Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Survivor - Chuck Palahnuik


I felt as if I've had it to easy in my recent bouts with literature, so I've decided to go for something more serious.

Survivor is written backwards. The first page in the book is numbered 2xx and the pages count down to 1. This way I know how much I have left to go. It seems a fairly odd but fitting style of layout.

The narration, layout, etc are all done in a similar style to style to Fight Club. The narrative is hindsight aware retelling of events that have already happened with in the order that the narrator percieves them leading to his current state. There is the slightly offsetting amount of Home Economics details offered by the author, also in some sense similar to the information conveyed by Ed Norton's character in Fight Club.

I'm half way through the book, and it feels like I'm going to borrow another one: Choke

It seems as if Palanhuik really enjoyed Psychology in college (or is still teaching). The references and usage of the DSM and the various disorders were humorous and nostalgic. As far as social commentary, this is a much darker than what I've been recently reading.

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