So - what do you think of Haunted so far?

I think Colonel Mustard did it in the study with the candlestick and Meatloaf is going to bust through the brick wall any second on a chopper.

no one has any real thoughts?

i'm sure most of us don't even have it yet.

I pre-ordered mine a while back so I don't know when I'm getting it.

ok. you guys have one day, then i expect a 5 pg report on the theme of loneliness in the book.
j/k

i'm broke!

me too. I may have to skip eating for a day or 2 while in japan because i bought the book.

I went to the library first thing and got it yesterday. My last post was a real thought, perhaps you're not familiar with the other subject matter or do not see my stupid comparison?

My thoughts are: the premise has been done. The setting has been done. All with a CP twist now, but it's still no Fight Club or Survivor. He seems to be beating the same dead horse with his knowledge of high society detail (crepe suzette, fashion labels, jewelery, imagery) and relying on research I assume was done during Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, and Surviror. I could be wrong, but nothing is jumping off the page and grabbing me by the balls the way his early stuff did. All the prior comments about Chuck settling into his own style seems very true. While his gift for minimalist description is still the stuff that stops your brain to appreciate the ,"Eva's bib is the color of food" tidbits, the tempo is predictable and even the emergency scenes aren't bringing me in. All I'm thinking is "Wow, that place must be really cool. I'd like to throw a party there."

I thought the Lady Baglady story was totally stupid, as well as the Mother Nature story.

As far as the theme of lonliness, who cares? That doesn't do it for me. I need shock and awe, I'm an American goddamnit! I need gigantic philosophies that apply to Joe Normal which will give my life focus and meaning! I need to know that I am not alone!

The only theme I've seen so far is dog eat dog world.

Then again, I'm only on page 170something.

Can you really get a body condensed into a diamond?

I can't believe I just wrote a big post dissing Chuck, I love Chuck, he's the reason I decided to quit music and write exclusively. I now judge potential friends by their knowledge of his work. I guess I'm living up to my reputation. Sad...

i got the clue reference, but i didnt really see how it applied to Haunted, except that they both take place in a big house.
thanks for the more elaborate post.

[QUOTE=Mad Daego]
Can you really get a body condensed into a diamond?
[/QUOTE]

There's a company that's doing it: [url]http://www.lifegem.com/[/url]

And while they're apparently legitimate, the writer in me gets pissed off at the fact they think "Japan" and "Nederlands" are languages.

i picked up a copy last night and i will probably devour it this weekend and loan it to my instructor. im trying to get him to come to the reading. but ive loaned out everything so far except diary IM and haunted on the fiction end. i guess i do still have fugitives and stranger than fiction.. but i dont think those are books to give to new chuck readers (i mean the non-fiction)

I'm ALWAYS lending out Chuck's books to people. It seems there's a neverending stream of folks who wouldn't even read a book normally, but they will if it is free. I had to buy [U]Survivor[/U] three times now.

BTW, I just read Brandon Whittier's story in [U]Haunted[/U]. I'm loving the book so far. Especially Lady Baglady's story. I will be back here when I've finished the book.

my copy has been read by me 3 times, plus its been read by at least 2 other people. Maybe 3, but im not sure.

Haunted is starting to pick up I think. Im digging it more and more as I turn each page. Yeah!

I'm in about 130 and don't feel like going into much detail. I'm just going to state my main beef: all the short stories are all distinctly Chuck P. When there are 23 stories all told by different characters, at least some of the narrators should have very different writing styles and plots. It seems like the writing style stays more or less the same in each story, with similar techniques and voices.

Disregarding the multiple narrator mumbo, the stories alone stand up well when it comes to shock factor and wanting to make the reader keep turning the pages.

As for the main story gelling everything together, it seems like it's got promise, but I'm not exactly sure how well it's all going to seal up.

Be back with more when I finish.

This book is... unexcuseable. I finished it this morning. I'm running the Book Club discussions for it so I'll save most of my comments and a full review for there. But, for now, I would move my Palahniuk books next to the Danielle Steel and Dean Konntz on my shelf if I had either of the latter.

The man doesn't seem to respect his audience anymore.

[QUOTE=sacredchao23]ok. you guys have one day, then i expect a 5 pg report on the theme of loneliness in the book.
j/k[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=20785[/url]

True Story:

My copy arrived from St. Helen's this afternoon. I settled in on the couch to start reading about the time Mr. Dunn gets in from work. I had an early dinner so he gets to work fixing himself something to eat. I'm through the setup chapter and am into Guts (for about the 40th time), just reach the paragraph about the ghost carrot when from the kitchen comes a rasping noise; I peek over the counter to see Mr. Dunn diligently grating a carrot into a salad bowl, hard and fast, as though trying to destroy evidence.

Fell off the couch laughing. Still haven't told him why yet--he's already too close to having me committed. Also glad I ate because I want no part of [I]that[/I] particular salad.

*laughs*

Finished reading the book a coupla days ago.
I found it entertaining and worth reading, but only in the way that I find Harry Potter worth reading. That is, its easy and amusing. I think its better then Diary, but thats really all it has going for it. At first i liked the parts about the people trapped in the theatre best, but as time went on, i changed my mind. I think the world would be a better place if Chuck had published the shorts without the "quilt."
Chuck seemed to be using his horses as a rationalization. I dont know if that makes sense, but it seemed that the thesis statements were a: to blatant and easy, b: not really that complex c: not developed to their full extent. The whole thing seemed very surface level. LIke it was afraid to really delve deep and deal with the themes brought up.
Oh well though. It was worth the time and money, so Im not terribly unhappy. I just think more effort should have gone into the characters, plots and themes rather then the research about gross stuff. But, as an admitted fanboy, I will definitely keep reading his stuff. I just hope that the next time around, we spend more time close to the sucking thing at the bottom of the pool instead of flopping around on the surface.

I have a topic of discussion.

The Missing Link's story. If I had to guess, it's true. As in, someone actually presented the entire theory to Chuck. There is no fucking way he came up with all of that and just threw it into something like this. It could have been so much more. I really honestly think some fanboy/girl spilled the whole thing over a beer when bumping into him and Chuck adapted it. The idea is too big to have been a shard of something else. Too much research and hypothesis would be necessary to merely [I]waste[/I] it like that. Anyone who could develop that theory would have held it closer to their heart as a big, useful chunk of information not to be presented so sparingly.

Also, that's where the book started getting compelling and intriguing to me. Almost at the end.

that was one of the better stories.
I half agree with you. Im sure there are plenty of people who believe that, or something like it, but Id guess that its not "true true."
To paraphrase and make sense of the word-mess I just made - Probably someone believes that. But probably no one told that story to Chuck in such a way as to make it "true."

I liked the short stories better than the main plot. Although, the names of the characters seems clever at first it got old very quickly. At the begining the main plot look as interesting as any of the short stories, but by page 220 it just seemed like more of the same. I've been tempted several times to skip the main story and just go through the other ones. I think Chuck gives away to quickly what really is going on and then he has to make last long enough to tell all the other short stories. The problems is when you are in the middle of the book the only thing making you read that main story is to know who is going to be alive at the end, who is going to survive, but it is so repetive that sometimes you stop caring who is going to make it and who is not. And it is not also that it is repetitive is that he doesn't make me care enough for any of the characters, all of them seem shallow in a scary way. What I mean is you keep watching American Idol not only because you want to know who is going to win, you watch because you have a favorite, and you want to see if he'll win. That doesn't happen here. At least it didn't happen to me.

[QUOTE=Biteme]I liked the short stories better than the main plot. Although, the names of the characters seems clever at first it got old very quickly. At the begining the main plot look as interesting as any of the short stories, but by page 220 it just seemed like more of the same. I've been tempted several times to skip the main story and just go through the other ones. I think Chuck gives away to quickly what really is going on and then he has to make last long enough to tell all the other short stories. The problems is when you are in the middle of the book the only thing making you read that main story is to know who is going to be alive at the end, who is going to survive, but it is so repetive that sometimes you stop caring who is going to make it and who is not. And it is not also that it is repetitive is that he doesn't make me care enough for any of the characters, all of them seem shallow in a scary way. What I mean is you keep watching American Idol not only because you want to know who is going to win, you watch because you have a favorite, and you want to see if he'll win. That doesn't happen here. At least it didn't happen to me.[/QUOTE]

Great assessment of what a good number of cultists are saying they felt about the book. It's a weird read. Your AI analogy is spot on. Instead of accelerating mometum toward a climax, there is almost a drouge-chute effect. The repetativeness of the gore and the escalation of horror desensitized my mind to the point where, reading at the end, it was just me dragging my eyes over words on paper. I don't think he wants us to "care" or "identify" with any of the stories. Still, I think Chuck is trying to make a point by doing the book in this particular fashion, but I'm not smart enough to figure it out.

[QUOTE=Luddy Dunn]Great assessment of what a good number of cultists are saying they felt about the book. It's a weird read. Your AI analogy is spot on. Instead of accelerating mometum toward a climax, there is almost a drouge-chute effect. The repetativeness of the gore and the escalation of horror desensitized my mind to the point where, reading at the end, it was just me dragging my eyes over words on paper. I don't think he wants us to "care" or "identify" with any of the stories. Still, I think Chuck is trying to make a point by doing the book in this particular fashion, but I'm not smart enough to figure it out.[/QUOTE]
Kind of a dangerous point to make though, no?

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]Kind of a dangerous point to make though, no?[/QUOTE]

How so? Remember I've been up writing for 36 straight hours. Made deadline 30 minutes ago so my brain has fled to that place brains go after all-nighters/all-dayers. Please use little words in Dick and Jane type sentences.

[QUOTE=Luddy Dunn]How so? Remember I've been up writing for 36 straight hours. Made deadline 30 minutes ago so my brain has fled to that place brains go after all-nighters/all-dayers. Please use little words in Dick and Jane type sentences.[/QUOTE]
I'll keep my opinion to myself lest it be misconstued as a personal attack, OT or some other such invention of the mind.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]This book is... unexcuseable. I finished it this morning. I'm running the Book Club discussions for it so I'll save most of my comments and a full review for there. But, for now, I would move my Palahniuk books next to the Danielle Steel and Dean Konntz on my shelf if I had either of the latter.

The man doesn't seem to respect his audience anymore.[/QUOTE]

Man, that's harsh!

I thought it would have worked better as a short story collection. I really enjoyed some of the shorts, and they were all so obviously written by Chuck the pretense that they were the stories of the characters wouldn't work even if he had the characters, I don't know, WRITE on their writer's retreat.

I thought maybe he was taking a stab at the reality-shows, which could have been funny instead of annoying and distracting.

Also, there's more to poetry than hitting the return key more often.

I thought a couple of the shorts had ideas that could have been the basis for novels. It's the connective tissue that didn't work for me, really. I'd still hold it above Dean Koontz and Danielle Steel. Well, okay, I tried to read a Koontz book once and couldn't do it, I've never given Danielle a chance. So maybe theyr'e great writers that I've just missed out on, but I doubt it.

There's peaks and valleys with any author, and I didnt take it that Chuck was disrespecting his fans, just that he had an idea that didn't work, at least from my perspective. 'Survivor' is still his best in my view, with 'Choke' and 'Lullaby' probably tied for second place, then 'Fight Club.' Then, several notches down, 'Diary.'

I know the bottom of the list for me is 'Invisible Monsters,' which I really struggled to even finish. I know I'd rate 'Haunted' above 'Invisible Monsters' but I'm not sure where it stands relative to 'Diary' on my scorecard. Probably about the same, overall. Parts of 'Diary' worked better than others.

What's funny is the guy who declared that transgressive fiction was dead, Chuck sure seems to be writing a lot of it.

[QUOTE=Mad Daego]I have a topic of discussion.

The Missing Link's story. If I had to guess, it's true. As in, someone actually presented the entire theory to Chuck. There is no fucking way he came up with all of that and just threw it into something like this. It could have been so much more. I really honestly think some fanboy/girl spilled the whole thing over a beer when bumping into him and Chuck adapted it. The idea is too big to have been a shard of something else. Too much research and hypothesis would be necessary to merely [I]waste[/I] it like that. Anyone who could develop that theory would have held it closer to their heart as a big, useful chunk of information not to be presented so sparingly.

Also, that's where the book started getting compelling and intriguing to me. Almost at the end.[/QUOTE]

Chuck lives in Bigfoot country. He's probably been hearing various theories about it for years, and this was just his take on it.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]

Also, there's more to poetry than hitting the return key more often.

[/QUOTE]

I know, the poems have no connection to eachother. One is short, the others are long... return key a bunch of times.

I don't know, I don't read a lot of poems, but they feel like a bad introduction. I DO like the "instead of a spot-light, a movie-fragment" thing. That's a nice way to ease in a story with general images.

Other than that, the stories are so-so. They are either really, really cool (Punch Drunk), or pretty bad.

300 pages in, unfortunately I’ve had to read it in bits since my schedule is as fractured.

Favorite story so far
[I]The Nightmare Box[/I]

Ok, I’m dropping some added thoughts before they fall out--of me.

I don’t think this should be marketed as a novel but I do think chuck is trying to push his own boundaries. Once I stop looking at it as a novel I’m still in love with the concept. I do think he’s taking a different angle on the whole PLAy within a PLAy.

The characters are a mesh of perhaps “universal” anti-heroes, and each stitches together the psyche off perhaps the darker side of human nature.

What I also like is that there really is no middle ground. Chuck goes from extreme to the other: researched head authority to minuet visceral details that we might call Small voice.

The thing is, once I stopped searching for a protagonist, and suspend all disbelief, I’m completely lost in the crazy concoctions and mad manic rush of it.

It kind of brings me back to fight club. The scene in the car, where Tyler says, “just let go.” I think in a way he’s subverting or expectations—no? Or telling us to stop with the roundabout box we like to put or deserts in

I give the man credit. I don’t think this is a novel, but it's a strong attempt to bring together stories in a unique way, his way, and that's why we (writers) write--no?.

Again, it's not a novel. There is no real protagonist.

I see the characters as Archetypes of perhaps example of what chuch says, “What wouldn’t you do?”

it's more mythological. Perhaps the characters are GODS of our deepest FEars.

Will finish before New York!

[QUOTE=Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde]300 pages in, unfortunately I’ve had to read it in bits since my schedule is as fractured.

Favorite story so far
[I]The Nightmare Box[/I]

Ok, I’m dropping some added thoughts before they fall out--of me.

I don’t think this should be marketed as a novel but I do think chuck is trying to push his own boundaries. Once I stop looking at it as a novel I’m still in love with the concept. I do think he’s taking a different angle on the whole PLAy within a PLAy.

The characters are a mesh of perhaps “universal” anti-heroes, and each stitches together the psyche off perhaps the darker side of human nature.

What I also like is that there really is no middle ground. Chuck goes from extreme to the other: researched head authority to minuet visceral details that we might call Small voice.

The thing is, once I stopped searching for a protagonist, and suspend all disbelief, I’m completely lost in the crazy concoctions and mad manic rush of it.

It kind of brings me back to fight club. The scene in the car, where Tyler says, “just let go.” I think in a way he’s subverting or expectations—no? Or telling us to stop with the roundabout box we like to put or deserts in

I give the man credit. I don’t think this is a novel, but it's a strong attempt to bring together stories in a unique way, his way, and that's why we (writers) write--no?.

Again, it's not a novel. There is no real protagonist.

I see the characters as Archetypes of perhaps example of what chuch says, “What wouldn’t you do?”

it's more mythological. Perhaps the characters are GODS of our deepest FEars.

Will finish before New York![/QUOTE]

I may be remembering some stuff from English Lit and Western Civ wrong, but I seem to recall that in the strict 'Greek' sense, a black comedy cannot have a sympathetic protagonist.

Most attempts at a story that follow that rule strictly are not commercially popular, and I'm not immune from wanting someone I can identify with. The movie 'Mixed Nuts' got panned by a lot of people in large part because the whole suicide help-line that is the cast is essentially out of chapter 46 (2) of 'Survivor.' But that movie followed the rules I remember from those pointy-headed classes, and I suppose 'Haunted' does in some respects as well.

the answers were probably glaringly obvious to some of you, but not to me so i need to ask..

1- at the end of the bigfoot story when he says he has to make a phone call, he's calling ahead to have them ready to kill the girl. am i right or wrong?

2-the story with the womens support group where they accuse the person of being transgender... i think i missed something. the last two paragraphs ask "how did we get like this", and then, repeating the openning, "from the moment he sat down, we tried to explain. we don't allow men...........and so on.

i don't get it, whats the twist?

[QUOTE=JKuhlmann]the answers were probably glaringly obvious to some of you, but not to me so i need to ask..

1- at the end of the bigfoot story when he says he has to make a phone call, he's calling ahead to have them ready to kill the girl. am i right or wrong?

2-the story with the womens support group where they accuse the person of being transgender... i think i missed something. the last two paragraphs ask "how did we get like this", and then, repeating the openning, "from the moment he sat down, we tried to explain. we don't allow men...........and so on.

i don't get it, whats the twist?[/QUOTE]"He" was really a "she" they were wrong and basically raped a woman trying to prevent "men" from thinking and acting like that.

The guy in the Missing Link was calling to have her killed, yes.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]I may be remembering some stuff from English Lit and Western Civ wrong, but I seem to recall that in the strict 'Greek' sense, a black comedy cannot have a sympathetic protagonist.

Most attempts at a story that follow that rule strictly are not commercially popular, and I'm not immune from wanting someone I can identify with. The movie 'Mixed Nuts' got panned by a lot of people in large part because the whole suicide help-line that is the cast is essentially out of chapter 46 (2) of 'Survivor.' But that movie followed the rules I remember from those pointy-headed classes, and I suppose 'Haunted' does in some respects as well.[/QUOTE]It can still have fleshed out characters though. Like Tender, he was fleshed out, whereas I lost track of who was who in the theater.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]"He" was really a "she" they were wrong and basically raped a woman trying to prevent "men" from thinking and acting like that.

[/QUOTE]

......aha i see now..... whats the reason for repeating the openning paragraph at the end?

[QUOTE=JKuhlmann]......aha i see now..... whats the reason for repeating the openning paragraph at the end?[/QUOTE]
To reinforce that they were blinded by their own attempt to uncover the "truth," that they were willing to bury the truth (what they were doing to this girl) and delude themselves into believing it was for a greater good. They are a part of the problem they seek to reveal and fight. Surely when the one woman looked inside the woman and saw she was a woman, after she said: "You don't want to know..." or whatever the line was, the rest of the group had to have some inkling as to what they had really done. And even if she was a transexual it was still the same objectification and rape scenario. So, he ends where he had begun showing that they learn nothing and persist in their narrow minded dogma.

thanx

[QUOTE=JKuhlmann]thanx[/QUOTE]
Sure.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]It can still have fleshed out characters though. Like Tender, he was fleshed out, whereas I lost track of who was who in the theater.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, Tender is a pretty despicable fellow in a lot of ways, but I don't know if he falls under the strictly 'unsympathetic' rule.

Maybe no complete character can be. As much as I wouldn't want to hang out for long with an Ignatius Reilly, for instance, I definitely root for him to escape enforced mental health counseling. And as pathetic as Irene and Claude and Jones and all the other characters are, the only characters I find myself rooting 'against' totally are Mrs. Levy and Lana Lee.

Or in the case of 'Survivor,' maybe I root for Tender because he's hunted; because he's gotten the short end from the start; because he's never even gotten laid. As terrible as he is, telling suicidal people to get down to it, his employers and his religion have made his position understandable, thus at least somewhat sympathetic. In Chuck's terms, the major characters of 'Survivor' each can 'make their case.'

I don't know if 'Haunted' is a trend indicator in Palahniuk's career or not. I've seen writers like Thomas Harris and John Grisham go from writing books I can enjoy to books I am disappointed in, to the extent of turning me off of ever reading them again. The common denominator for such writers (who would include Stephen King and Cliver Barker, Ann Rule, Michael Crichton and so on, is the New York Times Bestseller List.

I think the harsh feedback editors give unproven writers helps make for better books. For that matter, the years an aspiring novelist might put in refining his first book. Crank out a book a year and it gets harder to refine that story even if you are getting good editorial feedback and are humble enough to use it well. If you add to that an author who maybe gets enough name recognition that the editor's boss (the Publisher) knows the name alone is going to sell a profitable number of units, maybe the harsh editorial feedback gets reduced.

'Haunted' isn't as big a step down as some of the above mentioned writers have taken. It's hard to believe the same author wrote 'A Time to Kill' and 'The Pelican Brief.' But by the time the latter was published, I doubt Grisham's editors were doing much more than checking for typos.

I'd rather wait five or eight or ten years for another book by an author I like than have them turn into a factory churning out mediocre material.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]Yeah I don't know if 'Haunted' is a trend indicator in Palahniuk's career or not. I've seen writers like Thomas Harris and John Grisham go from writing books I can enjoy to books I am disappointed in, to the extent of turning me off of ever reading them again. The common denominator for such writers (who would include Stephen King and Cliver Barker, Ann Rule, Michael Crichton and so on, is the New York Times Bestseller List.

I think the harsh feedback editors give unproven writers helps make for better books. For that matter, the years an aspiring novelist might put in refining his first book. Crank out a book a year and it gets harder to refine that story even if you are getting good editorial feedback and are humble enough to use it well. If you add to that an author who maybe gets enough name recognition that the editor's boss (the Publisher) knows the name alone is going to sell a profitable number of units, maybe the harsh editorial feedback gets reduced.
[/QUOTE]I agree, Luddy and I were talking about this. It's kind of like the Lucas syndrome, when you don't have any parameters, you aren't really checking yourself in anyway and because you make others so much money (or in Lucas's case you're now independent of that) you get left alone. And talent unchecked usually turns back on itself as creative types will just go farther and farther.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]I may be remembering some stuff from English Lit and Western Civ wrong, but I seem to recall that in the strict 'Greek' sense, a black comedy cannot have a sympathetic protagonist.

Most attempts at a story that follow that rule strictly are not commercially popular, and I'm not immune from wanting someone I can identify with. The movie 'Mixed Nuts' got panned by a lot of people in large part because the whole suicide help-line that is the cast is essentially out of chapter 46 (2) of 'Survivor.' But that movie followed the rules I remember from those pointy-headed classes, and I suppose 'Haunted' does in some respects as well.[/QUOTE]

I'm afraid that this is going to sound overly simplistic and pointy-headed (love that adjective), but I think it comes back to the John Gardner dictum: a writer's only job is not to interrupt the reader's dream. The reader, in fiction, needs to forget that he or she is reading. Same way as when the writing is going really well, you forget that you are writing. So the argument over protagonist or no protagonist, characterization or no characterization is not what's at stake here. It's about how well the dream is maintained. Especailly in a book that is rooted in the dream world.

How many times has someone said, "I had the weirdest dream last night," and then gone onto describe it to you in great detail while your eyes glaze over and you nod like you care? My intersest may pick up at the mention of sex or dead babies, but really, your dreams have no relevency to my life. "And you are telling me this why?" (For that reason most editors will automatically cut dream sequences from a book; they are considered amateurish.) Your subconsious is dreaming for your benefit only. If you as a writer want to hold the readers' full attention, you have to seduce him or her into believing your dream is their own.

Say you are at a party, sitting on a couch between a pair of beautiful twin sisters, both dressed in identical Ren Faire attaire. You turn to the sister on the right and ask how her day was. She's glowing. She tells you she had the most wonderful day. She went to the faire and had her palm read and the palmist showed her a break in her life line that meant something extraordinary is going to happen to her and she can hardly wait to find out what it is. Her attention then fades away from you as she stares at her hand. Because your mama raised you right, you turn to her sister on your left and ask if she too had a good day. She yawns and says she's exhausted. Spent all day at the faire, where she works reading palms. Then she takes your hand in hers, studies it and says with a smile, "see this break in your life line? It means something extraordinary is about to happen to you." She then releases you so that you may study the mysteries of your own hand. Which of the twins are you more interested in?

The reason the Cassandra character is so compelling is that her nightmare isn't spelled out, but we, I assume most of us, have experienced events that shake us so that our lives are never the same. Cassandra's unspoken nightmare is the dream we can barely ever talk about. We care because she tells us something that helps us understand why we became writers.

There are several moments of that sort of trancendence of the boundary between writer and reader in Haunted, some of beauty (harvesting white peaches), some of terror(Miss Sniffles story). Was I horrified throughout? Yes. Was I entertained? Freak show style, yes. But for much of the book, I knew I was reading, checking which page I was on and how much longer until the next break so I could put the book down--because I was tired of listening to dreams that meant nothing to me. I just kept thinking, "And you are telling me this why?"

Of course, this is a subjective matter of taste. No one is wrong for loving a book. No one is wrong for hating that same book. Reading is not a loyalty test. I'm just saying that it is pretty clear that the nightmares that make up the majority of [I]Haunted[/I] are Chuck's nightmares. Stuff he finds fascinating that he describes in vivid detail because it is authentically important to him. These stories mean something to him. I have to respect that even if my eyes glazed over and I nodded a lot.

This is off-topic and as the trend here goes recently will probably be deleted, but I just want to say that, Luddy, you are the most interesting cultist to join the cult in the recent past.

I'm not sure the answers are in the book. Some of the things, like the Adam & Eve thing, could certainly be deconstructed in the direction you're going, as either the beginning, the end, or the return point on a perpetual cycle. The notion that any scientific fact is as thoroughly proven as people in that story seem to think their Venutian salvation is makes it kind of silly. There's more disagreement in fields of observable fact such as thermodynamics and nuclear physics than there is in the story's supposition of scientific proof of reincarnation.

In other words, it would be more than two people who begged off of the planetary Jonestown scene.

I didn't even notice the Roland/Brandon discrepancy, but again, it seems like the theater is a sort of repeated doom, there's lots of references that it basically always turns out the same, only the cast changes.

I notice you're new to the Cult, I hope if this book was your jumping off point for Chuck that you don't get frustrated and give up. In my view it's his second-worst book, and second only because it's got some clever stories in it (I don't recall anything even amusing about 'Invisible Monsters') and if you haven't read 'Survivor' or 'Choke,' or 'Lullaby,' I'd say pick one of those three and see what you think.

And maybe folks like me who've read him through expect too much. Kafka, for instance, repeated the same ideas quite a bit, and a lot of his work was never polished or even finished. I'm not putting Palahniuk on a par with Kafka, I'm just saying even really great writers aren't spectacular 100% of the time. There's probably more apt comparisons with a guy like Philip Roth (it's hard to believe 'The Ghost Writer' and 'The Prague Orgy' were written by the same guy who wrote 'Operaton Shylock.')

[QUOTE=Luddy Dunn]Of course, this is a subjective matter of taste. No one is wrong for loving a book. No one is wrong for hating that same book.[/QUOTE]

That's such a weight off my mind! Now I can finally admit how much I lover [I]The Turner Diaries[/I] and [I]Mein Kampf.[/I]

I believe the box was cited as been quite old, an antique or some such, thus it would have to be his grandfather at least as he is a teen. Unless his dad is on the Viagra and the Viagra made him get progeria so he'd be old like his dad and the whole thing is really a shot at Hugh Heffner and the love grotto.

But, you know, probably it isn't.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]I believe the box was cited as been quite old, an antique or some such, thus it would have to be his grandfather at least as he is a teen. Unless his dad is on the Viagra and the Viagra made him get progeria so he'd be old like his dad and the whole thing is really a shot at Hugh Heffner and the love grotto.

But, you know, probably it isn't.[/QUOTE]

Heh! Hef and the love grotto, I hadn't made that connection, but that would make it a better story. Kind of like how the only way I could really enjoy reading WCB was by deciding that Phineas Poe is not an ex-cop but only a junkie informant inflating himself for the story. Even though Baer hadn't considered the possibility, it's how I read the books.

And I don't know if it's ever been put up here at the Cult, but when Chuck called Dennis back when the Cult went online, didn't he offer to explain how Tender Branson didn't die as proof of his Chuckness? I missed the loophole the first time through, but I think I figured it out on the second go: he has six parachutes onloaded for one pilot to bail out with. When Fetility says he'll think of something, and there's several points in the book where Tender basically cops to being dense. So know I think the close of the book was right before he remembered there were still 'chutes left, instead of it being the point of impact.

Maybe there's a third option, at least 'Survivor' is a book I'll probably re-read again. I think that's the thing that bums me out about 'Haunted.' There's unresolved questions but I don't care to go back and find the answers. Even 'Diary,' which caught hell from a lot of Cultists, was fun the second time through, if not Chuck at his best.

He recorded his message into the tape recorder and played it back into the blackbox, then he jumped out. The answer is on one of the non-forum pages around here somewhere.

[QUOTE=Chixulub]Maybe there's a third option, at least 'Survivor' is a book I'll probably re-read again. I think that's the thing that bums me out about 'Haunted.' There's unresolved questions but I don't care to go back and find the answers. Even 'Diary,' which caught hell from a lot of Cultists, was fun the second time through, if not Chuck at his best.[/QUOTE]
I've reread Survivor a few times.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]He recorded his message into the tape recorder and played it back into the blackbox, then he jumped out. The answer is on one of the non-forum pages around here somewhere.[/QUOTE]

I remember reading that a while back now that you mention it, but it was worded in a way that didn't make sense at the time. But that makes sense, the statements he makes about the black box, and the lack of commentary on the ground rushing up to greet him (which you'd think a fellow would notice).

Makes it even more of a D.B. Cooper, he could jump out almost anywhere...

[QUOTE=Chixulub]I remember reading that a while back now that you mention it, but it was worded in a way that didn't make sense at the time. But that makes sense, the statements he makes about the black box, and the lack of commentary on the ground rushing up to greet him (which you'd think a fellow would notice).

Makes it even more of a D.B. Cooper, he could jump out almost anywhere...[/QUOTE]
But he didn't have 200,000 dollars. All he had was a sagging waistline and carry on detritus.

Did you read the answer from Chuck or the one in some thread. I remeber the one in the thread too and it wasn't worded well and it was listed as a theory.

Chuck's is pretty clear as I recall if you really want to try and dig it out.

I was wondering if the narrator of Haunted was this kind of secret ending as well, though I suppose it must be Guts-Free as Luddy deduced.