Let me first say that I am no stranger to Palahniuk. He definitely ranks as one of my favorite contemporary writers. I also have a message for Mr. Palahniuk: you are a sadistic and perverse bastard, and I love your books.
First of all, I enjoyed the narrative style of the novel. It is a story told through mock interview snippets of more than fifty characters, yet somehow it forms a complete and cohesive story, while still maintaining some mystery about the enigmatic characters. Certainly, there are points where the narrators contradict each other, but it doesn't take away from the actual storyline. The disagreement is, of course, necessary for verisimilitude.
The story focuses on Rant Casey, patient number one in the current rabies epidemic that is overrunning some alternate reality (most likely a reality brought into existence by the main character himself). Rant actually doesn't narrate any of his own story, except in a flashback in which he calls into a radio broadcast and the broadcast is transcribed for the reader. The story is winding and reveals many surprises. There are some events that Palahniuk chooses to reveal early in the novel to throw the reader off-balance, suspecting foul play of certain characters, but not knowing exactly what these devious characters are up to. Rant attains a god-like status, or maybe even an actual god status. And yes, there is certainly something very Christ-like about the protagonist.
Palahniuk, as usual, treats the writers in all his readers to a workshop in unreliable narration. No character is completely trustworthy. However, the person who should be the most trustworthy in the entire story in my opinion, Irene Casey (Rant's mother), is the least reliable-- not because she is a liar, but because of her undying naivety that borders on idiocy.
There is also a great dichotomy between day and night. The characters live in a world where they are only allowed out in public for half of the day. Palahniuk does make everything night and day, not to say that everything is black and white, but the divide between the daytimers and the nighttimers is fixed and implacable. In this world many of the nighttimers participate in "Party Crashing," which is basically a huge public game of demolition derby with a very fixed set of rules. As a reader, I often doubted the sanity of the Party Crashers, but in the end, I believe them to be the sane ones. Palahniuk made me question what sanity really is. Rant becomes a philosopher in death, making us doubt what is a "correct" perception of the world. Over the radio, Rant says, "What if reality is nothing but some disease?" He is also later quoted as saying, "The future you have tomorrow won't be the same future you had yesterday."
That brings me to the idea of the past and history to which Palahniuk alludes. The past is always changing (even when time travelling isn't involved). It is rewritten and reconceived in the minds of those witnessed history as it happened. The past, present, and future merge into one in Rant. Rant's future is his past and his past is his future in many ways.
Another subject that the book deals with is the idea of paternity and who we are because of our fathers. Rant battles this question his entire life, having had an encounter with a passerby in his youth who tells him that he is his true father, not the father who Rant has known his whole life. Rant seeks out his true father, much in the way of a lost man trying to find himself. The thing is Rant already established in his own person.
I think the thing that really baffles me is that, as readers, we are told contradicting stories throughout the entire novel, but in the end everything we are told could be true (except probably for Irene Casey's narration). I think maybe that is where Palahniuk started in his head before starting to write the book-- making seeming lies into truths through the revelation of very intriguing plot twists.
I hope that I haven't given away too much in my review. I tried to be cryptic. It is just a hard book to talk about without revealing a few things (though none of the great revelations are mentioned here). I really enjoyed Palahniuk, as usual. It is a very easy read. I still think that Diary is my favorite Chuck Palahniuk, but this does come in a close second, beating out Lullaby by a hair. It is a book that will keep me thinking for some time to come.
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