Did anyone else really NOT like Rant?

Nah, I loved it...

I loved it as well. Twice.

It was an experiment in style. I think if we're judging this novel as a fictional oral-biography rather than a straight-forward prose novel, most of our opinions would be elevated. I think Chuck's got every right to go out and write differently, I mean, how many writers stay writing straight-forward prose novels all their lives? Chuck's writing to entertain himself, and I enjoyed Rant. It made me laugh, and it's tough to do that in prose. That said, I'm looking forward to reading the next straight-forward novel he comes out with. When I was first reading Chuck, I was sort of tentative. It was like dipping my foot into this bath of philosophy. But now the water's cooler, and I'm sure if I was to reread his stuff it'd make me laugh more so than add another line to my [I]"sentences-to-have-tattooed-on-my-face" [/I]list. That said, for kids looking for guidance who aren't too fond of the no-sex policy at Church, Chuck is a great substitute.

Oh, I agree, style wise. It was very well done in that regard... I guess I expected more of a pay-off at the end.

But then again, I had just re-read Fight Club and Survivor, so going in I sort of had that mindset going into it. Maybe I can read it with fresh eyes again sometime. We'll see.

I was waiting for a "[I]Rant, I am your father.[/I]" joke for the last eighty pages. It didn't come.

If you were disappointed -- theres like two more books coming out along the lines of Rant (yes, im speaking about the oh so spoken about so much Trilogy)

Maybe that'll satisfy your Chuck thirst... Maybe not...

[QUOTE=chubbz;1006896]If you were disappointed -- theres like two more books coming out along the lines of Rant (yes, im speaking about the oh so spoken about so much Trilogy)

Maybe that'll satisfy your Chuck thirst... Maybe not...[/QUOTE]

your serious!

rant was not his best, but it was better than Diary

[QUOTE=corellion;1006892]I was waiting for a "[I]Rant, I am your father.[/I]" joke for the last eighty pages. It didn't come.[/QUOTE]

Dude, he, like, so, hinted at that when he was waiting for the bus. Telling him all those eerie things that he aint supposed to know. Fuck, so many fuckin' hints I feel like a dumbass for not pickin up on it early

I love how he says that in the city he'll find his father and his grandfather... I was like, oh lord - this is goin' ta' be stupid... How little did i know then...

[QUOTE=Ironman;1006903]your serious!

rant was not his best, but it was better than Diary[/QUOTE]

Fuck you, it is his best! :icon16:

Now, lets have an intellectual conversation on how Invisible Monsters will always be his best no matter if he came out as consecutively as Stephen King.

No okay, Fight Club is his best...
No, Survivor...
Actually I liked Haunted....

Y'know what they each have something within them that displays different moods and tones I'd like to dive into.

I hated Haunted.

But really enjoyed pretty much everything else by CP. The Fiction at least.... CP's Non-Fiction attempts have not relaly done much for me.

[QUOTE=ireLocus;1006914]I hated Haunted.

But really enjoyed pretty much everything else by CP. The Fiction at least.... CP's Non-Fiction attempts have not relaly done much for me.[/QUOTE]

Apart from Guts I didnt really like Haunted. I thought Rant was good but not great. I cant wait for Snuff.

Personally, I don't see what there WASN'T to love about "Rant". I had to slow down the pace of my reading -it was such a good fucking novel- so that I could savor the book and fully enjoy it. I especially enjoyed the whole, "When you read this, it will be fiction to you, but reality to us" little twist in it. When I put it down, I started thinking... that's not entirely impossible, is it? I wasn't there. I didn't live in this alternative world. Everything he writes has that effect on me, that deep questioning of everyone and everything and that's especially what I loved about "Diary": the hidden gun was on the very last page and its bullet went through my face.

So... I don't see how anyone can NOT like it, honestly. Well, I can, but... aaaah, whatever. You da man, Chuck!

I liked it alright, not his best but not his worst either.
I have a feeling I would have liked it a lot more if it wasn't part of a trilogy and the whole story was one novel.

<--- Has no idea what all this talk about a trilogy is about...

It's the beginning of a trilogy, actually... I think. Didn't Chuck say that? A science fiction trilogy or something, though... He did say that "Lullaby", "Diary", and "Haunted" were all of a horror trilogy, and the only thing that I gathered from any of them being remotely connected was the fact that they were horror novels.

[QUOTE=HumbleMorningStar;1011122]It's the beginning of a trilogy, actually... I think. Didn't Chuck say that? A science fiction trilogy or something, though... He did say that "Lullaby", "Diary", and "Haunted" were all of a horror trilogy, and the only thing that I gathered from any of them being remotely connected was the fact that they were horror novels.[/QUOTE]

yeah, that's what I had thought at first too. But apparently, it's a book trilogy of Rant specifically.

Oooooooooh! That's great!

And to think that I was in a hopeless downward spiral in not knowing what happened to Echo Lawrence...

The thing I didn't like about Rant was that, with all the ideas he had, he wrote them in a way as if to say they're pretty common. Like, he didn't introduce any of them, he just dove right in. Which isn't always a bad course of action, but I don't feel he did it sufficiently. It wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't great.

Also, the story kind of ends on a cliffhanger. What happens next? But I guess that makes sense if it's part of a trilogy...

I didn't like Rant either. I hate any sort of time travel. It is almost never tied up neatly enough for me. For me you either have complete circles (like rant going back and raising himself as a child only to leave again and pick up his life where he left off in leaving) or uncomplete circles ( where rant goes back and succefully stops the rape thus breaking his own existance and removing the raper, baby born from rape, and actually raped girl who was a bi product of previous rapes. Both of these are unsatisfactory for me. the former because he goes back trying to stop a rape he knows he can't stop because otherwise he wouldn't be in existance and realizing that he is his father. and the latter because the book itself would flash out of existance.

I know i know, "this will be fiction to you" w/e "fading" doesn't do it for me. I liked fight club and survivor because they were at least remotely possible. Yeah they have plans that would be caught by the systems in place, the occational factoid of chuck's is wrong (i remember once in rant he was talking about some corn famine in england in the late 1300's.... cept corn couldn't be in england until the early 1500's)

I'm getting off track. I don't like time travel, he did it better than many authors who have tried. But it's one of those plot developments that are not worth the trouble. The reader has to check everything to make sure everything lines up right, the solutions get complex, characters get streched. I just can't sit back and enjoy it, i'm too busy arguing with the text.

The one part i loved from rant was the car salesman. especially at the end when he pointed out that the other narrators were auditory, visionary, or touch-related learners. I loved that we got a glimpse of chuck's mind as he wove those characters, and when i looked back and reread some of those character's lines i felt like they had much more depth now.

[QUOTE=ireLocus;1006914]I hated Haunted.[/QUOTE]

I absolutely loved Haunted...I seem to be somewhat alone on that point, but I thought it was brilliant. It was the first Chuck I read.

I enjoyed Rant, but I think I liked it mostly because it was a little different. It's certainly not my favourite (infact it's probably my least favourite) but it was, shall we say.. 'Interesting'.

Edit:
elegantly_bitter: I [i]adored[/i] Haunted too, you're not alone.

[QUOTE=missmillie;1019153] I [i]adored[/i] Haunted too, you're not alone.[/QUOTE]

Good to know

I think it's his most under-appreciated book.

I really liked Haunted, but I thought Rant was bad... which was so disappointing.
It didn't flow, the characters weren't developed, it didn't have any atmosphere. I think he went too far when trying to mix an oral-biography with the minimalist style he aspires to...

I was not a big fan of Rant at all... i just couldnt get into it. I pushed though and apparently need to read it again because i missed a lot according to all the other threads about it. it was alright, but its something i'll lend to my friend and not open myself.

[QUOTE=ireLocus;1006875]the whole book seemed like an experiment.[/QUOTE]
When reading it I thought the same... Some great parts sure, but in general I really didn't like the book a hell of alot (in comparison to his previous books at least).

I loved it - I think its the best thing he's written since Choke.

I have not read it yet. Is it worth reading?

Um...

I liked it, but I didn't like the whole interview way it was written.

Personally, I loved the story and the concepts of Rant. I honestly think it's ingenious. However, the writing style is something I'm not sold on. Yes, it was interesting and unique, but I think Rant would've been perfect if it were written as a regular book.

I'll step into the firing squad.

I didn't like Rant.

I love oral biographies (The Dirt, Please Kill Me) and I was really hoping to see a radically different vision.

Where the whole thing lost me was style. You just keep getting hit in the face with "big voice" factoids over and over again like in every single other Palahniuk book. I know that for the most part a person will just write like they write, but the change in format to oral history should have been experimental enough to break tradition.

To be fair, I love the way Chuck writes and as a habitual and neurotic researcher, the factoids are what I enjoy most, but keeping that in a totally different format was a bit of a let down. I wanted to see something different. Stranger Than Fiction is more than enough proof that Chuck is able to diversify.

However, Rant left me wondering if all those negative reviews that accuse him of being a "one trick pony" are at least partially valid.

There is an interview that Angus Young from ACDC gave in the eighties that comes to mind for some reason. It went something like this:

Interviewer- What do you say to critics that say you have eight albums that all sound the same?

Angus- I would correct them. We have nine albums that sound exactly the same. Because of that, they all rock hard.

Anyway, just my two cents

Heh, AC/DC. I have a love hate-thing with them. I love many of the songs but I can only listen to one or two songs before I need a break from that guys voice. Much like reading too many CP books in a row, I need variety with such a strong voice. Writing style or singing, having such a unique voice is good and bad.

I don't see them as one trick ponies in a negative sense. Maybe there's a better name for this.

Then there are bands like Korn who never got out of high school, and are a true one trick pony. Their music and production has gotten better, but it's like they're still whining about being picked on in gym class. Get over it, you sissy men. You drive around in $100,000 cars now, no one cars if daddy didn't hug you when you were nine.

With CP, I think chad_lott, you hit the nail on the head. We like the style and factoids, only to a point. So, applying this in your face, info-dump style to an oral biography fell flat because of what the style was being applied to. Not that the style is all that bad when applied to other areas of literature, but in this case, it made it feel less realistic to me.

I mean, let's be honset, many of CP's protags have had the same cynical, sarcastic voice.

A survivor of a death cult, a sex addict, an insurance claims organizer whatch-a-mah-jig, a time travelling rapist-bastard man, etc...

It'd be like Korn doing a the music for the weather channel. Sure, they have the ability to produce predictable music that fills a niche in popular culture, but that doesn't mean they are versatile musicians.

While CP could be very versatile as a writer, I think he is trying to cash in on the one-trick-pony idea because that's what got him on the map. We'll see how it plays out, I guess.

I havent read Rant, and im not exactly running out to buy it because after reading choke and haunted, i dunno, i felt it was more of the same thing. Like the protagonist never really changes, like irelocus said. Im gonna dare say that he's sortta falling into being the stephen king of his niche. The formula of original style/literature if you will.