{"id":209,"date":"2009-08-05T16:52:27","date_gmt":"2009-08-06T00:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skullcull.com\/?p=209"},"modified":"2009-08-05T16:52:27","modified_gmt":"2009-08-06T00:52:27","slug":"turn-the-page-snuff-by-chuck-palaniuk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/skullcull.com\/?p=209","title":{"rendered":"Turn The Page: Snuff by Chuck Palaniuk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\\\"snuff<\/a><\/p>\n

I really loved Rant<\/em> up until the last 100 pages \u2013 I was reading it and I could see where it was headed and I was almost screaming at the book that this wasn\\’t where I wanted it go. I so enjoyed the writing up until that point that I thought <\/span>Rant<\/em> might be able to wrestle its way to the top as my favourite Palahniuk book but then there was the ending. You can forgive a bad beginning if a book gets better (this was how <\/span>Invisible <\/em>Monsters was for me) but it is so much harder to forgive a bad ending if you were really in love with the preceding narrative \u2013 it\\’s like celebrating your Ruby Wedding Anniversary and finding out your husband was a bigamist for your whole life: it\\’s a let down.<\/span><\/p>\n

I downloaded and read a whole slew of Chuck\\’s essays and a couple of his short stories and I had recently watched <\/span>Fight Club <\/em>again, and watched <\/span>Postcards From The Future<\/em>, the documentary on Chuck (more of that elsewhere), so I was approaching <\/span>Snuff<\/em> with a mixture of enthusiasm and trepidation. I wanted to fall in love with that book but I was nervous that I was going to feel let down again. Sure, no one can love every single thing someone does, and I don\\’t exactly hate <\/span>Rant<\/em>, but I hold Chuck\\’s work in such high regard that I had high expectations for this book.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am glad to say that it didn\\’t disappoint \u2013 I felt it was a kindred spirit to <\/span>Fight Club; <\/em>had that same punch, that same fire in the belly. There is not a single Palahniuk character, and I believe this about the works I am slightly less enamoured of as well, that do not live and breathe and feel real. Cassie Wright, who for a fair amount of the novel is an object around which the narratives of the other characters rotate, finally emerges as a fully rounded character, as do all of the cast. This is an ensemble piece and a good illustration of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having a novel that deals with a porn shoot could have fallen flat on its face if those involved weren\\’t drawn so well. In the end I don\\’t know how much research was done to get the feel of the actual shoot down, but none of that would work if Palahniuk didn\\’t have such a grip on what makes a person work. The motivations of his characters and the way these drive the choices they make when confronted with others always convince \u2013 there is a maintenance of the integrity of each player that is not always true of every writer; sometimes you question where an author pushes one of their creations because you feel you get to know them well on the journey you follow them on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Snuff <\/em>sits well in the company of Palahniuk\\’s best works: <\/span>Fight Club, Choke <\/em>and <\/span>Survivor,<\/em> giving us another memorable group of people, looking at a sub-culture not many people would normally delve into, and providing both a well-written journey and a satisfying conclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really loved Rant up until the last 100 pages \u2013 I was reading it and I could see where it was headed and I was almost screaming at the book that this wasn\\’t where I wanted it go. I Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[168,170],"tags":[306,311,355,770,771,844,999],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-turn-the-page","category-update","tag-book","tag-books","tag-chuck-palahniuk","tag-muse-hick","tag-musehick","tag-paul-grimsley","tag-skull-cull"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullcull.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullcull.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullcull.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullcull.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullcull.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/skullcull.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/skullcull.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullcull.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skullcull.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}