-a-year contract... Or rather, you can expect many more Fight Clubs, but not many more really thought provoking and changing books.

[QUOTE=Seraphen]HAHAHAHA.

Remind me, didn't you say jane searched "facile" on google ?

If your intellect is limited to those sucking Matrix Reloaded/revolutions movies, i'm worried for you. Anyway, your arrogance seems not to have problems at least.[/QUOTE]
I assume you are attempting to make some sad reference to philosophy via the Matrix films in which case, bugger off, I have a degree in it arsehole.

As to my arrogance, yes I'll cop to that.

I'd much rather be that than a servile whelp who's opinions shift with the dominant persona in the room.

[QUOTE=Seraphen]HAHAHAHA.

Remind me, didn't you say jane searched "facile" on google ?

If your intellect is limited to those sucking Matrix Reloaded/revolutions movies, i'm worried for you. Anyway, your arrogance seems not to have problems at least.[/QUOTE]
Dude, you're sucking...

[QUOTE=snuffy]You seem to be saying that the "campfire" elements of the book are fun, but not so much for a seasoned Palahniuk reader. Still, from your initial review, it seems like you think that he is indeed going for more -- and failing. Which is too bad.

Keeping this review in mind, I'm definitely checking it out as soon as I can. I enjoy horror stuff, i bet i'll get a kick out of at least some of the stories.[/QUOTE]
The problem with the "camfire tales" is that they are

1)All versions on a theme or two.

2)Not well written short stories from a craft standpoint. These would never, ever have been published anywhere worth noting if Chuck wasn't CHUCK.

3)They are purported to be written by numerous auhtors yet Chuck makes no attempt to change his voice. Possibly it's that they are recounted by whoever is narrating the novel, which, I still have no clear idea whom it was. If it's like thet Secret Survivor ending, then I don't even want to know.

4)The endings are horribly predictable even though Chuck seems to think he's "hiding the gun".

[QUOTE=stoyan]Well I don't think you can expect many more Fight Clubs from an author who works on a book-a-year contract... Or rather, you can expect many more Fight Clubs, but not many more really thought provoking and changing books.[/QUOTE]

The thing is, I read that he wrote Survivor and Invis. Monsters in a very short time.... I don't think he's just pumping things out for cash, I think he believes he's honing his craft but he's pairing it down to fart jokes and cheap skin mags. I just don't get it.

[QUOTE=stoyan]Well I don't think you can expect many more Fight Clubs from an author who works on a book-a-year contract... Or rather, you can expect many more Fight Clubs, but not many more really thought provoking and changing books.[/QUOTE]

One book, if it is indeed as bad as some say it is, won't wash him up! I don't think he's sold out yet. If he is going to be as prolific as we hope he will be.

Remember, he could have sold out a long time ago, around the time that he published [I]Choke[/I].

I think Chuck has become obsessed with style, defining every rule, searching for, finding, and then using patterns. His writing is the opposite of dissecting - he doesn't narrate, he constructs. And I think this is hurting him. He is so focused on the "how" in storytelling that he neglects the "what". That's what happened in Diary. He spends more pages on researched info, than on actual character development or internal conflicts.

[QUOTE=snuffy]One book, if it is indeed as bad as some say it is, won't wash him up. I don't think he's sold out yet. If he is going to be as prolific as we hope he will be.

Remember, he could have sold out a long time ago, around the time that he published [I]Choke[/I].[/QUOTE]
He did though, Stranger Than Fiction was a total Ponzi Shceme. And Lullaby and Diary, to me, were not very good novels, genre or otherwise.

Add the Fight Club video game and the proposed musical and I think Chuck has lost any "literary" cred he ever had.

He's opted to be a shocking spectacle rather than an "author". His choice, but my interest has waned considerably.

[QUOTE=stoyan]I think Chuck has become obsessed with style, defining every rule, searching for, finding, and then using patterns. His writing is the opposite of dissecting - he doesn't narrate, he constructs. And I think this is hurting him. He is so focused on the "how" in storytelling that he neglects the "what". That's what happened in Diary. He spends more pages on researched info, than on actual character development or internal conflicts.[/QUOTE]I completely agree. He is too busy trying to perfect minimalism that he forgets things like: Plot, Theme and Character. It's interesting, he workshopped all of the shorts in Haunted, and they feel that way, like the kind of short assignment you do for workshop class, only he's famous enough to "wrap a hardcover around them" as the man himself so aptly puts.

I propose we all go to the Fight Club Forum and review the threads there, cause really Fight Club kicks ass and justifies any shit Chuck might be up to now. I mean he might start writing/drawing manga graphic novels but I'll still love him for writing Fight Club.

(just bringing some positive energy into this thread)

[QUOTE=stoyan]I propose we all go to the Fight Club Forum and review the threads there, cause really Fight Club kicks ass and justifies any shit Chuck might be up to now. I mean he might start writing/drawing manga graphic novels but I'll still love him for writing Fight Club.

(just bringing some positive energy into this thread)[/QUOTE]
To wit I say: Does Han Solo forgive Jar Jar?

Does Empire Strikes Back forgive [I]midrichlorians[/I]?

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]He did though, Strnager Than Fiction was a total Ponzi Shceme. And Lullaby and Diary, to me, were not very good novels, genre or otherwise.

Add the Fight Club video game and the proposed musical and I think Chuck has lost any "literary" cred he ever had.

He's opted to be a shocking spectacle rather than an "author". His choice, but my interest has waned considerably.[/QUOTE]

i have only read five Chuck books: Fight Club, Lullaby, Choke, Survivor, and Fugitives and Refugees. I didn't care for Lullaby, at least in comparison with my level of enjoyment for the other four.

So i haven't read three of the books you say are bad, which also seem to be his last three books. (ha, I'm in good shape it would seem) So, it's hard for me to say if there is a downward trend in Chuck's writing or not.

[QUOTE=snuffy]So, it's hard for me to say if there is a downward trend in Chuck's writing or not.[/QUOTE]
"Trust the force, Luke."

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]"Trust the force, Luke."[/QUOTE]

ahhhh, but check this out, i FORGIVE the new Star Wars for having sucky elements. i lov ethe old ones so much, i have to forgive the new ones. And Lucas can still redeem himself -- as i will find out in two weeks! -- with the sixth Star Wars film, as Chuck can for you in a later book.

Doesn't your previous love for Chuck's work, which I am assuming because of the level of anger you have for this latest book, count for something? it should. From what i think you are saying, he's got five or six good novels in there.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]2)Not well written short stories from a craft standpoint. [B]These would never, ever have been published anywhere worth noting if Chuck wasn't CHUCK.[/B][/QUOTE]

This is the part that bothers me. If I had just picked Guts up by some unkown writer, it'd have been just another urban legend, I think. But, like a variation on a theme, the Urban Legen now directly involves the person telling the story instead "I swear this happened to my best friends sister in law. She told me, and she's a lawyer, so she wouldn't lie."

[QUOTE=snuffy]ahhhh, but check this out, i FORGIVE the new Star Wars for having sucky elements. i lov ethe old ones so much, i have to forgive the new ones. And Lucas can still redeem himself -- as i will find out in two weeks! -- with the sixth Star Wars film, as Chuck can for you in a later book.

Doesn't your previous love for Chuck's work, which I am assuming because of the level of anger you have for this latest book, count for something? it should. From what i think you are saying, he's got five or six good novels in there.[/QUOTE]
Three good novels... maybe.

Part of my anger is that I used to love his work, but a lot of me not liking him as much now is me growing up. Looking back on his earlier work I'm not as impressed as I was when I was 19 or 20.

Part is I hate to see authors abuse their fame and put out, what I consider to be, sub-standard material just because they could get away with it. Instead, people could be reading my work. So there is the jealousy angle.

But mostly, the book just pissed me off becuase I see an artist who's compromised, maybe for money, maybe for fame or maybe because when your books produce both you don't have anyone really checking you anymore... which is the case with Star Wars, when you are allowed to whatever the fuck you want without real feedback, then your work become a closed system, entopic and it suffers from mundanity. We see this in the new Star Wars flciks and Chucks recent books, they are derivative ghosts of their previous work, feeding and recycling the same ideas only without the passion and insight that led to the creation of the originals.

To Chuck's credit he does still workshop his stuff. But I have to believe that the people in the shop are the sort who really like his sort of writing and are into minmalism which is kind of like test screening Cocoon in a retirement home, how much dissent are you really going to get?

[QUOTE=ireLocus]This is the part that bothers me. If I had just picked Guts up by some unkown writer, it'd have been just another urban legend, I think. But, like a variation on a theme, the Urban Legen now directly involves the person telling the story instead "I swear this happened to my best friends sister in law. She told me, and she's a lawyer, so she wouldn't lie."[/QUOTE]
And Punch Drunk was also published in Playboy... only because of his name. That story (Punch Drunk) was one of the stupidest things I ever read. If I had reviewed it in workshop I'd have to give it 2, because the prose is still pretty good, but the story is ridiculous... Right up until you read the last short in Haunted, which is even more adolescent and silly.

I don't know, man... There's just a plethora of really infantile ideas and components in this book. It's like an episode of Jackass... or rather ten of them strung together into a movie... Oh, wait, yeah... they did that too.

When he starts accepting fanmail again, I say we hit him with a deluge and demand that he remember that his core audience wants more then weirdos who pierce themselves to get girls and jerking off at the bottom of a pool.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]I don't know, man... There's just a plethora of really infantile ideas and components in this book. It's like an episode of Jackass... or rather ten of them strung together into a movie... Oh, wait, yeah... they did that too.

[/QUOTE]

Man, art schmart whatever considering JACKASS: THE MOVIE, but I fucking cracked up in the theatre watching it man. They got away with it and bless Knoxville and co. for it.

[QUOTE=Mr. Brown]Man, art schmart whatever considering JACKASS: THE MOVIE, but I fucking cracked up in the theatre watching it man. They got away with it and bless Knoxville and co. for it.[/QUOTE]Yeah, but I don't want to read [I]Jackass[/I]... And Johnny and Co., really what else can they do? Talent wasted just pisses me off, especially in a shrinking market I want into.

[QUOTE=sacredchao23]When he starts accepting fanmail again, I say we hit him with a deluge and demand that he remember that his core audience wants more then weirdos who pierce themselves to get girls and jerking off at the bottom of a pool.[/QUOTE]
Not a bad idea at all.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]Yeah, but I don't want to read [I]Jackass[/I]... And Johnny and Co., really what else can they do? Talent wasted just pisses me off, especially in a shrinking market I want into.[/QUOTE]

"Glass?! Who gives a shit about glass?"

I'm just saying JACKASS was a funny movie dude.

[QUOTE=Mr. Brown]"Glass?! Who gives a shit about glass?"

I'm just saying JACKASS was a funny movie dude.[/QUOTE]
"I'm not the one who just got buttfucked on national TV, [I]Dwayne[/I]! Now put the other guy back on!"

I cleary stated 'art schmart whatever'. You may resume tantrum.

BIG FUCKIN' SPOILER WARNING, AS IF THE FIRST POST WASN'T ENOUGH:

Actually, if the last story wasn't silly and based off an old cliche, it [i]would[/i] be out of place. The "writer" is fourteen.

From a horror standpoint, Civil Twilight works. The Nightmare Box works. Speaking Bitterness works. From a pulp horror standpoint -- this is me speaking highly of those stories. Horror stories don't have to have an Aesopish moral at the end. If they have anything like that, it's usually a very Freudian fear-of-sex thing: people fuck, then one of them dies.

There was nothing particularly original happening plotwise, but that's what happens when a mainstream author goes into genre fiction. Also, you can get away with a lot of old cliches if you focus on the character.

Lullaby had a "quest" plot, and used an old cliche where the characters actually have the quest object with them, but don't realize it. And Chuck took this and added some solid characters and it became something of its own. I didn't really relate to Carl Streator, but the rest were solid.

The 23 stories in Haunted had a [i]reason[/i] for being told, and they had similar themes that tied them together. And it's much easier to assemble 23 unrelated stories into a volume than to keep up with some kind of momentum.

And okay, why does everyone have to have this Bill Waterson integrity to be legit (Bill Waterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, refused to have plush toys, animated series and coffee mugs based on his cartoon to preserve the integrity of his creation, although Andrews & McMeel did put out a few wall calendars)? Chuck Palahniuk has the Fight Club video game, Bram Stoker has Count Chocula, even though Stoker is extremely dead and didn't profit from them. Did the video game make the book suck?

Would Fight Club be better if it was distributed as a zine in indie music stores, and Chuck still worked a day job?

Look, I'm not a Luddite. I went and bought a PS2 in a surge of misplaced post-911 patriotism. Pawned it later to pay my car insurance, but I'm not all anti useless-consumer-gadget. If people actually care about your creation enough to send you a check in some way, and it doesn't harm the integrity of the original product, what's the harm?

Once Choke comes out, the trade paperback I have will be a valuable collectable once the MTI is published, and I'll be able to say I'm all cool and underground, right? But I have to hate it if there's some kind of Trojan Condom tie-in?

Okay, getting back on topic. Are we really that spiritually weak that we need something to fill us with depth and meaning at every turn? There's already big fucking industries set up telling us how to live (not counting organized religion) do we have to crawl towards anything else and bitch when it doesn't hit us over the head with a Deep Thought on every page?

If you're looking for that, buy a book of Zen riddles. Stay away from the fiction section.

Hey, let's all write Chuck and see if he can do something more like his old work! He owes us! He doesn't respect his fans! What a world, what a world!

[QUOTE=ireLocus]I never liked Nirvana.

....still don't. But that Dave Grohl guys made some decent tunes here and there.[/QUOTE]My friend Lori fucked Dave Grohl under the stage at Lalapalooza while Iggy Pop played. Oh and I'm pretty much done with Chuck after Diary, movin' on.

[QUOTE=Mr. Brown]I cleary stated 'art schmart whatever'. You may resume tantrum.[/QUOTE]With that moustache, you don't shit about no art, Serpico.

i must say i skimmed this and only skimmed it, if i can even say that about it. the review that is.

i think as tired and cliche and whatever that haunted might be was done for a purpose. i read (somewhere) that someone thought it was a bash on reality TV and i think whomever said that was right on. i think the characters are empty; sterotypical; typecast bastards for the reason that reality TV people are hollow. that morons love it. and people too dumb to know they're morons complain about it.

the characters dont matter ala horror; ala survivor (and not the book) and the premise sucks, ala all reality TV. whether chuck is on the mark with his writing or not, thats what i think he wanted to happen

Remember that film My Little Eye?

[QUOTE=morey]My friend Lori fucked Dave Grohl under the stage at Lalapalooza while Iggy Pop played. Oh and I'm pretty much done with Chuck after Diary, movin' on.[/QUOTE]
then why are u still here?
get a refund, give your sponsor(s) their money back

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]With that moustache, you don't shit about no art, Serpico.[/QUOTE]

*claps*

My hero.

[QUOTE=Atomos]then why are u still here?
get a refund, give your sponsor(s) their money back[/QUOTE]No one sponsored me and i didn't pay goofus, i was invited back cause i was uh i forget why? Anyway my buds are here thats why!

[QUOTE=morey]No one sponsored me and i didn't pay goofus, i was invited back cause i was uh i forget why? Anyway my buds are here thats why![/QUOTE]
Because you used to be a sponsor or something and because you're a ladies' favourite.

[QUOTE=Vendetta]Because you used to be a sponsor or something and because you're a ladies' favourite.[/QUOTE]Righto i forgot i was a sponsor for the place and also the ladies!

[QUOTE=Spike]
Actually, if the last story wasn't silly and based off an old cliche, it [i]would[/i] be out of place. The "writer" is fourteen.[/quote]

yes, I realize that, but it's still a limp ending. Having your narrator be 13 isn't any excuse for a lame duck story like that. Especially the last story.
[QUOTE=Spike]
From a horror standpoint, Civil Twilight works. The Nightmare Box works. Speaking Bitterness works. From a pulp horror standpoint -- this is me speaking highly of those stories. Horror stories don't have to have an Aesopish moral at the end. If they have anything like that, it's usually a very Freudian fear-of-sex thing: people fuck, then one of them dies.[/quote]
But Chuck attempts to tack on an "Aesopish moral," Spike. And that's part of the problem, it's simplistic and Aesopish... and yes I know it comes largely from a 13 year old, but still... And as to the pscyhological aspects, I don't think he's playing up the genuine psychodynamics that would be going on in that theater. The Nightmare Box was definitely a cool idea, but. then it was abandoned. Speaking Bitterness was OK, but kind of trite I thought. Civil Twilght reminded me of that dreadful X-Files episode with the invisble elephant.
[QUOTE=Spike]
There was nothing particularly original happening plotwise, but that's what happens when a mainstream author goes into genre fiction. Also, you can get away with a lot of old cliches if you focus on the character.[/qoute]
Yes, one could get away with a lot if one were to focus on character. I found no characters in this book, I found scenarios, I found clever tales... but really, like the Urban Legends which they evoke, the people involved could be just about anybody. These characters are about as thick as the paper on which they are drawn. you can't seriously tell me that you think Chuck focused on characters here? Every single one has the same motivations-get fame for love and repent. All of which are pretty fucking thin for what they actually do. these aren't characters, they're sometimes interesting stories. In fact, to look at what Chuck himself says: everyone wants to be an object.... or words to that effect. Again, a OK PoMo comentary for perhaps one character, but not every one in the novel.[/quote]

[QUOTE=Spike]
The 23 stories in Haunted had a [i]reason[/i] for being told, and they had similar themes that tied them together. And it's much easier to assemble 23 unrelated stories into a volume than to keep up with some kind of momentum.[/quote]
Well, my problem is, once again, the characters are essentially interchangeable and the "stories" aren't well written. No devlopment or character, no actual singular voice, no real meaning. It's like Chuck said in an interview for Haunted: "I write stories the way people would tell them in a bar." Well, there you go. Maybe I should have hit the vodka again...
[QUOTE=Spike]
And okay, why does everyone have to have this Bill Waterson integrity to be legit (Bill Waterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, refused to have plush toys, animated series and coffee mugs based on his cartoon to preserve the integrity of his creation, although Andrews & McMeel did put out a few wall calendars)? Chuck Palahniuk has the Fight Club video game, Bram Stoker has Count Chocula, even though Stoker is extremely dead and didn't profit from them. Did the video game make the book suck?[/quote]

I don't begrudge him the marketing, it's that it seems to have superceded the craft. I know he doesn't see it this way and I doubt you see it this way, but you're both wrong. Chuck's lost the forest for the trees.

I think Watterson should have cashed in myself. He retired the comic anyhow... on that note, Calvin and Hobbe's Ten Year Anniversary Book explored more complex psychology than haunted did.

[QUOTE=Spike]
Look, I'm not a Luddite. I went and bought a PS2 in a surge of misplaced post-911 patriotism. Pawned it later to pay my car insurance, but I'm not all anti useless-consumer-gadget. If people actually care about your creation enough to send you a check in some way, and it doesn't harm the integrity of the original product, what's the harm?[/quote]

Again, it's not the money corrupting the product, I don't even care that he is spinning off all his work into other media, that's fine, I approve in fact. but, in this particular case, it seems indictive a trend away from being an "author" and towards just being a "writer".
[QUOTE=Spike]
Once Choke comes out, the trade paperback I have will be a valuable collectable once the MTI is published, and I'll be able to say I'm all cool and underground, right? But I have to hate it if there's some kind of Trojan Condom tie-in?[/quote]

I don't care about the consumerism, just forget I brought it up. It's just part of a pattern I see in the last three or four books...
[QUOTE=Spike]
Okay, getting back on topic. Are we really that spiritually weak that we need something to fill us with depth and meaning at every turn? There's already big fucking industries set up telling us how to live (not counting organized religion) do we have to crawl towards anything else and bitch when it doesn't hit us over the head with a Deep Thought on every page?

If you're looking for that, buy a book of Zen riddles. Stay away from the fiction section.[/QUOTE]Well, fiction or rather literature does exactly the above. But, supposing it's just for fun, me reading, well this book is still kind of hack job. It's messy, strung together poorly. The characters act in extreme ways with slim motivation and the ending is just plain stupid. If I hadn't seen it coming from the beginning, I would have felt very, very cheated. as it was I just thought it was lame and an easy out.

[QUOTE=Spike]Hey, let's all write Chuck and see if he can do something more like his old work! He owes us! He doesn't respect his fans! What a world, what a world![/QUOTE]
I feel like chuck doesn't respect his own work anymore. And, in point of fact, Haunted was a complete retread of his old ideas.

And please, Poppy Z. Bright?

That wouldn't hold up in court.

[QUOTE=Atomos]i must say i skimmed this and only skimmed it, if i can even say that about it. the review that is.

i think as tired and cliche and whatever that haunted might be was done for a purpose. i read (somewhere) that someone thought it was a bash on reality TV and i think whomever said that was right on. i think the characters are empty; sterotypical; typecast bastards for the reason that reality TV people are hollow. that morons love it. and people too dumb to know they're morons complain about it.

the characters dont matter ala horror; ala survivor (and not the book) and the premise sucks, ala all reality TV. whether chuck is on the mark with his writing or not, thats what i think he wanted to happen[/QUOTE]

I agree, the reality TV bash is what it's satirizing, an in that regard the characters are shallow and one dimensional, but that's why I asked, has Chuck become part of the problem he's satirzing?

If you don't make good points in your satire and just up the Fear Factor element, you are part of the machine that generates the mind numbing dulness not a critic from the outside.

At least that's my take. I felt like Chuck was sitting there saying exactly what you did: "TV people are hollow. that morons love it. and people too dumb to know they're morons complain about it." I don't believe that's his intent, but that's certainly the impression it gives. "Look what I can feed you Space Monkeys, see what I write and you'll buy." Again, I do no believe that's what he's thinking, but for me the result is too close to that intent.

[QUOTE=Vendetta]Remember that film My Little Eye?[/QUOTE]
I was thinking about that movie all the way through Haunted. Only My Little Eye was better... at least the people had some semblance of dimension... He should have written about how the characters interacted with each other. For Christ sake, even reality TV gives you that. Come to think of it, I thinkk that'spart of what this book was missing: Conflict. Drama is conflict, everyone had the same goal, everyone did the same things, no conflict. Thus no story.

[QUOTE=Atomos]then why are u still here?
get a refund, give your sponsor(s) their money back[/QUOTE]
In general, this place has little to do with Chuck. At least the forums and Chat.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]I agree, the reality TV bash is what it's satirizing, an in that regard the characters are shallow and one dimensional, but that's why I asked, has Chuck become part of the problem he's satirzing?

If you don't make good points in your satire and just up the Fear Factor element, you are part of the machine that generates the mind numbing dulness not a critic from the outside.

At least that's my take. I felt like Chuck was sitting there saying exactly what you did: "TV people are hollow. that morons love it. and people too dumb to know they're morons complain about it." I don't believe that's his intent, but that's certainly the impression it gives. "Look what I can feed you Space Monkeys, see what I write and you'll buy." Again, I do no believe that's what he's thinking, but for me the result is too close to that intent.[/QUOTE]
im glad you understood what i was saying and didnt take it as an attack, as i thought you would as i was saying it.

as you said with the "look, my monkies, a treat" comment, i felt that way with strander than fiction. i made it three "essays" into it and i couldnt bring myself to read anymore.

It doesn't matter that Poppy Z. Brite wrote that. The point is that writers should not be expected to slavishly devote themselves to writing the same book over and over for the rest of their career. When a writer switches focus it's perfectly fine to have a preference for the new work or the old work, but thinking that the writer "owes" you something is petty and childish and devalues the worth of their entire body of work.

[QUOTE=Spike]It doesn't matter that Poppy Z. Brite wrote that. The point is that writers should not be expected to slavishly devote themselves to writing the same book over and over for the rest of their career. When a writer switches focus it's perfectly fine to have a preference for the new work or the old work, but thinking that the writer "owes" you something is petty and childish and devalues the worth of their entire body of work.[/QUOTE]You still aren't getting my point. I don't know how to be clearer: I don't give a fuck what he writes as long as he writes it WELL. WELL I say! He can write genre, fine I don't care, Lynch does genre, but he does it [I]well[/I]. A poorly written book is a poorly written book. The only difference ascribe is that earlier Chuck showed more talent and craft than he does now. I do not see how you seem to think I want him to write more like his old stuff. I can't make it any clearer to you.

[QUOTE=Atomos]im glad you understood what i was saying and didnt take it as an attack, as i thought you would as i was saying it.

as you said with the "look, my monkies, a treat" comment, i felt that way with strander than fiction. i made it three "essays" into it and i couldnt bring myself to read anymore.[/QUOTE]That book was a waste of money. Not only was it all reprints, but most of them weren't even well written articles.

I have to agree with Sean Penn he siad the following regarding film and for me it applies to literature:

"People very happily and proudly say there's room for entertainment strictly for its own sake. Well, if you want entertainment, you get a couple of hookers and an eight ball."

agreed
i like haunted better at least
i mean i know where its coming from.

i think the twist is that they kill each other (no i didnt read your post) but i gather it from the repeated mentions of food, of having enough. i think thats the whole thing. i think the whole thing is we'll give all these assholes horrible back stories and that way you know who they are when they get voted out/killed.

ie richard hatch winning survivor would have meant a lot less if we didnt know he was fruity. and the whole speach about the snake and the rat would have meant nothing at all (if they did) if we hadnt been spoonfed just a little bit of everyone bitching about the game in the "private" camera

[QUOTE=Atomos]agreed
i like haunted better at least
i mean i know where its coming from.

i think the twist is that they kill each other (no i didnt read your post) but i gather it from the repeated mentions of food, of having enough. i think thats the whole thing. i think the whole thing is we'll give all these assholes horrible back stories and that way you know who they are when they get voted out/killed.

ie richard hatch winning survivor would have meant a lot less if we didnt know he was fruity. and the whole speach about the snake and the rat would have meant nothing at all (if they did) if we hadnt been spoonfed just a little bit of everyone bitching about the game in the "private" camera[/QUOTE]You know, that's precisely the problem with Chuck's book, there isn't any real tension or conflict in the "reality show" as all the characters are doing the same thing. There is a mild sugesstion of competition to see who'll do it best, but they all get on well enough for the most part. There are maybe two confrontations between them and they aren't about character but over events. There is so much potantial in the framing device he used and instead he wrote 23 iterations of the same story. Alas.

Actually, I did not. But let's take a look at the definition anyway, shall we?

Define: Facile

-arrived at without due care or effort; lacking depth; "too facile a solution for so complex a problem"
-easy: performing adroitly and without effort; "her easy grace"; "a facile hand"
-eloquent: expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectively; "able to dazzle with his facile tongue"; "silver speech"

So was that an insult or a compliment? By the way, thank you, thank you for underestimating my vocabulary. It takes a big person to do that. It also takes a big person (in this case, me) to not point out the many and almost all-encompassing grammar and spelling errors in your post. Because I know how hard it is to proofread without, you know, spell check.

Frankly, because Parkaboy just strikes me at the time to take the piss out of things for the sake of it. I would've been shocked if he had liked the book. This is just so...typical. But at least I wasn't let down. I came to this thread for psuedo-intellectualism and a put down of the intelligence of everyone on this board and I was not disappointed!

*cough*

Anyway. To me, writing, moviemaking, any kind of art is such a mixed bag. If you follow a winning formula, something that's garnered you fame and fortune and one of the biggest author fanbases in existence, you get naysayers that bitch about how it's all retread, and it's not new, and it's not different, and it's not interesting. If you change your formula, go a whole new direction--if Chuck started to do flowery language, description so clear you could see every blade of grass in your mind's eye--face it. You'd still bitch about it. Because that's what (warning warning incoming stereotype [but you've done them about [i]me[/i] enough in the past, so I guess it shouldn't bother me much, huh?]) people like you do. If Chuck had changed his style, I would have expected the exact same reaction from you. A three page diatribe about his selling out, his cashing in.

So my suggestion to you is either start living an artless life, or just shut up and roll with the punches.

[QUOTE=jane s.]Define: Facile

-arrived at without due care or effort; lacking depth; "too facile a solution for so complex a problem"
So was that an insult or a compliment?

The preferred nd first definition.

You obviously didn't read the whole post:

1) The Book is not well crafted.

2)You people bandy about the word pseudo-intellectualism so often that it's meaningless, in fact it's meaningless anyway. And what would true intellectualism look like, Jane? you let me know when you aren't going to Grant College with Mallory Keaton, yeah?