I Am So Confused ...

I'll try to explain it as best i can . . .

Green Taylor Simms is Rant and is also Chester. At one point Green was in an accident and went into the past. He decided to have sex with his great-grandma, grandma, and then his mom who gave birth to a kind of super human version of himself. This new version is the character we know as Chester. Chester eventually tried to prevent himself from being born by going into the past to keep Green from screwing his mom, but he missed the opportunity by a minute or so. Instead, Chester decided to marry his mom and take care of her and the new version, which we know as Rant. This is the Rant that we follow. So when we see Rant burn out of existence, he may have successfully gone back in time and prevented himself from being born since the " non-fictional" oral biography became fictional. OR another option would be that Green may have gone back in his blazing glory and successfully killed their mother since this would also cause them (Green/Chester/Rant) to lose their existence. That's the essence of it all i suppose.
There are some unanswered questions and flaws to the plot if you start thinking into it at all, but on a basic level that's how it works.

Bravo, Clone! Well summarized.

if rant is part of a trilogy (which I'm still not convinced it is) then there should have been enough in the book itself to figure everything out, you can have some cliffhangers and whatnot that get answered later on and all but the book itself should be fairly complete and stand on it's own

[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;976207]if rant is part of a trilogy (which I'm still not convinced it is) then there should have been enough in the book itself to figure everything out, you can have some cliffhangers and whatnot that get answered later on and all but the book itself should be fairly complete and stand on it's own[/QUOTE]

I agree that it should stand more firmly on it's own. But Chuck has been quoted in interviews saying that it's part of a trilogy. He said he already has a few chapters done of the next book in the trilogy.

[I]Palahniuk has said “Rant” is the first in a trilogy, and that the subsequent books will pull some of these underdeveloped threads apart. In a way, this is the novel’s saving grace, but as a stand-alone book, it’s still a bit hard to digest. [/I]
-The Daily Californian,
BY Louis Peitzman

echhh
I liked it better when i thought it was just a "sci fi" trilogy

[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;976239]echhh
I liked it better when i thought it was just a "sci fi" trilogy[/QUOTE]

As opposed to continuing the Middleton story?

yes
I had first read it as going to be a trilogy the way Haunted, Lullabye and Diary were his "horror" trilogy
this way just seems to be digging a bigger hole

Ah, yeah. I honestly don't have a lot of hopes for this Middleton/Oral Bio trilogy. Obviously I'll read it, but I feel like I will get lost very easily and I'll be forced to read them over and over to make sense of it.

ok thanks for clarifying everything for me everyone.

[QUOTE=ksecomebackkid;976351]ok thanks for clarifying everything for me everyone.[/QUOTE]

I do feel like I gave a cop-out answer by saying it's going to be a trilogy. But hey, I tried.

I don't think Green is the same person as Chester/Rant. Green is Charley Casey who got a job working for the traffic division, he ended up crashing into Echos parents car and traveling back in time sixty years. Then decided to have retro-incest and create a super version of himself for some reason. That version is Chester/Rant.

[QUOTE=Corson;977861]I don't think Green is the same person as Chester/Rant. Green is Charley Casey who got a job working for the traffic division, he ended up crashing into Echos parents car and traveling back in time sixty years. Then decided to have retro-incest and create a super version of himself for some reason. That version is Chester/Rant.[/QUOTE]

I think this might be something worth looking more into. It would explain why Rant doesn't recognize Greene right off the bat, because he [i]isn't[/i] Rant, but his great-grandfather. Maybe Greene is going back to create some sort of god-like super family?
Chuck goes into the detail about the women being raped by him but never really says much about the offspring except for Rant. I don't think there's even two lines that make mention of his grandfather.

[QUOTE=Corson;977861]Then decided to have retro-incest and create a super version of himself for some reason. That version is Chester/Rant.[/QUOTE]

But if that of version Green is Chester/Rant, wouldn't that obviously mean that they are the same person? He says that when he screwed his grandma he felt a sudden power because he was (somehow) improving his own genes. His own genes meaning Green/Chester/Rant's genes. It's just the way it was described in the book; they are the same person.

Not the same person. A different version of the same person. Rant/Chester's self in the alternate reality that is created when one goes back and changes the past/present.

If Greene was old enough to be able to drive, in order to crash into Echo's parents when she was only eight, and went back in time sixty years, he would be at 100 years old when he's crashing with the grown up Echo and Rant and Shot. Right?

Greene = 20 yrs old - goes back in time 60 years - catch up to the present, at the time he struck Echo = 80 yrs old - then at least ten more years when Echo is grown and driving. Right?

[QUOTE=bigshrimpn;978000]Not the same person. A different version of the same person. Rant/Chester's self in the alternate reality that is created when one goes back and changes the past/present.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry, yes to be technical, different versions of the same person. But the key words are "same person."

So what about the age thing? Clone?

Chuck really out did himself on this one didn't he?

[QUOTE=bigshrimpn;978574]So what about the age thing? Clone?[/QUOTE]

Just to be clear is the age thing a separate question from the Green/Chester/Rant trinity issue?
Because I fully agree with you that the 3 characters are just different versions of each other created in alternate realities, but i don't know how Green's age correlates to that. If you were connecting the 2 could you elaborate for me?

If not, and you were bringing up a new point (and a good one at that) then I guess the only answer is that Green is somewhere around 100 years old. The book describes Green having to live long enough to watch himself being born right? So apparently he did somehow manage to do it. My guess would be that his increasing power through bettering his genes might have helped, but the book doesn't really go out and say that. Does anyone else have a better solution?

Sorry. Toatally seperate question indeed. Oh, and I wasn't calling you out, I just think your explanations correlate to mine a little more than others do. That's the best explanation that anyone will come up with, until it's gone into further in later books, which I'm sure it will. But just one thing. Green is labeled as a Historian. Is this the explanation? Has he made himself immortal?

[QUOTE=bigshrimpn;978686]Sorry. Toatally seperate question indeed. Oh, and I wasn't calling you out, I just think your explanations correlate to mine a little more than others do. That's the best explanation that anyone will come up with, until it's gone into further in later books, which I'm sure it will. But just one thing. Green is labeled as a Historian. Is this the explanation? Has he made himself immortal?[/QUOTE]

No prob!
Yeah, I forgot about the Historian detail. That may mean that he became immortal, but to do that he was supposed to have had killed his parents. But i didn't think he ended up killing his mom . . aagghh. To me it's not so much that it's too confusing to figure out, but that the book was left too unexplained to fully figure it out, which irritates me slightly. Hopefully we'll see some more detailed explanations in the other 2.

It is fun to discuss though

I agree 100%!!! Sometimes I think that maybe I missed something. I look here for answers. I don't mind not knowing if it's not meant for me to know. But if it's something I should know but missed, different story. Wikipedia has stated that the sequel will be released in 2011. That is way too long to wait for answers introduced by a book 4 years earlier. I assumed he wouldn't do this to us and that I just missed the answers. If this is true, it appears I'm not the only one. Keep me posted if you have any revelations.

One more thing. Do you have to KILL your parents to become immortal/a Historian or is it just changing your existense? In other words, the Greenthat we know will never be created because the DNA of his great-grandmother has been changed (his great-grandfathers DNA having been replaced with his) which in turn changes the genetic make-up of everyone else down the line. So even though his parents were never killed, he has still prevented the birth of himself. You see what I mean. And maybe that's all one has to do to become a Historian, thus become immortal. Make sense?

Input anyone? (preferrably Clone) I NEED THIS!!!!

In the book Chuck calls it "stoking" (or was it stroking?) when someone goes back to screw his ancestors and improve his genes. As far as Chuck described in THIS book, the only way to become immortal is to kill your parents, but I'm guessing stoking, which is what Green did, improves your health and makes you live longer.

I'd like to go back and read the actual definition of a Historian and whether it means you're immortal or just a super human-type person. Does anyone else know the answer to this??

Check it. I just went back and found what that dude from the first few posts was talkin about when he said that they wern't the same person. At first I thought the dude was retarded because how could you not to see that they're the same person. But he sounded so confident, like he knew something I didn't. I also thought, where the fuck did he get some other guy Charlie Casey from? I found it.Jarrell Moore (the PI) mentions him onpage 174 and never again. He also says that Carlie worked goverment jobs (traffic crashing perhaps?) This would lead you to believe that this is the guy that hits Echo and goes back in time. Also, on page 259 Green is telling Rant that he should go back in time and that "people were living longer these days, Rant could go back a hundred years". The PI claims that Green has geriatric dementia, this would mean that Green is old as fuck (at least in Greens opinion) and that our immortality theory is not just. He might just be an old ass man crashing with a bunch of kids. I think the definition of Historian is impairative, put I think we are quuite possibly closer than anyone else on figuring this thing out. If Chuck was here he would say so himself.

And what about the chick that comes out of the crash unscathed and tells the perimedic that she is "163 years old, next month"? Is this Echo?

Also,on page 259-260, Echo says that Rant told her that Green wanted Rant to go back in time to "seed more generations of himself, memorize lottery numbers and invention plans to amass a fortune". Further down on this page, Echo is the one that Says that Rant told her that Green told him that "I know what you're capable of, I am you"
Page 273 has Shot reporting that Green didn't want Rant to go back and fuck anyone, that he wanted him to go back and kill his mom. Was Rant lying to Echo? Did Green really not tell Rant that he was in fact him? The origin of Historians is started on page 262, Chapter 36, Hitmen. I will read it again and see if it sparks anything..

Yes! well done Big Shrimpn. I wanted to go back and check things out but i don't have the book here with me. So he's not immortal, just really old because of Stoking and because people live longer. It sucks that we have to wait until 2011 to read the next one, but at least we're figuring out the questions and logic of this one.

If the chick that came out of the train wreck unscathed, when everyone else was dead, she is obviously immortal. She claims to be 163 yet appears to be 25. Thus we can assume that immortals/Historians do not age. But do they not age from the time that they become immortal? If so then Green may very well be immortal, he just didn't become so until he was really old. After all Green could not have killed his father to become immortal, as he is his own father through stoking. If the only way to become immortal is to kill his parents (or maybe in Greens case, just his mother) this would've happened in Rants teenage years at the Thanksgiving table, right? Echo says Green kept returning to Middleton to kill all of the Casey women in their old age. Perhaps when his mother died he was immortilized at his present age, which would be somewhere around 100. Right?

Bought it yesterday, plowed through it in one sitting.

This one is gonna require an immediate re-reading.

Chuck is really making the reader work in this one.

[QUOTE=AmericanClone;978731]Yes! well done Big Shrimpn. I wanted to go back and check things out but i don't have the book here with me. So he's not immortal, just really old because of Stoking and because people live longer. It sucks that we have to wait until 2011 to read the next one, but at least we're figuring out the questions and logic of this one.[/QUOTE]

Fuck. 2011?

Damn.

Man. Reading all this... I've just given up on being smart and understanding stuff. I quit.

[QUOTE=Anesthetized;979374]Man. Reading all this... I've just given up on being smart and understanding stuff. I quit.[/QUOTE]

You can't quit. You're one of the main contributors here. I've read every post on this sight, and it's people like you and AmaricanClone and Nathaniel Parker and Xec8 and Morey and JKabol that make this sight. WE NEED YOU TO BE SMART!!!!!!!

I really don't have anything to add to what I said earlier and what has been said since. Green stoked it up and is old.

Where are you guys getting this 2011 date? From some random wikipedia article? Unless it is directly from the mouth of Chuck I would take it with a grain of salt. I really doubt he is going to take a four year break from writing novels.

[QUOTE=bigshrimpn;979392]You can't quit. You're one of the main contributors here. I've read every post on this sight, and it's people like you and AmaricanClone and Nathaniel Parker and Xec8 and Morey and JKabol that make this sight. WE NEED YOU TO BE SMART!!!!!!![/QUOTE]
Damn right!

[QUOTE=Corson;979461]I really don't have anything to add to what I said earlier and what has been said since. Green stoked it up and is old.

Where are you guys getting this 2011 date? From some random wikipedia article? Unless it is directly from the mouth of Chuck I would take it with a grain of salt. I really doubt he is going to take a four year break from writing novels.[/QUOTE]

I've stated before that this may be completely false. But what if....

Okay I just read through this entire posting thread and have a thing or two to add.

First of all, I don't have the book with me and I read it about 3 weeks ago.. but I thought the girl leaving the train incident saying she was 163 years old next month was Tina Something. After she went through the explaination of Wax's situation and Rant's, it seemed that she had gone for it, but chronologically it doesn't make any more sense than it being Echo. HOWEVER, the epilogue has no mention of Echo; so Echo must no longer exist. And I can't remember... was there something about Tina? I'll have to reread.

Anyway, as far as Green going back and how old he is now; when I read the book I was under the impression that Green discovered this time travel phenomenon on accident, but once he formulated a plan he used it a little more loosely and just appeared back in Middleton when the time was right. I don't think he even meant to sleep with so many generations of his family, it's just that they kept producing girls... so he continued until there was a boy. So in terms of Green, Chester, and Rant being the same person, it's quite possible. As explained in the book and any other sci-fi occurence, once someone goes back in time and alters reality (i.e. Green, Irene's child, returns and has sex with his great-grandmother) a splice in time occurs and travels on a new path becoming a new reality. This reality goes along , Green rapes Irene who has a baby boy, but Irene's left to raise the child alone. That child, Chester, continues through life, leaves middleton, meets Echo, (probably under slightly different circumstances then we've read,) etc. Has either figured out the time travel or Green has told him; so Chester goes back to stop Green from raping Irene, fails, and raises himself altering the timeline again and creating a third line where Green, Chester, and Rant all exist at the same time as the same person. Does that make sense?

[QUOTE=Corson;977861]I don't think Green is the same person as Chester/Rant. Green is Charley Casey who got a job working for the traffic division, he ended up crashing into Echos parents car and traveling back in time sixty years. Then decided to have retro-incest and create a super version of himself for some reason. That version is Chester/Rant.[/QUOTE]
That's what I thought.

[QUOTE=Corson;979461]I really don't have anything to add to what I said earlier and what has been said since. Green stoked it up and is old.

Where are you guys getting this 2011 date? From some random wikipedia article? Unless it is directly from the mouth of Chuck I would take it with a grain of salt. I really doubt he is going to take a four year break from writing novels.[/QUOTE]

He said that he was going to write a book or two between releasing the next part of the trilogy. I'm sure the 2011 date isn't a definite thing, but we will have to wait awhile.

I agree that the girl who was 163 years old or whatever was Tina Something, but I think it would be really useful to go back and look at the "Contributors" in chapter 42. It's really intriguing to me what one sentence description that Palahniuk uses to sum up that characters entire outcome. I think it says a lot.

Is Catch Hell a reference to the White Stripes song?... I... Love... That... Song...

And yeah, you guys catch on quick!

yeaaah the book was pretty cool and all, but i didn't really like the travelling in time idea, i thought the cool parts were the shit rant did, like the haunted house and the making candies be more expensive

okay, I didn't read this post because I haven't finished Rant. After the first sentance, I was afraid of spoilers. If there are spoilers, please put that in the title. If there aren't, well, then okay.

Ok, so if you want to take it as entirely literal, then I have a few suggestions on that too.

It’s obvious that Buster and Chester Casey are the same person. As other people have previously said, Buster and Taylor Green Simms may or may not be the same person. It’s assumed by some that GTS childhood was identical to Buster’s, but I don’t believe that the text accurately supports that idea. The Casey family of the present knows it’s own lineage, and so we can assume that Buster knows who his great-grandmother is. If GTS possessed this same knowledge and had the same life, than it stands to reason that he wouldn’t have made the mistake of accidentally screwing her when he went back to the past. Also it’s obvious that Chester was not GTS’s father, there’s no way that he could have been. We don’t really know anything about the original male ancestors.

     Buster believes that Charles is his “real” father, but that isn’t necessarily determined to be true. For this reason people assume that GTS and Charles are the same person. But once again, I say that the text doesn’t support that. We don’t really know anything about Charles and his perspective is never told in the book.

     Many people think that GTS is an old man during the lifetime of Buster Casey, but what if he isn’t? Why does he have to be? Maybe he’s the same age or younger than Buster. Once again, we are using the present time-line to establish the previous time-lines and assume that GTS’s time-travel coincides with the “death” of Buster. It could be at anytime, even after Buster travels back.

     Futhermore, we only know that GTS is responsible for stoking his great-grandmother. Is it clearly stated that he is also responsible for all the rest of his descendants? Or are we just assuming that? Could it be that he isn’t, but that each successive child is the product of an entirely different alternate persona of  Rant?

     It’s even a stretch to think that GTS was the one that started it. Who knows how many times history had been altered already at that point. Obviously Rant can’t ever become immortal by killing his parents, because he is his own offspring.

This isn’t supported by the text, but it’s just my speculation and some other people have touched on it as well. When I say Rant I mean any unknown incarnation of the various versions of him. When I refer to Buster “Rant” Casey, in the present tense of the story, I’ll call him Buster.

     Echo Lawrence is Rant’s female alter ego. By that I mean that she is an incarnation of the woman who is mother and daughter of Rant, as are all of the female members of the Casey family. Whoever the original one is is unknown. So that means that her dad is Rant and her mom is her, and that the car crash that killed her parents was one of Rant’s attempts at immortality.

     Perhaps it is Buster and Echo that are the ones responsible for the whole scenario in the first place. Possibly Tina Something and Karl Waxman are one of their versions. Those two are finally able to become immortal by killing Buster and Echo and thus undoing the whole process as well as their own descendants and ancestors.

lovely username.

be welcome.

oh yeah, I forgot to say... I don't think that we are ever going to, or that it is even possible to wrap up all the loose ends in this story. That's why I pointed out some of those inconsistancies. The whole nature of time-travel amkes it so you can never know how it started. I believe it was Shot that said something along the lines of, "whenever you change time, that becomes the present. So you'd never know that it had been changed in the first place, cuz you wouldn't know that it had ever been any other way."

PS. thanks for the welcome scerpica.

what i want to know is what was the rabis thing like did rant start the epidemic or was it green or was it natural and only assisted by rant ?

I knew I liked this guy for some reason.

that's one of the things that we never know for sure. It's speculated in the book that it was created by the government to kill off the Night-timers and that they blamed Rant for it because he was the hero of the Party Crasher culture.

RE: We don’t really know anything about the original male ancestors. Is it possible that shot dunyan seeded the green taylor simms that first went back in time? We know that Simms only adopted that name some time after having travelled back in time

Echo Lawrence: Whether she believed it or not, he raped her, that girl had a child she named Irene, and the man, now calling himself Green Taylor Simms, disappeared for another thirteen years.

Green Taylor Simms askes after he goes back in time if anyone has invented boosted peak technology yet, and in the final chapted Echo Lawrence speculates that Shot Dunyan would be involved with this if he time travelled.

It would also explain why Shot's egg said Green Taylor Simms on it.

And... Shot Dunyan disappears in the middle of a car crash, according to the piece at the end of the book.