Discussion 6/05: Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk

Haven't any of you read the book?

You're all going to fail, you know that, don't you?

Permanent record and all....

I was waiting to see what other people were going to say, but apparently that isn't happening. I thought this would be the one book we would be overwhelmed with discussion on.

So I started to go through this, but it's going to take more time than I have. I am going to reply tomorrow... promise.

[QUOTE=PGoutis01]I was waiting to see what other people were going to say, but apparently that isn't happening. I thought this would be the one book we would be overwhelmed with discussion on.

So I started to go through this, but it's going to take more time than I have. I am going to reply tomorrow... promise.[/QUOTE]
Perhaps the two big threads about it already took out some of the steam.

Perhaps no one did their homework.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]Perhaps the two big threads about it already took out some of the steam.

Perhaps no one did their homework.[/QUOTE]
You might be right about that. Maybe you should jump in there and post a link to this thread.

It sucks because your questions are really well thought out... maybe a little intimidating?

I don't know. I'm going to print your questions out and then I'm about to start working on this. I might have to flip through the book a little too. Hopefully somebody else jumps in.

[QUOTE=PGoutis01]You might be right about that. Maybe you should jump in there and post a link to this thread.

It sucks because your questions are really well thought out... maybe a little intimidating?

I don't know. I'm going to print your questions out and then I'm about to start working on this. I might have to flip through the book a little too. Hopefully somebody else jumps in.[/QUOTE]
I'll go dig up the threads and post links.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]Haven't any of you read the book?

You're all going to fail, you know that, don't you?

Permanent record and all....[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I read it. I was really psyched to read it because I liked the two shorts that came out in Playboy. I thought they were funny and, especially with 'Punch Drunk' that he was getting back to the transgressive thing that really made him.

The overall effect, especially since a couple of the stories are, at best, weak, is How To Make An American Lice-Infested Rag Bag.

The connective tissue just sucks ass. I thought 'Invisible Monsters' was a drag, but if you stripped out the short stories in 'Haunted' it's the worst stuff he's ever done.

I even liked 'Diary,' the book I've heard the most Chuck fans bash on. But this, the so-called poems and the the 'novel' material, it's the kind of thing that wrecks writer's careers. Making the bestseller list is no guarantee of future sales, and my feeling is that Chuck needs to take some time and not force himself to crank out a book in a hurry. I'd rather wait two or three years and have another book like 'Survivor' or 'Lullaby' or 'Choke' that I can enjoy over and over than have him come out with a book I can't believe I paid retail for. This is the kind of burn that has me almost 100% of the time using the public library or sifting the remainders, because $15 to $30 is a ton of money if the book is disappointing.

Better to have an experience like finding 'All the Beautiful Sinners' being closed out for $3 in hardback and have it be a really fun read. Or to get 'Contortionist's Handbook' from the library, very skeptical, and end up buying a copy because I keep going back to it.

Chuck had, prior to 'Haunted' made my very, very short list of authors I'll buy just because I know they write stuff I'll like. Elmore Leonard, Amy Hempel, Jonathan Lethem, Terry Southern, Toni Morrison, Faulkner, I'm running out of authors here already.

Maybe people with more disposable income than I can just grab the next book by anyone who's ever pleased them, but I'm not there. And if I can't get an author through the library (rare, I can generally scare up an interlibrary loan) or the used/remaindered book stores I've got more books than time to read them.

And the thing that makes 'Haunted' the hardest to take, to me, is I felt like up through 'Lullaby' Chuck was generally getting better at his game. 'Fight Club' is charming but it has a lot of kinks that were worked out better in the screen adaptation, and there's only a couple of scenes from the book I feel like the movie would have benefited from (the perfume incident, for instance). I don't know if I expected too much out of 'Haunted,' but I don't think my reaction is a revolt based on rising expectations.

Well, we already crtiqued the book in the other threads. I agree with all your points here, however since we're trying to have a discussion in the Book Club, I don't think we can dwell on the dissapointing aspects of the book.

Even given the general unpopularity, there are still a number of issues raised (if not resolved per se) by the book.

For example, since you didn't like the connective material do you think that going for the shock value places the author in a dangerous position of becoming what he is simultaneously satirizing?

Especially in the moder media circus, a novel has to compete with a host of other forms of more quicklt and poassively assimilated entertainment/enlightenment. Palahniuk is obviously attempting to draw a critique of a culture obsessed with fame rather than meaning and image over content. If we assume that such a critique is at least part of his purpose, do you think he starys too far into the territory he is supposed to be observing and reporting on vis a vis his use of scatalogical content?

And do you think other authors, say Brett Easton Ellis in American Psycho, have been able to navigate this pitfall successfully?

In a way, I think he is writing the exact same thing that he is trying to comment on. But he brings into account the human factor. In each story something disturbing happens, but there is the human factor to deal with. People want fame, but it's messed up because of something. You can never tell what somebody else is thinking. You don't know if they are friend or foe. There is this feeling in most of the stories where you don't know if somebody is good or bad.

This worked easy in my head, but it's not coming out right here. I hope it's clear.

The whole thing about readers now days is the fact that they want a book like Fight Club that they can tell their friends about. And they aren't saying, "It's a satire about this or that." What they are saying is, "And then they pissed in the soup." That's why movies like Van Wilder get so popular even though the storyline is elementary - they got dogs being jerked off into donuts for fuck's sake. It's as if to get somebody to read a book you need those shock moments... and lots of them. So, for a book that is going to sell, it's really important to have them. Still I think a writer should stay true to himself and not just throw them in to sell.

The Rock Tumbler metaphor - I think that he's saying that all these terrible things. That all these disgusting, shocking things that brought these people to the "Writer's Workshop" has given them their stories. Has made them better. That they already have what they came for because they have lived. The world has already provided them with everything that they are trying to find. They just need to open their eyes.
Also in relation to the stories. I think the stories were never as bad as when they are told that last time for the book. I think that they slowly got worse or funnier or sadder. Just like when we all tell our favorite stories - we slowly add more and more to them. I think that that also signifies the rock tumbler. The more they tell their stories, the worse they get.

Three of the things you asked - I really want to know too.
The question about the seven deadly sins.
What do you think was in the Nightmare Box?
Who is the narrator?

[QUOTE=PGoutis01]In a way, I think he is writing the exact same thing that he is trying to comment on. But he brings into account the human factor. In each story something disturbing happens, but there is the human factor to deal with. People want fame, but it's messed up because of something. You can never tell what somebody else is thinking. You don't know if they are friend or foe. There is this feeling in most of the stories where you don't know if somebody is good or bad.

This worked easy in my head, but it's not coming out right here. I hope it's clear.

The whole thing about readers now days is the fact that they want a book like Fight Club that they can tell their friends about. And they aren't saying, "It's a satire about this or that." What they are saying is, "And then they pissed in the soup." That's why movies like Van Wilder get so popular even though the storyline is elementary - they got dogs being jerked off into donuts for fuck's sake. It's as if to get somebody to read a book you need those shock moments... and lots of them. So, for a book that is going to sell, it's really important to have them. Still I think a writer should stay true to himself and not just throw them in to sell.

The Rock Tumbler metaphor - I think that he's saying that all these terrible things. That all these disgusting, shocking things that brought these people to the "Writer's Workshop" has given them their stories. Has made them better. That they already have what they came for because they have lived. The world has already provided them with everything that they are trying to find. They just need to open their eyes.
Also in relation to the stories. I think the stories were never as bad as when they are told that last time for the book. I think that they slowly got worse or funnier or sadder. Just like when we all tell our favorite stories - we slowly add more and more to them. I think that that also signifies the rock tumbler. The more they tell their stories, the worse they get.

Three of the things you asked - I really want to know too.
The question about the seven deadly sins.
What do you think was in the Nightmare Box?
Who is the narrator?[/QUOTE]
The problem with the idea that the characters have expiated their pain, through telling, through the rock tumbler is that they still destroy themselves in the process. The equivalent being a a rock you wish to polish into a gem but you z grind it so horribly that you leave only powder behind. The characters never learned from their stories, so I think it would be more a cautionary tale about the dangers of misusuing your pain for financial/validatory growth rather than for personal growth.

The seven deadly sins:

All of the characters are trying to get famous and rich on their life, so you have [COLOR=Red]Avarice/Greed[/COLOR].

Guts-Free never stops eating and he got that way by over-indulging his masturbatory habits, so that's [COLOR=Red]Gluttony[/COLOR] and [COLOR=Red]Lust[/COLOR].

The man who faked his disabilty suit layed around and did nothing, so he's [COLOR=Red]Sloth[/COLOR].

Miss Amercia is a clear case of [COLOR=Red]Envy[/COLOR], she is also obsessed with her appearance so you have [COLOR=Red]Vanity[/COLOR].

The Chef is a clear case of [COLOR=Red]Wrath[/COLOR], review me well of die!

You can apply them to more characters as well, but I'm having trouble remembering the specifics.

The Nightmare Box I intitially believed showed the Venusian Paradise but there are things that do not fit. My inclination now is that it didn't have anything specific in there because Chuck realized with all of the expectation any confirmation would be a let down.

As for the Narrator, Chuck was asked about this in Seattle or Toronto I think and gave a vague answer which didn't disclose anything as I took it. My guess is that Gut's-Free, while locked in the theater after everyone else was dead, took the recorder that vandal had and narrated the entire tale into it before he himself died. This explains why he's the first one driving the bus and the first story as well. but this certainly is far from being an air-tight theory.

Three people? That's it? Come on slackers!

I will join the discussion in a couple more days. I just got the book on Friday. I should have it finished Monday or so.

[QUOTE=eslayt00]I will join the discussion in a couple more days. I just got the book on Friday. I should have it finished Monday or so.[/QUOTE]
Good.

Your all are being showed up by n00bs!

n00bs!!

Pitiful lot [I]you[/I] are...

Here I am, trying to sleep, which I cannot do as usual, and I was turning over the seven sins query, which I think I answered only in part.

The significance of the sins in the book goes back to a consistent dynamic Chuck inserts in his novels, that of a Christian morality. Now, Chuck says he isn't religious in the typical sense, nevertheless a strong sense of Christian idea does permeate his work. Perhaps subconsciously a strong sense of communally agreed upon conduct underscores the very violation of said code by his characters.
Taking Haunted as example we see that each character's sin, their pain, their back-story is supposed to be redemptive. By telling they are confessing and by confessing they are contrite and should be able to transform their sin into salvation. This is why they should "Speak Bitter,” expiate, move on. The characters fail to do this because the Earthly pleasures of avarice and fame overcome the transcendent ones of knowledge and strength.

Taking this further, we can view the entire undercurrent of the book as a model of Christian cosmology. Earth (the rock tumbler) is where you are perfected into a being ready to transcend into the Kingdom of Heaven (Venus) provided you learn from your sins (back stories) and repent (Expiate the pain through writing.)

The problem is of course that people are looking for the quick fix and so they seek fame rather than salvation, rather than bettering themselves and when they discover Heaven is real they take the shortcut to getting there and turn it into a debaucherous festival of Earthly desire rather than meaningful knowledge and Heavenly reward.

Now, I am not here suggesting Chuck is either a Christian nor even some sort of moralist, but something deep inside him, from his childhood I would guess, has left him with a template of essentially religious doctrine which he has turned into what he called The Religion of Writing.

It's in all of his books, a unifying theme and something I can only assume reflects the writer's own search, as fiction always does.

Thoughts?

maybe chuck is satarizing you crazy bastards in the Cult Writers Workshop?
{only half kidding}

as far as narration, and please this hasn't really been thought through and i haven't refered back to the text, but what if the girl from the previous trip to the retreat ( found naked and amputated walking down the street) had something to do with it? as i write i remember she dies while the story is still being told, so i don't believe this even deserves consideration.

[QUOTE=JKuhlmann]maybe chuck is satarizing you crazy bastards in the Cult Writers Workshop?
{only half kidding}

as far as narration, and please this hasn't really been thought through and i haven't refered back to the text, but what if the girl from the previous trip to the retreat ( found naked and amputated walking down the street) had something to do with it? as i write i remember she dies while the story is still being told, so i don't believe this even deserves consideration.[/QUOTE]
Only is she is "the ghost," which I believe is Whittier and not anuthing supernatural, but Chuck says he puts in one supernatural element to everything (which I don't see in FC or IM) I think the narrator has to be someone living, from the theater.

Who else is in this Book Club? Rattle some cages people, will you?

And where is Moe?

We need more than 4 people here.

This is just sad.

[URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showpost.php?p=650534&postcount=256]My post from the other thread.[/URL]
I maintain what I said about the narrator. Hasn't [I]any[/I]body read The Virgin Suicides? It had that whole thing where someone is narrating on behalf of the whole group but is never actually identified. I was going to give an example but my memory kind of fucked me over, so I won't. It always says "we" but never "I" and when something involved someone specific they name that person. I honestly don't think that the question of who the narrator is had anything to do with the plot of Haunted. I think maybe he was trying to do something new with the narration. You can't have a reason behind [I]every[/I]thing.

And why do you guys keep talking about the ghost? It was established in the book that Whittier wasn't actually dead, and so he was the one going around fixing things. Everyone [I]thought[/I] there was a ghost because that's just kind of what their mind resorted to thinking. It even said that everyone had a different idea of who the ghost was. They all had their own personal ghost.

I swear I had something else to say, but I've got no idea what it is. The computer fucked me over the first time I tried to post this, and the only reason I'm not supremely pissed off right now is that I managed to get a print screen thing and recover just about all of what I said.

I don't know why people keep brining up the ghost. My inclination on the narrator is that Chuck tends toward working out the details in his own logic and I think he might feel that there was a thread come undone in his story if at least, in his own mind, he didn't know who the narrator was. Also he seemed vague about the answer in Toronto which makes me think something other than collective narration is going on. Finally, in Diary, he used what seemed to be third person but was actually someone writing about themself.

As far as who the narrator is...could it be Countess Foresight? The tapes are all recorded over after everyone's story, but all she's got to do is touch something that belonged to someone and everyone had to bring something of theirs with them - what they couldn't do without.She'd just have to touch each of these things to 1. Tell what had happened to the person - thus writing their story down and 2. Tell what would happen to the person. But...that may be too obvious an explanation...
And I think the answer is in finding out who wrote the poems before each of the stories...the titles are all sort of career/business/legal-related terminology and each of them is a poem 'about' each of the characters.

I don't know...I've got to go back and look at a few things first before I can answer these questions...I was looking through the chapter where Whittier comes back, trying to do a body count ... and see who's left at the end. So I'll do that and then respond to the other questions.

[QUOTE=wenknee]As far as who the narrator is...could it be Countess Foresight? The tapes are all recorded over after everyone's story, but all she's got to do is touch something that belonged to someone and everyone had to bring something of theirs with them - what they couldn't do without.She'd just have to touch each of these things to 1. Tell what had happened to the person - thus writing their story down and 2. Tell what would happen to the person. But...that may be too obvious an explanation...
And I think the answer is in finding out who wrote the poems before each of the stories...the titles are all sort of career/business/legal-related terminology and each of them is a poem 'about' each of the characters.

I don't know...I've got to go back and look at a few things first before I can answer these questions...I was looking through the chapter where Whittier comes back, trying to do a body count ... and see who's left at the end. So I'll do that and then respond to the other questions.[/QUOTE]
I hadn't thought of that idea, that could be it, though when did she make the tape, since she too died as I recall? If she prognosticated the story at somepoint then she'd have to make the tape after the last erasure.

She was still alive when Whittier was there - the tracking bracelet falls off of her arm. If she died - she could have written it all down beforehand - before anything happened.

(I think we're reading too far into the book)

Is anybody else really bothered by that nylon zipper thing? Or is it just me?

[QUOTE=Ballerina](I think we're reading too far into the book)

Is anybody else really bothered by that nylon zipper thing? Or is it just me?[/QUOTE]
Remind me about it again...

[QUOTE=wenknee]She was still alive when Whittier was there - the tracking bracelet falls off of her arm. If she died - she could have written it all down beforehand - before anything happened.[/QUOTE]
I think we are too, but no one liked my questions.

*sniff*

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]Remind me about it again...[/QUOTE]
Uhhh.....go to my post several posts above this and click on the link to my original post in your other thread.

(it's like a treasure hunt. only a really crappy one.)

So you dislike it because he used it before?

....I think so.
]
I mean, it's a completely different character in a completely different book with absolutely no relation to the other saying the exact same thing. It's weird. It's like he ran out of ideas or something. And I really liked that bit in Fight Club.

[QUOTE=Ballerina]....I think so.[/QUOTE]
Authors do that a lot. William Gibson has a pair of cowboy boots in every one of his novels and has a pot of soup/stew that has been cooking for ever and they just keep putting in new ingredients so they never have to clean it.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]Authors do that a lot. William Gibson has a pair of cowboy boots in every one of his novels and has a pot of soup/stew that has been cooking for ever and they just keep putting in new ingredients so they never have to clean it.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, authors do repeat things. It's like Douglad Coupland's use of the term "cubicle farm" (which I find amusing). But while I'm generally more or less ok with repetition of phrases or something, or something random like boots, both the nylon zipper things were in an advice sort of context, and it's so random and somewhat obscure (I mean, nylon zippers? What?) that it really sticks out (in my mind at least) that it's been re-used. I mean, do you see how that's different from something like boots in every book?

Oh, and I added to my previous post.

[QUOTE=Ballerina]Yeah, authors do repeat things. It's like Douglad Coupland's use of the term "cubicle farm" (which I find amusing). But while I'm generally more or less ok with repetition of phrases or something, or something random like boots, both the nylon zipper things were in an advice sort of context, and it's so random and somewhat obscure (I mean, nylon zippers? What?) that it really sticks out (in my mind at least) that it's been re-used. I mean, do you see how that's different from something like boots in every book?

Oh, and I added to my previous post.[/QUOTE]Yes, I see it's different. He uses stuff like "Anymore..." and "For serious..." and other such frequently too.

[QUOTE=Parkaboy]Who else is in this Book Club? Rattle some cages people, will you?

And where is Moe?

We need more than 4 people here.

This is just sad.[/QUOTE]
moe has a full time job that's been demanding her attention lately.

relax!! we've got all month to discuss. i'm reading the book presently and promise to respond in full upon completion.

both these sins are covered by their self amputations. they're trying to one-up each other so that they have the best story to tell for the "made for tv movie" the narrator refers to.

[QUOTE=JKuhlmann]both these sins are covered by their self amputations. they're trying to one-up each other so that they have the best story to tell for the "made for tv movie" the narrator refers to.[/QUOTE]
Yes, very true. Their own taste for fame/wealth broadly addresses the issue as well, unites it in a way. I wonder to waht extent he was (or if he was at all) trying to address the seven sins or, if as people, we basically breakdown to those seven things when we get into the darker corners of the Id.

Anyone have any guesses about what was inside the Nightmare Box.

I noticed that it was made by "Roland Whittier".

Brandon's Whittier's father maybe?

[QUOTE=eslayt00]Anyone have any guesses about what was inside the Nightmare Box.

I noticed that it was made by "Roland Whittier".

Brandon's Whittier's father maybe?[/QUOTE]
Yeah, or his grandfather as it's an antique as I recall.

My first thought was the Venus scenario was shown inside, but now I think it undefined in Chuck's mind as well. More of a mirror into the soul, the box looks into you sort of thing.

Or Nietzsche's comment about "When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

Or the force cave, "What's inside is what you take with you."

That would explain why people react differently.

Sorry Parka, I've been busy with work and school. I'll have to go back through Haunted and take some notes. My summer class ends this Friday.
So,
I think you hit the nail on the head pairing the characters with the book with the seven deadly sins.

Cassandra's mother, i forget her name, forgive me it's been about a month since I've read the book, I think that she falls under ENVY too. I think that she envied Cassandra for having the guts to look into the Nightmare Box. She, herself, couldn't look into the box. And she just couldn't understand why Cassandra acted the way that she did. So, I think that she did ENVY her.

Guts Free is totally Gluttony and Lust.

The man who faked disability is probably SLOTH and GREED.

Chef Assassin is definitely WRATH.

I think that Whittier is WRATH too, because he wants Sneezy to help him destroy the world just because he has to die young and alone. Maybe he's a GLUTTON for pain and punishment too.

Mother Nature was probably GREED because all the money she made giving massages, and PRIDE, because she really showed off her reflexology knowledge. And she also took PRIDE in her work when she finally started making the big bucks.

What do you think about Lady Baglady? She might be SLOTH, and GREED, and ENVY. Maybe even a GLUTTON for invisibility.

As for being trapped in the theater, I don't think that it created much tension. If you actually cared about what happened to the characters, maybe there would be more tension, but when someone gets mutilated, particularly, I don't care in this book. Especially because they're all greedy. I dont think they care either. They're all kind of objects in the theater. Like in Exodus. They're just each other's objects, not real people.
Being stuck in one place though, you do want to tell stories to pass the time. And you do want to keep out doing the other people there.
It's kind of like sitting in a circle at a high school reunion and trying to out do your classmates with how successful you've become.
The Romey and Michelle of the horror trilogy.
I gotta admit though, I wasn't rooting for anybody, but I did want to see how the story would end. Who would come out of it alive. If any of them were even alive to begin with.

Modern Cautionary Tales:

Guts is a great cautionary tale. Don't jack off in a pool and let the suction at the bottom suck your ass, or you'll be sorry. The humilation aspect of those stories was great.

Slumming was kind of one of those stories where the message is about how you can be rich, but you won't be happy. One of those, "be careful what you wish for," stories. Lady Baglady had the dream of getting rich and doing nothing, and attending galas, but in the end, it still wasn't what she was looking for. So she pretended to be poor. Being rich got boring too.
Another one of those "You have to give up everything to truly be happy" scenarios.
I think that was a cautionary tale about how the American dream of being rich and being secluded isn't what it's cracked up to be.
Chuck touches on that a lot.

I think Brandon Whittier's first story was maybe a cautionary tale where you should "look before you leap." I think that maybe Chuck was trying to say something about the way our society looks at the elderly. My view of Brandon Whittier changed after that story, but I don't know if it was "true" or not. It maybe was the narrator's version of the truth.
But damn, I really liked that story.
Maybe the caution was "don't underestimate the 'elderly.'"

I also thought that BW last story was going to be a cautionary tale about euthanization. That's what I was expecting.

I think what motivates us to tell our worst stories to people is that by telling other people, we won't have to carry around our deep dark secrets anymore. That's why we can tell the public about the worst aspects of ourselves. For forgiveness. Just like Chuck said, that's what church used to be.

Guys and Dolls, the musical, Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat is exactly that same scenario. A drinking, gambling man asks the congregation for forgiveness, and all is good again.

WIth the mention of Chorus Line, I had to toss in Guys and Dolls.

Besides, just look at movies like "The Basketball Diaries." Remember those guest speakers you had in school. Those former addicts, and what not, that come to tell you a story. They are more than happy to tell you about the worst times in their life, just so they can relive it, and remember it, and not relapse. And so you don't do so also.
But, it is also an easy way to make money.
Look at that GLUTTON SUBWAY JARED. Fat pig hates self. Fat pig eats Subway. Fat pig becomes ugly skinny guy. He tells his story. He cashes in. He becomes an object. Not quite a human being, but an endorsement.

And I totally think that by telling your story, you can move from the pains of you past. Jared, for example, tells you about how big a fat pig he was, and now, he's a successful ugly skinny guy that looks just a bit better, and he's signing autographs and making tons of money.
Something positive came out of that negative.
And its all because he told his story.
Also, people are just dying to confess their sins to someone else. We hate to keep secrets. Most of the time, they kill us.
So we need to tell them.
And we get relief.
Alcholics Anonymous and such are good examples of "testify" groups. You sit down and tell your worst story get embraced by others.
And in those groups, everyone else is just as bad, or can relate, so you feel better telling someone finally, and being part of society again.

I think that the characters in Haunted are kind of like a self-mutilating, fucked up, support group.

They all need to tell their story finally, and they know that everyone else there is just as bad, and they have nothing to lose because are only going to get worse.
So they finally just need to puke out their horrible pasts, and guilts, and shames, and they can finally turn humiliation into hugs and dollars signs.
Take the negative and make it more positive.

Me personally, I would like to think that Haunted is the Nightmare Box. And we're looking into it the whole time.

I think that the people in Haunted, are objects.

I think shock value can be important, but only if you use it sparingly. When you overuse shock value, you desensitize the reader.
That's why when The Missing Link choked on the dick, I wasn't really shocked.
But it was funny.

What story do you think uses the most shock value?

Is it effective in this book?
Sometimes.
But, these days, few things shock me.

Who do I think was the narrator of the book?

I'd lean towards Guts Free, but we also have Mother Nature and Whittier alive.
Miss Sneezy is going to be a gonner soon, so I'd rule her out.
And, logically, Guts Free would eventually die of the Keegan Virus, if what Miss Sneezy says is true.
Even if there is a survivor, that survivor would die from that horrible virus.
Except for Miss Sneezy, because she's only a carrier. She won't die from the virus.
But she's going to die off screen from the stab wound if my memory serves me correctly.
Who knows though, Guts Free is a GLUTTON, and is LUST, so maybe Mother Nature kills him with that one special foot message of death, faking him out with the foot orgasm.

The thing is, if it was Guts Free, wouldn't the narration be first person from his perspective?
You know, like I drove the bus, ect.

Or, there could be more than one narrator.
Like two people telling the same story to a news camera, but butting in on each other.

It's confusing, but I like it.

The ending is tricky. I'll have to re-read it. But I think that maybe it's that the world will never live up to our expectations. So why bother? Wake up. Go to sleep. Eat. Drink. Piss. And shit. And enjoy your experiences. If you sit around and wait for something to happen, your life will pass you buy, and you will have wasted it.
You need to actually do something to make your life matter.
Things won't just happen if you sit around and wait for them to happen.

That's just my take without rereading it.

I'll have to reread the rock polish stuff too, but maybe that it's that we're always erroding. And the more we try to polish ourselves, the more surface we lose. So, you can spend your whole life polishing yourself, but you're just going to wither away. So just live, and be thankful everyday that you're allowed to live, no matter how shitty you think your life is.

Anyway, I wanted to at least post something here.

Thank you for taking charge Parka.

Get Luddy Dunn in here.

She's always got something good to say.

Thanks.

Cassandra's mother, i forget her name, forgive me it's been about a month since I've read the book, I think that she falls under ENVY too. I think that she envied Cassandra for having the guts to look into the Nightmare Box. She, herself, couldn't look into the box. And she just couldn't understand why Cassandra acted the way that she did. So, I think that she did ENVY her.

[I]--Good point, Chewie.[/I]

I think that Whittier is WRATH too, because he wants Sneezy to help him destroy the world just because he has to die young and alone. Maybe he's a GLUTTON for pain and punishment too.

[I]--Envy as well. He resents people who get more life.[/I]

What do you think about Lady Baglady? She might be SLOTH, and GREED, and ENVY. Maybe even a GLUTTON for invisibility.

[I]--I think she is greed and envy. She only slums because it is vogue to do so in her circle, but she will not actually forsake her fortune to learn from her encounters.[/I]

I think what motivates us to tell our worst stories to people is that by telling other people, we won't have to carry around our deep dark secrets anymore. That's why we can tell the public about the worst aspects of ourselves. For forgiveness. Just like Chuck said, that's what church used to be.

[I]--America’s problem regarding this topic is that we have turned confession into a product, into a commodity. It reminds me of the indulgences sold by the Catholic Church which led, in part, to the reformation.[/I]

And I totally think that by telling your story, you can move from the pains of you past. Jared, for example, tells you about how big a fat pig he was, and now, he's a successful ugly skinny guy that looks just a bit better, and he's signing autographs and making tons of money.

[I]--I think this is Chuck’s thesis as well, the problem I have, is that he didn’t prove it. In fact, the characters in the story rather prove the opposite. They don’t move on, they tell their pain but they still destroy themselves. They expiate their past sins but they are not free.[/I]

The thing is, if it was Guts Free, wouldn't the narration be first person from his perspective?
You know, like I drove the bus, ect.

[I]--Interesting, this just gave me an idea. What if Guts-Free uses we, as narrator, because he finally sees what they did, sees it for the madness it was, what if he, in the end is the only one that confesses and he decides not to put his name on it, not to take that fame they all sought, not to make the movie deal. What if he realizes their vanity and desperation are a mad pursuit and records it, unaltered, with no sentiment, but as a testimony to people’s worst natures?[/I]

Luddy is at a writer's conference right now.

Alas. I'm sure she'll join us when she returns.

Favorite stories other than Guts, and why?

[QUOTE=henrygray]
Also, the pattern in Mrs Clark's stories still has me reeling for an answer. The rented porno camera, then the nightmare box, then the theatre. They're all showing people realities that shatter their ideas about themselves and about the world. It's all hyper real and nothing like what they expected, it changes them on this fundamental level and they're never the same afterwards.[/QUOTE]
I think this is an excellent point. The person behing the camera, the person mediated and then remediated again if very Baudrillardian. That we are living a simulacra of a life, that the constant aspects of self shuttled of to become fractal repetions of us invetiably leads to the self and the image of the self becoming one and the same. So much so that you reach an event horizon beyond which there is no original anymore, everything is a copy, signifiers stand alone from anything actually signified and meaning is a concept lost.

I wish Chuck had gotten deeper into that sort of deconstruction of people as image, how, as Susan Sontag put it, "Taking a photo is a kind or murder." Truly the people in the theater are guilty of both actual homicide and its metaphorical double. Perhaps the very futility of diesntiguishing between the real and the vitual in modernity allowed them to so easily commit these acts. They have crossed a line only in our minds, one of nostalgia, in which we believed there was such a thing as right and wrong, real and virtual, pain from pleasure.

[QUOTE=fortune_wookie]Favorite stories other than Guts, and why?[/QUOTE]
The Nightmare Box, it was really the only one that I felt could be properly called a story. The others seemed more like anecdotes. But with the Box you had a genuine character, real mystery and a desore to penetrate both. The relation with her daughter, which I am linking as one story thread under the "Nightmare Box" title, was one of actual emotional resosnance, less of shock value and more of humankind's confrontation with the absurd. And not the absurd in any comedic way but instead the Absurd that Camus wrote about, the very inability to find meaning in the world. Both Cassandra and her mother were stripped of this, as I surmise, were the other witnesses to the box's interior. Unlike Camus' Sisyphus, they do not resolve "the one true philossphical problem... suicide" in the same way. While Sisyphus finds meaning in the very act of refusal, of not surrending to the hopeless aspects so much as embracing them, his "fuck you" to the Gods if you will, the writers and any who view the Box all construct the means of their own deaths. They are all suicides in some fashion, all of them confronted with a universe that not only refuses to disclose it's secrets but in fact admits there are none to give, they take what may be the more logical course, they bow out of the story.

[QUOTE=henrygray]I'd say "Civil Twilight" is somewhere at the top of my list, purely because I could visualise this story so clearly while reading it. It was like watching it on film. "The Nightmare Box" would be my favourite, however. What strikes me as weird though is that after having finished reading this book twice it seems like there's a story missing. It's probably intentional on Palahniuk's part, and I don't know where or how you'd fit it into the plot, but Cassandra's story about what she saw in The Nightmare Box (This being the reason for her joining the workshop, I'm presuming the box's contents and effects are her story) feels like it deserved a place in the book. I mean, she's the only person, Whittier included, that actually gained ANYTHING from going to this retreat:

"Cassandra smiled and told them, "Can't you see, you're addicted to conflict" She says, "This is my happy ending." Looking back to the window, to the birds flying past, she says, "I feel terrific."

But what happened here? What did she learn that the others didn't? Is it just the simple fact that she could tell her story to these people and walk away from it, while the others stayed to leech off the trauma of eachother until they were the only one left alive?

Also, is it just me or does anyone else see Mister Whittier's retreat as being based on the workshops of crazy old genius Mister Lish? I couldn't shake the face of Lish from my head while reading this.

I don't know, this book has been living in my brain for the past few days. Need to think on it more.[/QUOTE]
Chuck definitely intended not to reveal what was in the box. I think that perhaps once one goes through the retreat and the horrors there and such, you might acquire a rather calm, detached even objective look at the wrold, human nature, etc. Perhaps it was after this that she gained perspectivem, she'd seen the worst, people devolved into animals for the sake of fame, maybe she's then able to leave the petty conceits of ego behind.

As to why her story isn't told, well she isn't in the current retreat. We only here the stoires of people who are in the theater right at this time. She was in the last group and is dead by this time, he stroy only comes from the limited perspective of what her mother saw, not Cassandra's own confession.

We don't ever get any details about the other "retreats," do we? I mean, we get the idea that they kind of started going crazy too, but we don't get any details. And it kind of makes you wonder, what [I]did[/I] happen there? It almost feels to me like there are too many loose ends when you finish reading the book. I mean, look at all the questions we're having trouble answering. (I'm not sure there was a point to this post)

i guess it depends on how into the book you are. to a fan of the book those ideas would be cool. for me the book was more than long enough.
the names of the characters irritated me somewhat though i can't put my finger on why exactly. i also felt the entire concept was shallow and basic, many of the things mr. whittier waffles on about my friends and i have already said whilst drunk/stoned and i felt a lot of my friends said it better.
still, a few of the actual [i] stories [/i] i loved, the ones that were genuinely entertaining. the poems i loathed, they just made me cringe and got old very quickly.
not that i hold anything against people who liked it, obviously, i wish i'd liked it more :-/

[QUOTE=Ballerina]We don't ever get any details about the other "retreats," do we? I mean, we get the idea that they kind of started going crazy too, but we don't get any details. And it kind of makes you wonder, what [I]did[/I] happen there? It almost feels to me like there are too many loose ends when you finish reading the book. I mean, look at all the questions we're having trouble answering. (I'm not sure there was a point to this post)[/QUOTE]
That's a valid criticism, we do have many questions hanging that we haven't collectively found answers to.

[QUOTE=GTT82]you know how chuck was talking about using different types of storytelling and trying to combine them in haunted?
i started rereading it again, and noticed there are quite a few things that could have added to this concept.
everyone leaves a good bye note, so these could have been an extra chapter. for those who die, there could have been an obituary as an extra if short chapter.
as the characters names are quite bizzarre, it would have been cool to include caricatures of everyone.
still love that book, especially the last one.[/QUOTE]
The notes would have given us some further insight into the characters, I don't know about the caricatures though.

[QUOTE=188416]i guess it depends on how into the book you are. to a fan of the book those ideas would be cool. for me the book was more than long enough.
the names of the characters irritated me somewhat though i can't put my finger on why exactly. i also felt the entire concept was shallow and basic, many of the things mr. whittier waffles on about my friends and i have already said whilst drunk/stoned and i felt a lot of my friends said it better.
still, a few of the actual [i] stories [/i] i loved, the ones that were genuinely entertaining. the poems i loathed, they just made me cringe and got old very quickly.
not that i hold anything against people who liked it, obviously, i wish i'd liked it more :-/[/QUOTE]For myself, the names of the characters only served to remind me that they were all essentially one dimensional and their only personality was that single event in their life which defined them. Now, it's certainly a statement about pain and so forth, but having 14 or so people defined by nly one aspect of their lives leaves you with shallow caricatures of people not actual characters on the page. This would also apply to the poems which likewise punched up that one singular event rather than illuminating gradations of emotion, conflicting motives, etc.

Found you guys. I just got back from a writers' retreat. Everyone went home intact.

I'm applying for an MFA program and I have to write an essay about a book I have recently read. Oh guess which book I'm choosing. Unfortunately I only get 3 pages double spaced.

For right now, I'm going back to the beginning to read through the entire thread.

Jesus, Parkie--your questions read like something from an AP test for Lit.

The whole concept of writers repeating imagery was part of the first craft talk at the conference. Everyone does it and once you pick up on the patterns, it allows you a deeper reading of the writer's psyche--why he or she writes what they write. Like analyzing the images in a person's dreams. So Chuck's nylon zipper thing is not only a echo, it is a meaningful echo in Chuck's personal symbol dictionary. The problem with nylon zippers is that the teeth can separate under stress and the zipper unzip on its own. I think the key element here maybe [I]teeth[/I]: teeth that open, mouths that bite, the Russian saying about assholes needing teeth--the consuming image so perfectly suited for Haunted. Fame consumes. Another echo in Chuck's books is the concept of the story recorded on tape or video or in a diary. That off-body recording somehow makes a story more reliable. This may have to do with the way his mind records other people's stories, his own anxiety over what he can trust as true.

You have to remember that the creative mind, the subconscious does not know about publishing or readers or book sales--it has an agenda, a question it is trying to resolve so it can move on to the next puzzle. The subconscious creates for the same reason it dreams and the waking aspects of humanity have yet to figure out exactly why it does that. In other words, our dreams know more about our lives than we know about ourselves when awake. The theater, I think, is Chuck's manifestation of the our waking sense of a subconscious power.

Maybe that's what is in the nightmare box: you get to see your subconscious, the thing beneath your waking mind that knows the meaning of your story and why you need to tell it. "It made me want to be a writer."

The only difference between waking consciousness and dream is shared language. How we know we are awake is that we can compare stories. First thing we do in the morning is catch the news. Why? So we can align that day's story of our life with what has happened while we are dreaming. The first stories we learn to tell as children are those about our dreams when we wake up scared and (if we are lucky), a loving parent comes when we cry and explains the difference between real and unreal.

What if the Nightmare box shows you that the only real thing about you is your stories? "Every story is a ghost, every ghost is a story" Those words from the cover are the key. There is no me or you or anyone else but only the story of me and you and anyone else. We are only stories. We are all ghosts, all the time.

Deep, huh? Forgive me, I've just spent 10 days deeply entrenched in discussions of how writing happens and why it happens and the validity of every writer's work. [I]Haunted[/I] may not be meaningful to me as a reader, but one has to admit it reads as deeply meaningful to its creator. That makes it interesting, even if I still don't like it. And it is still not a novel. Actually, right now, having just read the pieces on Scientology over at Salon.com, I'm beginning to think the book is really about an OT-VIII meeting. Once you tell your final [I]engram[/I] and get [I]clear[/I], they have to kill you so you can't tell anyone the whole deal is a scam.

That was a good post. You get a 5 on your AP test.