Rant

The past couple years I haven't been reading as many books as I used to or would like to.

Having more free time than I usually do, this weekend I read Rant: An Oral History Of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk.

For a while he was probably my favorite author.

Fight Club was great.

Survivor was even better.

Invisible Monsters was also very good.

Choke, I thought, was awful. (Although the upcoming movie does look pretty good.)

Lullaby was a little bit better, but still not good.

Diary, I remember almost nothing about.

Haunted, that one was like 2 books, one that started good but got worse as it went along, the other the opposite, starting bad but getting better, and ending up pretty good.

Somewhere in the middle of those there were the 2 non-fiction books, Fugitives And Refugees, which was very interesting, and Stranger Than Fiction, which was decent.

Based on my lower opinion of his last 4 fiction books, I didn't tear into Rant as soon as I got my hands on it.

I just checked, and it was released over a year ago.

So how does Rant compare to the rest of the books by Palahniuk?

Well, two days ago, I would have said Survivor was my favorite Palahniuk book.

Today, that's no longer true.

It's been probably 8 years since I read Survivor, and I'm sure my memories of it have been altered with time, with enhanced memories of the great parts and diminished recollection of the not so great parts.

Rant, I can say with it completely fresh in mind and unaltered by memory, was fantastic. The first 20 pages or so were confusing, but then it becomes a real page turner for 100 pages or so. It slows down considerably with a couple chapters that change everything. After those chapters it picks up again straight through the end. About 1/4 of the way through I thought figured out one big part of the twist, and about 1/2 way through I was certain of it, although I didn't have a clue about the mechanism. I was pretty close about the big idea, but nowhere close in the details or scope. Anyway, I'll have to read it again before too long to see everything I missed, and also try to figure out a few things I'm still unsure about.

After finishing it, I looked it up on Amazon to see what kind of reviews it got there, and they were mixed, leaning slightly to the positive side. Here's an excerpt from one of the reviews, which I thought was hilarious:

"This was the first Chuck Palahniuk book I read.
I read it in audio format, which I think really added to the book because you get to hear all the different voices."
--K. W. Bennink

Anyway, I think I'll read Snuff next weekend. From the synopsis and (spoiler-free) reviews I've read it doesn't sound too great, but we'll see.

eta: From wikipedia:

During his "Rant 2007" tour, Palahniuk has indicated that he will continue to write two more books based on Rant, to be released tentatively in 2011 and 2013 but also stated that he will be writing other books in between, with his next to be titled Snuff. [3]

Hell yeah!