Book Review: Chuck Palahniuk's Rant

I would not call myself a Chuck Palahniuk fan per se, but I do like the books of his that I've read. The guy's got some clever ideas. He can be, but is not always, a good writer. He can also write the occasional scene that makes me want to vomit. I could never whole heartily recommend his books to everyone, but I certainly know a few people who would and do enjoy his novels. Mostly dudes.

I just finished Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey on my train ride home today, and I think it's become my new favorite Palahniuk book. Just as the subtitle explains, it's written as an oral biography, feature fragments of interviews from dozens of people who knew or interacted with the title character, Buster "Rant" Casey. It's a clever framing device, one that the author uses to his full advantage.

And that, my friends, is about as much as I can really tell you about this book without potentially ruining it. I was constantly surprised as I read this novel. About 90 pages in, it became something completely different than what I expected. About 60 pages from the end, it did another 180 on me. These massive changes in the direction of the narrative were, surprisingly, pretty organic. I didn't feel like I was being cheated by some ridiculous deus ex machina, but it was almost a pleasant jarring sense. Kind of appropriate, considering many of the main characters in this book take pleasure in purposely crashing their cars. This is some of the best metafiction I've read, and I'm sure it'll be knocking around my head for days. It's a must-read for Palahniuk fans, and a maybe-try for newcomers to his work. Though it has some disturbing sequences, it's not as bad as some of the stuff he's written, and I haven't even read some of his more grotesque works (Haunted is supposedly pretty stomach-churning).

The only other thing I'll say is that I hope nobody ever tries to make this book into a movie. I never read Fight Club, but I enjoyed the movie--I sort of have a policy not read a book after seeing the movie. Choke was a pretty decent book, but the movie was pretty not-so-good. I cannot imagine anyone, even David Fincher, doing filmic justice this novel.