The Rant Time-line/Family Tree *MAJOR SPOILERS*

funny, that's exactly how i feel about some people here.

Thank you, snacker of children!

I've been lurking for years, and figured I'd throw my hat in on this.

Aside from the obvious storyline of Chester/Buster, a couple people talked about Simms and age/story discrepancies. At one point Shot's (I believe) talking about changing history and says: "what if it's more like a chain-link fence" and basically says time would fix itself/create an alternate timeline. Thinking along these lines, doesn't it make sense to have Simms grow up in Rant's childhood (maybe even with different kids/parents), and when he goes back in time at 23 years old, and rapes/seduces (never clear on the first one...) Bel at 13...making her have Hattie at 14 (Hattie having Esther at 14=28 years, Hattie having Irene at 14=42 years, and her having Buster at 14=56 years + the original 23 years + the 19 years Rant was "alive"=~97 years old). It may have even turned out that through time fixing itself, there may not have been 4 generations between Bel and Charlie Casey...maybe time "fixed" itself by squeezing in another generation, considering Echo is probably a year or 2 older than Rant, and that random 10-16 years doesn't matter now that time is changed in the "parallel timeline" Shot mentions...

Someone said something about Rant being a dick a couple times as Chester. Why would he change anything like that? He showed up too late to stop Simms, and realized what was to happen from there, so why wouldn't he go into the kitchen and act just the way he remembered? Why else would he mow the yard, remembering the obvious repercussions? He just did what he remembered happened.

About someone saying Rant got bit for different reasons (sex/drugs): do you think Bacon Carlyle would know Rant let himself get bit to get a boner? Plus the whole experience of getting bit that first time "collapsed" sex with getting bit and poison, as Echo (or Simms...can't remember, at the moment) said when retelling that Easter story.

I agree with Chubbz...why would Palahniuk spend so much time and do so much awesome research for all his books, and then leave one with gaping holes like some people are saying? You've just gotta read it more than once...and the audiobook helps, the cast is amazing, and it's great for piecing these things together.

What I want to know is: What about Waxman? There's not a single word from him...I suspect when he erased his origins, anything he might have "contributed" to the book became erased as well, considering he didn't exist...at least, I thought that would be an awesome way of seeing it, heh.

and one last aside: The gold coin, dated 1887 that Irene Casey gave to Rant as a "lucky coin"...the one that was given to her by Simms. Rant gave that coin to Shot, who shortly thereafter gave it to Simms. He finds this coin "very curious, indeed" as if recognizing it. I pose a theory or 3:
-Boring=Simms keeps it as he collects the gold during his pedo-tour through time, passing it to Irene...yawn.
-Simms, AKA Charlie Casey, living the exact same life as Rant before splitting the timeline into 2 separate possibilites, was given this coin as a "lucky coin" by his mother...4-6 years later, he goes back in time after Echo's mother hit him head on. He carries the coin through time and lures Irene out onto the ice with it. She gives it to Rant, blah blah...time goes on (kinda boring)
-at one point in the book, Simms says that one can even go back in time by meditation...a little far-fetched, but...WHAT IF Simms went back in time more than once?...Or could find his way to the past and back via meditation? How else could he get all those gold coins when he only went back ~72-75 years tops after the crash? I say he had the coin after Shot gave it to him, went back in time, and used it to lure Irene Casey onto the ice. Doing this, the coin enters a loop, and "resolves its origin"...it's an immortal coin!

That was the whole point of the book, in my opinion...god coin.(/sarcasm)

this thread is making my mind hurt...but i think that once green taylor simms raped his ancestors his past was dramatically altered in some ways but stayed the same in other ways, meaning that rant was the same person but altered. this would explain how he could have the same exact scars but be in a different time, therefore justifying simms meeting an 8 year old Echo and rant meeting a 23ish Echo. i could be completely wrong here, i really have no idea. just thought id throw my hat in the ring.

Well, the sequels will probably answer a lot of questions about this.

Everybody who has read a lot of comics and sci-fi novels will be very familiar with all the time travel paradoxes. With Rant, it is obvious that we will be dealing with alternate realities, because of the grand-father paradox. CP tried to create it using the subjective, where even if Simms kills his ancestors before he is born, he is still living. Like the paradox from the first terminator movie, where it is an impossible loop, the chicken and the egg, where the first John Connors never had any father, because he wasn't born yet. Well, the same applies here. If Simms goes back to kill his ancestors, it creates an impossible loop, not only pertaining to Simms still existing, but if you kill your own ancestor, which means you don't exist in the first place, then you can't go back into the past to kill your ancestor in the first place, hence the impossible loop.

Like I said before, the only way to get around this, is alternate realities. But then how does it explain the "powers", the 'super-senses'?

It's not the only time travel paradox that CP touches in Rant. But to me, just the fact that Rant and Simms coexist in the same reality tells me that they are not from the same reality. Each individual is a singularity in its own environment. Even if Simms is the point A and Rant is the end point, those two singularities cannot interact without causing major problems for the space-time continuum, unless we are talking about alternate realities.

There is also the question of the repurcussion of Simms actions upon his own makeup as a singularity. Rant should be the recipient of the changes (killing ancestors) made by Simms (so is Chester), but Simms seems also to be affected. Also, partaining to the question of alternate realities, there's the question of, Rant doesn't go to the city to become an engineer for the transportation department, hence the accident with the Lawrences would never happen, he would never start Party crashing, or did Simms do all of those when he came back, he did those actions again, but as an older man, to make sure that the events were actual in the space time continuum? Then he could be much older than we think, hence also the reason why he believes in the immortality that his actions can create.

Also, if Simms is portrayed as evil, the alternate reality would explain why rant and Chester are not. Because one's development is caused by a mix of our genes versus environment, then Chester would've done the same as Simms, as he was the first Rant to go back in time, after Simms did so himself, this means, in all probability, he was raised by Simms, or else, it would interesting to know how the first Chester/Rant was raised (not Simms, but the first Rant, after Simms' actions). Or else, their different personalities would be because of alternate realities, rather than different environment, unless the first Chester rebelled against Simms, his father who raised him, but anyway... I hoe it is indeed a Rant trilogy, and not just a theme trilogy like the horror trilogy of Diary, Lullaby and Haunted.

Hello everybody, I'm new here and on my second read of Rant.

I apologize if this has already been adressed, but here are some of my thoughts on this brilliant book:

First of all, on the matter of Chester/Simms being "the original" Rant, in my opinion, he must be. You see, what happens in "stoking", is, by impregnating one of your ancestors, you add more of "yourself" to yourself and thereby enhance your features, senses and abilities. This is when you feel the "burst of vitality" previously mentioned. However, if you were to impregnate (and thereby stoke) one of your decendants, that would not in anyway affect (any version of) you, right? So when Simms rapes Irene, feeling this burst of vitality, that proves Irene was his mother, thus proving that he is in fact the original (or at least one of the versions of) Rant.

I hope I didn't lose everyone on that, and please tell me if there's a hole in my theory.

Another fun fact I haven't seen anyone writing about is the name Chester. Charles was the first "Rant" and thereby, the second "Rant"'s (Chester's) father. Since the mother usually has the last say in what her child's name will be, it is likely that Charles was born Chester. When he misses his oportunity to save his mother form being raped and decides to help her raise the baby, he might have decided that the name of his son should reflect his (Chester's son's) fate. Buster, among other things, means: "a person (or thing) that breaks up or overpowers something" meaning he wanted the fate of his son to be "busting" Simms vicious cycle, thus saving his mother. Once he had decided the name of the baby, he simply combined his own (or his father's, depending on if his original name was Charles) name with the name of his son, resulting in Chester. (Charles + Buster = Chester). Far-fetched? Maybe just a little. And I know about the contradiction...

Well, let me know what you all think.
Peace out!

Since the mother usually has the last say in what her child's name will be, it is likely that Charles was born Chester. When he misses his oportunity to save his mother form being raped and decides to help her raise the baby, he might have decided that the name of his son should reflect his (Chester's son's) fate. Buster, among other things, means: "a person (or thing) that breaks up or overpowers something" meaning he wanted the fate of his son to be "busting" Simms vicious cycle, thus saving his mother. Once he had decided the name of the baby, he simply combined his own (or his father's, depending on if his original name was Charles) name with the name of his son, resulting in Chester. (Charles + Buster = Chester)

Charles + Buster = Chester... Pure genius...
That whole Buster 'bustin' in on stuffs... Pure Genius.....

Maybe you read to DEEEPLY into it -- or maybe it's pure genius... You that is...

Thank you Chubbz!
I choose to purposely overlook your obvious sarcasm and interpret it as an honest compliment! Thank you!

When rereading my previous thread I noticed that I had written Chester when I meant to write Charles and vice versa, but you understood where I was getting at...

You wrote earlier about the reasons for Chester's bad temper during Rant's childhood and him "falling for Rant's traps (the eggs, etc) despite his knowledge of what was to come". I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. When Chester traveled back in time to save Irene, he failed and decided to stick around to raise "himself". The difference being that when Chester grew up, he didn't have a father. That's why Chester was somewhat absent in Rant's life, he did'nt want to fuck anything up. He wanted Rant to life the same life as he did, so that when Rant was old enough, he would want to move to the city (and thereby learn of time-travel so he could save Irene). Maybe he did'nt stick around to raise Rant differently, but simply to oversee his childhood and protect Irene. And when it comes to the eggs in the garden and the discoloring of his pants, how could he know? That never happened to Chester when he was young, he didn't have a father.

Let me know what you think.
I think you have some interesting theories, and maybe we can figure this book out together. Or maybe that's aiming too high!

Peace

Okay, I can't fucking concentrate on work anymore. This book is eating me up...
Anyway, I have a crazy theory:

What if all we know of Charles Casey is that he was hit by the Lawrence family's car and got sent back in time. What if he has nothing to do with Rant, Chester and Simms. It's just a coincidence that they share the same last name, just for the fuck of it. To make us assume Charles is Simms.
In the reality we read about in the book, Echo is in a car "accident" when she is 8 years old, leaving her crippled. The person driving this car is a 23 year old engineer, IN THIS REALITY. Meaning it WASN'T Simms. In this reality, Simms is roughly 100 and he has altered his own family tree way too much for this Charles Casey to even be related to him. Meaning Simms is one of the other city engineers vanishing after an accident at about the same time as the Lawrence-Casey Accident. This city engineer (Simms) lived as Rant, moved to the city and traveled in time.

As to Chester changing his name to Chester Casey, we know nothing of what he was called before, most likely Shelby, maybe Buster Shelby
He met Echo, fell in love, and assumed that the one who crippled her was Simms, who he thought was Charles Casey. That's probably why he took the name Chester (Charles + Buster) Casey.

Now, what I can't figure out is this:
There is NO WAY Simms is Irene's son, UNLESS (and I JUST got this idea), Simms was a small child (maybe 8) when he got sent back through time, it never says he drove the car. He went back to Middleton, met his ancestor (Bel or Hattie, not sure) when she was 13, could be 5 or 10 years after he got there), and had sex with her.
When he felt himself get stronger, that's when he realised she was his ancestor and (maybe discusted) fled the scene. After some consideration, like 13 years of it, he decided to keep stoking his ancestors to grow even stronger. When he many years later impregnated Irene, becoming his own father, he knew that was the last time this would work. The only thing left to do now was becoming a Historian, but he didn't have the cojones to kill Irene, so he tried to make Chester do it, and the rest is history.

As to why Simms is reffered to as a Historian, I have a theory...
When Rant traveled back in time to stop Irene from getting raped, he simply killed Simms before he had the chance to rape her. Thereby he made himself, Chester and (unintentionally) Simms Historians. He killed Simms and thereby Simms's father, resolving Simms's, Chester's and Rant's origins.
That's probably why Irene says: "I don't know. I Forget. I can't remember." when asked about the rape.
The first time she tells the story of the rape is most likely before Rant has killed Simms. When she says she forgot the rape, the memory is fading, like Waxmans pictures.

Anyway, those are my theories of the day.
Please comment, I REALLY want to understand this book.
Peace

This thread is brilliant!

There are so many clues in the story that others are picking up.

Now I've got to read it a third time to track the various coins that are being passed around!

One thing I haven't seen yet is an explanation of Rant's whereabouts when he goes back in time at 19 years old.

Simms apparently describes to Rant how he woke up up in a hospital after the accident with the Lawrences (Chapter "A Flashback"). He has no clothes, but steals some and heads to Middleton, where he meets Hattie. It takes him 4 days to get there.

Rant shows up in Middleton wearing a paper hospital gown, and we hear he was pulled from the same river he crashed in, but 19 years earlier. There's no explanation of how he got from the hospital to Middleton, except that we know he was trying to stop Simms from having sex with Irene.

Are these subtle differences in the "chain link fence?" It certainly seems that Chester didn't pack up at age 23, and go to the city to get into an accident with the Lawrences in the reality presented.

Perhaps these are clues that the parallel realities can be slightly different.

Once again, I wrote without thinking it through...
After rereading the book yesterday, I had to rethink a litte. The book states that Simms var 23 years old when he got hit by that car and sent back in time. In his story, that's when he meets the 13 years old Hattie. But on page 239 (I think), a friend of Irene's claims that Simms met Bel and had sex with her when she was 13. Irene also says (page 240), when asked about the rape, something like: Was I raped by a man who is also my father, my grandfather and my great-grandfather?
Father- meaning he slept with Esther, Grandfather, meaning he slept with Hattie, Great grandfather- meaning he slept with Bel!
That's the only possibility that fits the timeline. So Simms must have lied to Rant. Why? I don't know...

About Rant's trip from the hospital to Irene, it wasn't Rant's trip. It was Chester's. All we know is, he hitchhiked from the city to Middleton.

All we can assume about Rant's trip back in time is that he made Simms, and thereby himself and Chester, into historians.

Peace

I just finished this book over a vacation and am working on Survivor now. I was just googling around to see if I was right on my interpretation of Rant and found this site. Decided to make an account just to post this, so hopefully somebody somewhere actually reads it.

Here's my take from a first-time read. Granted I haven't read through so I could be way off. My bad. I'm going to describe the events in a linear fashion despite time's circular properties in Rant. Here it goes.

- Charles Casey is born.

- Charles Casey grows up in Middleton and moves to the city.

- Charles Casey accidentally discovers time travel when Echo's mother causes an accident with him in the city while attempting to time travel herself.

- Charles Casey arrives 60 years in the past and determines 'Stoking' is the best course of action.

- Charles Casey rapes his female ancestry one by one.

- Charles Casey rapes Irene Casey.

- Chet Casey arrives and takes care of Irene Casey and her unborn child, who they name Buster or Rant Casey.

- Rant Casey grows up and moves to the city. His father's strange behavior is made clear when the time travelling is revealed.

- Rant is seen by Charles Casey, now known as Green Taylor Simms. Green is an old man now, and has invented party crashing as a way to inadvertently show other people how to time travel. I'm not sure on what exactly the motive is, but I assume that the similarities between Party Crashing and Green's time travel incident (contact between vehicles) means he wants others to travel back in time. Or maybe he's just trying to increase the odds that he himself will go back again in order to make himself immortal by killing Irene Casey and his other relatives.

- Green picks up Rant. Rant is NOT Green. They are similar, closer than twins, but not the same person. Green's father would have been the nameless Casey that started the Casey household initially, but that could never occur because Green raped Irene and Chet 'married' her.

- Rant and Echo being the same age is strange. Green fathering children should have made Rant's birth earlier in objective time, not later. The women would not have had children at 13/14 if Green had never travelled back, they would have had them leisurely. How, then, is Rant younger than Charles at the same point in time (moving to the city)? To make this clearer, Echo is the age marker. Charles was ~15 years older than Echo when the first timetravel occurred. Rant is about her age. 15 years are left completely unanswered for. I honestly think Chuck might have just brainfarted and meant to put Rant OLDER than Charles (making the rapes subtract from time-to-present rather than add) and didn't realize his blunder, but would love to be corrected.

- Rant party crashes for 5 years.

- Rant travels back in time when he 'dies'.

- Rant arrives too late, assumes the identity of Chet Casey, and raises Rant.

- The small cycle of Rant's life continues perpetually, but in different instances. Or maybe at some point he gets there in time and stops Green. Who knows.

That's mostly what I got out of it. I did love the line when (I think it was Echo) mentioned that if the time travel worked the biography would be seen as just another fictional novel.

Echo Lawrence and Shot Dunyin were last seen crashing a car, they are missing and presumed immortal.

"so i had to join because this was bothering me so much. but the book claims you can go back in time and kill your parent(s) and become immortal, which it explain well by saying that you now have no beginning, and therefore no end. but it also says if you go back and screw your mom you become stronger and stronger, which doesn't make any sense to me at all. you couldn't be your own father, and the book doesn't explain how this happens. the only reason you exist in the first place is because a man and your mom had sex... if a different man has sex with your mom instead of that man, then you don't exist, but rather someone else does. if you and your mom had a kid, it would just be an inbred kid, it wouldn't be you. everytime chester goes back and sleeps with his female ancestry at the age of 13, he would just be creating a new kid, but it wouldn't be him that he is creating again, because the only thing that makes him HIM is the fact that a certain man and woman slept together and created him. does that make any sense?"

I think that the same DNA would get passed along, because you have your father's DNA in you, so all the qualities you got from him would still be passed on. This isn't like an inscestious relationship resulting in a child in regular time, this is a new man impregnating a woman before she is his mother, still passing on his father's genes. Not sure how the improving genetics thing works though.

This is the big hang-up point for me. On page 255, it is explained Green was hit by Echo’s mom. On page 175, it is explained Charles was hit by Echo’s Mom. This is the clearest link that Charles and Green are the exact same person (the fellow’s name was Charles, but he changed it to Green post-time travel, as explained in numerous other posts).

It is because of this crash that Green/Charles ends up at the year where his great grandma Hattie is 13. They have sex, and afterwords Green feels stronger, and thus he discovers stoking (256-257). Green is 23 when this happens.

Green spends the next several decades stoking himself, and Chester is eventually born. Chester basically lives the life of Rant, as described throughout the book. When Chester moves to the city, he meets Echo, whose arm, as described in the story, is crippled from her accident with Green/Charles.

But this is where I get hung-up: How could Echo’s arm be crippled? In this redo of history, the timeline in which Green is stoking and Chester is eventually born, Green isn’t around when Echo turns 8 to run into her and screw up her arm. Does that make sense? The Echo/Charles accident screws up Echo’s arm, but then Charles/Green goes back in time (way before the accident) and starts messing with history, so there is no reason to believe that Echo would end up in an accident with Charles/Green and cripple her arm in this redo of history.

How is it that the Echo that Chester/Rant knows has a bad arm???

I didn't even read the last ten posts for this. You guys are just making this more complicated than needs be. First off, Chubbz only stated the obvious plainly mentioned in the book. Second, the point of the way it was written was to let us make our own endings and thoughts of what may have happened, not come together to show where the plot holes are. Third, the never stated the exact amount of trips Green took so it could be that at 23 he traveled back to when Echo was 8 only to travel back again. I don't want the book ruined for me so I'm leaving this forum.