Survivor: A Novel
by Chuck Palahniuk
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Book Reviews of Survivor: A Novel
Book Review: Loved the first half, second half pretty good
Summary: 4 Stars
Tender Branson is the last surviving member of the Creedish cult, but not for long as he has hijacked a plane which he intends to crash after he finishes telling his life story into the flight recorder.
The book starts and ends with Tender Branson in the hijacked plane where he has nicely served everyone their last meal, landed the plane somewhere so everyone could disembark except the pilot who jumps out with a parachute later on so that Tender can die on the plane himself. He has been telling his life story into a flight recorder the entire book because that is what Fertility, a girl he is fascinated with that can see the future, told him to do. She hates her gift, but tells him about the future so that he can use it in his messiah gig, which he becomes sick of himself and eventually leads to the hijacking.
The writing style is very similar to Palahniuk's other books that I have read. There is a lot of repetition to make a point or to add humor, especially when Tender was made into messiah from agents and other media types. Throughout the story, there are injections of the best-selling prayer books that have his name on them, yet he never wrote. Prayers such as The Prayer to Delay Orgasm, The Prayer to Prevent Hair Loss, The Prayer to Silence Car Alarms. He has been turned into a messiah once all the other members of the Creedish cult have killed themselves in response to an apocalypse. The members they have sent out into society to make money to send back to the cult are supposed to kill themselves as soon as they hear the news of the deaths. It takes a while for them to all do it, but they finally do until Tender is the last one standing. The media hounds on this and make him famous.
That is the second half of the book, which was amusing, but not my favorite part of the book. I loved the first part where we learn how the Creedish kids try to assimilate into regular culture, but not very well since they seem to be some kind of Amish knock offs. They are experts at cleaning and organizing things. Tender is a maid, cook, butler, gardner and general servant to a rich couple that he has never met in person. They leave him a journal of daily tasks he needs to complete and only communicate through the journal and speaker phone while at work or dinner parties. He knows how to prepare any kind of food and clean anything. The repetition technique was at work during that part of the book with the various cleaning tips, which I found to be hilarious and useful. Maybe someday, I'll run into the need to get blood or some other stain out of various clothing and upholstery, and now I know how!
The first part also has the side story about how a suicide help line phone number was misprinted in a newspaper story and gave his phone number instead. When people called, he didn't tell them they had the wrong phone number, but would give them awful advice, like killing themselves. It is this dark, twisted humor that makes me like Chuck Palahniuk. It is also this section of the book where he mentions "suicide girls," which apparently is where the website feature old school '40s and '50s pin-up-style photos of goth, punk and indie girls. He only mentions it in one sentence of the type of people who call the help line, but how it is a super popular phrase. Crazy.
Book Review: Surviving Another Mediocre American Novel
Summary: 2 Stars
I have seen Fight Club, and I have read Survivor. This is anything but a comprehensive sample of Chuck Palahniuk's works, but going with this control group of 2 items I can strongly assert that Palahniuk is one of many modern cookie-cutter writers of our time. Now, his writing might be your thing, in which case all his novels will likely appeal to you. But personally, I found the book thin. The narrative lagged while the plot twists were unoriginal. Generally pointless, despite being narratively entertaining at times, Survivor is what I would call a mediocre-at-best waste of time. I can't say there's much here to rave about.
I think I've also had enough with these kooky numbering schemes of pages and chapters. Call me old-fashioned, but starting with 1 and adding 1 for each page after that is a pretty solid methodology. I mean, if it ain't broke... Backwards chapter and page numbers is a "fun" twist for some, I suppose. For me, it was a poor diversion from the lackluster effort on the pages, as if some grand ending was coming and we should all hold our collective breath as page 0 draws near.
But no grand ending ever arrives. In fact, the book slides into the single digit pages like a lava flow about to congeal for keeps. I thought, as the book wound down, he might be able to save it. Why? I don't know. I saw Fight Club, so I knew there wasn't a rich history of pulling off endings. Knowing that, I should have at least lowered my expectations. Alas, I expected him to save it somehow. As the final pages turned into the final page, I held out hope. As the paragraphs turned into single sentences, still I wondered. With about 3 left, I finally realized he couldn't do it. There was no ending to be had in a mere 3 sentences. As they whittled to nothing, the ending fizzled like a dud firecracker.
So it goes. At times the book reads well enough. I'll give the author that much. But the story is thin, poorly drawn out and overzealous, and lacking the focus and cohesiveness necessary to bring the book to the next level. What he gains in the occasional witty banter he loses in lack of intriguing plot development. What he gains in deadpan comments he loses in monotonous repetition of the same thoughts.
If you haven't guessed I was less than impressed with this book. While I do recognize not everyone will agree with me, this is what I experienced. Perhaps it's due to the fact I spend so much time reading on the train every day, a "good waste of time" is still a waste of time to me. I want to make the most of the time I spent reading, and books like this make it hard to say I accomplished that. If I had picked this up one day in lieu of nothing better to do, it might have been more enjoyable. I doubt it, since the subject matter is so morbid and dark. But hey, you never know.
All in all, I have recently come to the realization that the plethora of mediocre authors on the market today only serves to enhance the truly great artists out there. I don't think Palahniuk is a bad writer. He's just nothing special. The fact that Survivor rates as a 4.5 on Amazon while Life of Pi (my previous read) only gets a 4 is more symbolic of today's reading market than anything else. I guess this is what we embrace in the culture of today, sad as it may be.
Book Review: The total ride
Summary: 5 Stars
"Survivor" is a kind of trick. Better yet, "Survivor" is a kind of puzzle. I've read the thing twice now and it's still got me beat. I mean, it's a great novel. Don't get me wrong about that. Pure entertainment. Dark as only the truly cruel can be.
Just so you know, it's the story of Tender Branson, the last surviving member of the Creedish cult - which, in turn, is one of those cults everybody pretty much thinks they know all about. Within the cult itself, you learn only what you are told by the elders (which means you do as you are told and abhore sex). As far as the outside world is concerned, for "cult" read devil worship, child abuse and mania. The fact that the body of the cult committed what can only be described as seppuku on the verge of being discovered for its implication in child slavery (with instructions left for surviving members out there in the world to follow suit as soon as they become aware of the seppuku) only confirms general preconceptions.
Of course it's more complicated than that. It's always more complicated than that.
Example: Tender operates a late-night phone advice line. Sick people, sad people, lonely people, messed-up people. They all call Tender wanting kind words and expecting help. Tender tells them to kill themselves. A lot of them do. One of the people who calls Tender is called Trevor. Tender tells Trevor to kill himself. Trevor kills himself. Tender visits Trevor's funeral plot (a cremation plaque halfway up a wall, you need a ladder to get there) and meets Trevor's sister, Fertility. Fertility and Trevor share a kind of foresight (they know all about disasters before they happen). Tender can't help but be drawn to Fertility . . .
Tender is telling you this - this and other stuff, so much other stuff, stories that read like the veins of a leaf, nervation - via the gift of the black box. I'm not giving anything away telling you this. You find this out on page one. Or rather you find this out on page 289. Because page 289 is page one. The book starts at the end and goes back (page by page, 289, 288, 287, 286) to the beginning (page four, page three, page two, page one). The book ends (begins, on page 289) with Tender aboard a plane he has hijacked with the intention of crashing into the ground. He is reading his story into the black box, with the knowledge that - whatever happens to him, whatever happens to the plane - the black box is safe, the story will get told.
It's a puzzle, like I said.
I saw Chuck Palahniuk do a reading and he said the book is a puzzle. He said not everybody gets it. He said there is a clue to the puzzle on page eight (whether he means the official page eight right at the end, or whether you count eight pages in from page 289, I don't know).
Not that it matters whether you can figure out what you have to figure out.
"Survivor" is a total ride. Palahniuk is one of maybe ten new writers worth keeping your eye on (and that's me being kind to everybody else). You never know what you're going to get. You can never prepare yourself for what he's going to throw at you. It's a total ride. And a puzzle that I can't figure.
Book Review: A rollercoaster with few surprises...
Summary: 3 Stars
I've been on this ride before, I think, as I strap myself in and open up to the first page of "Survivor."
You'd really think that it would be impossible for a novel by a writer as fiercely original as CP to be formulaic--but write enough of them quickly enough at the pace that today's publishers insist to justify their marketing budgets and make their millions and you end up with Danielle Steel...and now, not quite, but almost, and still a lot more interesting, Chuck Palahniuk.
In this one, a charismatic religious leader, the last surviving member of suicide cult, is alone on an airliner recording his tragicomic life-story into the jet's black box before it crashes into the Australian outback. The whole novel is structured like a countdown to the inevitable crash, even the pages are numbered backward to zero, pretty clever, huh? It's a device custom-made for someone like me who's always so impatient to get on to the next book that I'm perpetually doing the math to figure out how many pages I have to go before I'm finished with the book I'm reading. I think all books should be reverse-numbered this way!
Eccentric characters, an elastic reality stretched to the point of absurdity in the service of satire, a merciless critique of contemporary culture, lots or random factoids such as how to get rid of bloodstains or inject steroids--and all told in a quirky first person voice that uses a distinctive patois made up of repetition, one-liners, and pseudo Valley-girl speak (a sort of "anti-writing" like you'd find in a graphic novel but without the pictures)...and there you have the general blueprint of the CP perpetual novel-writing machine. You keep signing the million-dollar checks, he'll keep writing essentially the same novel.
Can you blame him? I can't. I'd do the same thing; ride it out while you can, right? Cause like the jet in "Survivor," you're going to crash eventually.
Listen, I'm a fan of CP; well, at least a fan of the general idea of CP. "Invisible Monsters" blew me away. "Choke" had me sputtering with admiration. And, if this is the first novel by CP that you read, you're bound to like "Survivor," provided CP is to your taste at all. And there really isn't anything wrong with "Survivor" even stacked up against the other novels, it's just that it's something like looking at a wall of Warhol "Maos." They're all a little different, but there all essentially the same.
Somehow repetition works better as a technique in painting than in writing. You can't silkscreen a novel. Well, actually you can...the shelves of any bookstore in the USA are practically nothing else than silk-screened variations of two or three (no longer) original ideas. You hit on a winning formula and you milk it for every drop its worth.
And thus "Survivor."
Anyway, the same old CP is a hundred times better than the same old Grisham.
Book Review: Gimmicky story with little or no heart and humanity.
Summary: 2 Stars
This was the first book I've read by this author, who I was curious to check out after seeing, and for the most part enjoying, the movie Fight Club. Unfortunately, I found the book to be a little heavy-handed in its theme, and I regret buying it in the first place.
The book isn't without its good points, which I'll highlight first. The author takes an interesting and original idea (suicide cult and its members) and with it, touches on the ideas of morality, capitalism, media hysteria, and endentured servitude.
One problem I had with the book was that its gimmicky premise. The book starts with a narrator describing his situation, which is not very good. He's on a plane, alone, and it's on a crash course for Austrailia. Before he dies, the author wants to set the record straight on what happened and how things got to where they are now. Then the book does a countdown (the page numbers start at around 200 or so and count down in descending order to bring the book right back to where it starts). Okay, I thought. I'll give it a shot.
For a book that's billed as satire, however, I would have expected it to have a least a little humor, even if it was dark. Well, the book didn't make me laugh once, and I doubt that I even smiled. I did roll my eyes a lot, however - so maybe that counts for something.
The biggest problem is that none of the characters are easy to sympathize with. There is no good guy. There are a lot of bad guys, however, and a lot of people in the gray area.
The author's main theme seems to be that famous people are slaves, in a sense, to the consummerism and media superpowers that control EVERYTHING. Celebrities, according to Palahniuk, are no more responsible for their success than a can of soda is responsible for whether it gets bought or sold. People are marketed, altered, and re-engineered to appeal to their target audience. To be famous, one must give up free will and do as you're told.
The fact that the protagonist doesn't once seem to object to this (perhaps because he was previously a slave in a more literal sense - he cleaned houses all day) struck me as somewhat odd. Also, the protagonist is directly responsible for the deaths of dozens of people who he encouraged to kill themselves. People would call him for help and he'd tell them to blow their brains out, for no other reason than entertainment, I guess.
A protagonist so morally bankrupt is a tough one to sympathize with, which makes it kind of tough to really care what happens in the book.
In the end, I was glad when this book was over, as I found it completely lacking in anything approaching humanity, love, and compassion. It was just a sad, twisted little story with no humor. Clearly, many people liked it, but I'll confidently align myself with the minority opinion here, and say the book was pretty lousy.