Gross gross gross
I’m not yet done with this, but I wish I was. This piece of gross contemporary american literature is Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. What’s worse is that I’m listening to it on cd. Somehow it seems worse when you are listening to people talk about cutting off toes, fingers, hands and penises (well only one so far). I think I’m pretty good about handling my gore, but this is pretty nasty and unnecessary. Some of the stories (the book is a collection of short stories told during a “writer’s workshop”. I only have about 1/2 a cd left, and I’m still pretty amazed that I managed to get through it without crashing my car into a tree. Its neat that there are quite a few different speakers throughout the book to tell the characters’ stories, but that doesn’t make it any better when you listen to the description of the character pulling off fingernails. I almost decided that enough was enough when I found out that one of the women, who was pregnant, has her baby at this “retreat” and she is later fed special soup. Soup that I will never ever eat, and let me tell you, as a mother of a three month old, I almost threw the cds out the car window (not caring that it belonged to the library). I would tell you about each of the individual characters’ stories, but as they finished their tale, I tried to block it out of my mind.
I haven’t read Guts which is supposed to be by far more disturbing; making people vomit and pass out, but I’m not sure that I can handle it. I’m sure curiosity will get the better of me, and I’ll listen to it, but probably not for a while.
July 19th, 2005 at 3:46 pm
Guts makes people pass out because the narrator tells you at the beginning of the story to hold your breath. Based on what you’re describing, it’s probably about par with what you’ve read already.
I’m not a Palahniuk junkie (haven’t read the new one yet, no plans to do so), but if you haven’t read any of his other books you might want to put this one out of your mind and pick another. I liked Survivor and Fight Club — Diary isn’t bad, either. His nonfiction collection Stranger Than Fiction is also worth checking out.