Survivor: A Novel
by Chuck Palahniuk
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Book Reviews of Survivor: A Novel
Book Review: Palahniuk's Best Work
Summary: 5 Stars
Simply said, this is among my favorite novels I have ever read and I think it is the best of Chuck Palahniuk's works (at least up to 2010). In what has become fairly commonplace among Chuck novels, we begin the novel by getting a glimpse at the end before really understanding what is actually going on and why. This does a great job of really establishing a tone for the story and sparking an intial flair to get the reader really interested early on.
Set up as Tender Branson giving his account of his life, trying to give some meaning and justification to it to the black box recorder or an airplane he is setting out to crash, the narrator does a great job of walking us through his life and giving us a real good understanding of what has drove him to this point. While Palahniuk is never really subtle about the themes he is setting out to explore in his novels, I think he really does a great job in this novel of discussing free will, especially though interactions with Fertility. The relationship between Tender and Fertility is overall very interesting and does a good job of really showcasing the changes that each of the characters goes through as the novel progresses.
By giving us a glimpse into the future before stepping back to explain the past, it gives the reader a chance to really analyze the events throughout the story relative to what we know is eventually going to happen. I think while this is sometimes overused and used ineffectively, it works remarkably well here. Palahniuk also does a great job in this novel as always of interjecting some really witty and cleaver sections of the novel that really keep it overall entertaining and enjoyable while being so dark at the same time.
Overall, this is a great book, and I would recommend it anyone that is looking for a something just a little bit different or someone that is looking to give Chuck Palahniuk a shot.
Book Review: Suicidally Good!
Summary: 5 Stars
After seeing the movie Fight Club, I became very interested in Chuck Palahniuk's work. So I went to the bookstore looking for some of his other novels. You know the saying "don't judge a book by its cover"? Well I do judge books by their covers. The covers of books now are just so... corny. I could tell Survivor was going to be a good book from its unique cover. It is very plan, almost completely silver, but it has style. The novel is centered on the thought to be only survivor of a Creedish Death Cult, Tender Branson. In the first chapter, chapter 47, it is explained that Tender Branson is alone on a high jacked commercial airplane and he is going to crash it into the Australian Outback. But before that happens he is going to tell his life story to the "indestructible black box of Flight 2039". As the chapters work their way down to 1, there is a very dark apocalyptic story of Tender's rise to stardom from a housemaid for a strange yuppie couple. In his work experience with this yuppie couple, Tender learns helpful facts like how to get bloodstains off of wallpaper. Also how to hide stab holes in tuxedos. No book is complete without a love interest, and Fertility Hollis adds that and much more. Tender falls for the very interesting character Fertility, who happens to be the sister of a man Tender killed (in a round about way). The plot takes many twists and turns that keep you very interested, for instance Tender's twin brother might be trying to kill him so that all of the Cult would be in their rightful place, dead. "'What's the difference between a Creedish and a corpse?' Just a matter of hours." It is a very unpredictable, enticing, hilarious novel that is so real, it might make you consider suicide. I loved this very unique novel and would recommend it to everyone, except people who have considered suicide, because it might just push them over the edge.Book Review: The man has great ideas
Summary: 3 Stars
His writing needs some work though. Fight Club became a WONDERFUL movie, from a book with incredible ideas in fiction and satire, but was written very poorly. Chuck just can't keep his words flowing, things come in, stop abruptly, and sometimes you don't know where the story just went. Was a surprise just revealed? Where are they now? That would be my only gripe, though his writing has gotten better since Fight Club (Invisible monsters was actually his first written book) he still has along way to go. But I don't wanna sound like a gloomy gus.This book is certainly a ride worth taking, its funny, interesting, and is a revolutionary world of characters and plot line. Chuck can do this like no other, his love for "loser" characters who believe that hitting bottom is the ultimate goal in life, and true freedom comes only from going as low as you can go. In fight club Tyler created fight club and led to vandalism and a revolutionary cult that aims to destroy societies norms. In Survivor the main character sells his soul to the media and becomes a Messiah super star. Yet cannot escape his past, in an emotional confrontation at the end. His fait seeming inevitable after the first few pages, but we even feel bad for him at times, and you'll never forget his big "revelation" at the end of the book before the Super Bowl. (lol)
The only other prob is some pages are wasted with knowlege the main character has on how to clean and eat and cook. It gets a bit boring, but once you eat through that you get to the real meat of the story.
Its written better than Fight Club, and contains the same great ideas that chuck just keeps pulling out. I highly recommend this book. I'm truly inspired and introduced to a whole new world of books that aren't sappy happy and truly tug at the heart of the human instinct. Can't wait to read Invisible Monsters
Book Review: Here is my confession...
Summary: 5 Stars
...I loved this book. I feel it actually surpasses several other Palahniuk books, especially the recent "Haunted" and including "Fight Club". "Fight Club" was excellent thematically, but untempered in its style. In "Survivor", Palahniuk has learned to take his slam-bang style down a notch, so that it's still interesting but not constantly barraging you with witty one-liners and narrative shocks, although there are still plenty enough to go around.
A story about death, religion, the media and fake celebrity, "Survivor" gets down the pacing "Fight Club" had issues with, but retains the same style of narrative, first person with lots of random statistics and jarring breaks tossed in. In this story, it's better explained as to why the hero, Tender Branson, knows so many offbeat facts, as his upbringing in the Creedish "Death Cult" is explained with detail, it coming to bear on the story pretty heavily.
The reason Palahniuk takes the time to explain the narrator's background is that this is supposed to be his life story, which also makes it a character study. Indeed, the characters are more fully fleshed out here than ever before in Palahniuk's novels, which allows the story to have a greater effect.
Tender Branson, the narrator, is as messed up as any Palahniuk hero, and his romance with Fertility Hollis is equally the author's trademark oddball relationship. The novel even expands upon some themes from Palahniuk's previous works, such as the mentality of the serving class, the nature of how ordinary people take on messianic statures, and, of course, death, which is a prevailing theme in all his books.
All in all, I'd heartily recommend "Survivor" to any Palahniuk fan, but also to any reader, perhaps even over "Fight Club" as an introduction to Palahniuk's works. A good read, five stars.
Book Review: How To Clean Everything
Summary: 5 Stars
Palahniuk is one seriously f-ed up writer. That doesn't mean that he still cant write. While I loved Fight Club, I found Survivor just as good. The one thing I like about Palahniuk is that, while some authors tend to rehash the same plotline, story, and ending, (*cough* Grisham) Palahniuk manages to create something new and original every time. Fight Club was about anarchist overthrows funded by soap sales. Survivor is about Tender Branson, a man who's the last surviving member of the Creedish Church (or, as it's referred to later, "The Old Testament Death Cult"). He's all alone in an airplane about to crash into the Austrailian outback. However, before the plane crashes, he reveals everything in the plane's black box recorder, from his growing up within the Creedish Church, how to get blood stains out of carpet using common household items, to becoming a buffed, to being the last surviving member of "The Deliverence", to becoming a steriod-infused media conglomerate, to his on-again, off-again relationship with Fertility Hollis. He'll reveal the truth about the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Sanitary Landfill (aka The PornFill), the "Deliverance", the stadium tours, the autographed Bibles, the Genesis Project, and The Book Of Very Common Prayer. I don't want to give away too much, but Palahniuk's sense of humor, in this book, Fight Club, and so on, is very f-ed up with his dark takes on society, and brings to light stuff you've thought you've known for a long time and does a complete twist on it. The ending's also a shocker, too. It's not quite as intense as Fight Club's ending was, but it's one of those "the exact opposite of what you think is going to happen" endings. This is a great read if you're a fan of dark fiction. I can't wait to see if the movie's going to be as good as Fight Club...