Appunti sparsi (.... molto sparsi) di vita vissuta. Dall'America della provincia piu' profonda alle luci di Hollywood, sempre ai confini dell'assurdo. Alcuni stralci di quasi poesia in un contesto, per il resto, piuttosto piatto.

Avaliar livro do CP nunca é fácil. O cara não alivia; vai fundo no detalhe em situações grotescas como se tivesse descrevendo uma paisagem bucólica. Também porque escreveu uma obra-prima (Clube da Luta), cujo filme é ainda melhor que o livro, então ele mesmo criou uma âncora para sua obra muito difícil de igualar. Daí que decidi parar de ler livro dele. Mas um dia apareceu essa sugestão num formato mais contos / crônicas, onde fica evidente que é um autor com alto desvio padrão, dado o desnível entre essas diferentes histórias do livro. De qualquer jeito, ler seus livros é ter a certeza que você vai fazer orelhas / marcações em algumas páginas, porque ele sempre vai contar algo interessante, sugerir pesquisar mais sobre um determinado assunto, já que no fundo é um cara muito curioso e as pessoas curiosas - quase sempre - são muito interessantes...

Error Humano es un libro de relatos, en su mayoría, de tipos que están bastante pillados de la cabeza.
Son muchas historias cortas las que componen el libro, de modo que me resulta difícil hacer una valoración general.
Con algunas me he muerto de la risa (Casi California me ha matado), otras me han cabreado (como Querido Señor Levin)... y alguna me la he saltado porque lo que hagan los paletos sureños con sus cosechadoras me interesa más bien poco.

Nonfiction Palahniuk. A mediocre collection of essays compared to his fiction. A few pieces are worth reading but most of them are only worth a skim.

Ancora Palahniuk. Vista la qualità degli ultimi libri, non vorrei che l'autore - o il suo agente - volesse far uscire un libro all'anno solo per pagare le spese della propria sussistenza. Vista la qualità letteraria di questo e del precedente [Cavie] verrebbe da pensare che è cosi' che vanno le cose. Il testo è interessante, a tratti. Quello sui castelli americani, ad esempio, racconta fatti che mi hanno incuriosito: sono andato sul web a cercare - su Google Earth - il castello citato. Anche altri racconti sono curiosi; a volte anche dolorosi, nel loro minimalismo spinto. Però rimane un patchwork di altalenante maestria. Come si dice di alcuni dischi, "consigliato ai fans". Poi mi rimarrà a lungo la curiosità di come scrive Amy Hempel, visto che non si trovano traduzioni italiane... E anche dove diavolo è quel castello che ho tanto cercato sul web...

Content Warning: Chuck Palahniuk
(Seriously, this book is for mature readers. So is this review.)

Stranger Than Fiction, Chuck Palahniuk's book of essays and true stories, makes quite a strong first impression. In the first few pages, it's all cocks and pussies and public copulation, dried bull penises, group masturbation and competitive chocolate-sauce-and-whipped-cream-covered oral sex. And like this review, if you can get past that first bit, you'll definitely be okay to handle the rest.

I wondered as I read through the book, with that first shocking story of the Testicle Festival never forgotten, if Palahniuk led with that story as a means of defence. Because past that first story, the book becomes progressively more personal, real, and vulnerable. With each story, Palahniuk is more present as narrator, until the book's final essay collection (of three), in which every story is about himself. Each of these final stories is boldly and generously honest, sharing stories of Palahniuk's rise to significance as an author, and revealing him as a frightened, self-conscious, ill-prepared, and awkward human every step of the way. Perhaps that first story, the one furthest removed from this vulnerable share, was as much a shield as it was a hook.

The second collection, called Portraits, is a series of essays that each share a story about an artist or public personality of interest to Palahniuk. Among these, my favourites were the interview with Marilyn Manson, and two essays about favourite authors of Palahniuk's, Amy Hempel and Ira Levin. Having just finished three of Levin's books in the last few months, it was a delight to read another author I enjoy giving an analysis, and also nice to feel affirmed in my personal taste. Of Amy Hempel, I'd never heard. Palahniuk's essay convinced me that I would be wise to find and read her soon. These essays also gave me the most insight into Palahniuk's process as an artist and writer. Reading this from a perspective of a writer wishing to one day publish, I appreciated this immensely.

The bulk of the book is the first collection, essays and stories especially from niche and underground communities and subcultures. I could discern many sources of influence for Palahniuk's shocking and often transgressive fiction. These true stories give evidence for why this writer is able to write of so many strange and disturbing events and personalities, yet somehow always manage to keep a sense of realism. Many of these stories felt very much like reading scenes from Palahniuk's books. It is this collection that most earns the book its title.

There is a thread of a story through all of these essays, one that shares heartbreaking and recent personal details from Palahniuk's life. By the end of the book, the cover photo (I had a first edition cover), the title, and the themes and context of Palahniuk's fiction all felt chillingly consequential and heavy. Though the book collects essays that are wildly disparate in time, content, and original intent, there is an objective above them that guided the author's hand as editor to put them together. By the end, details from all three collections come together in a way that is at least as powerful as anything from any fiction I've enjoyed by this writer.

This is a surprisingly good book. And it makes the reading of his other books even better.

If you've never read Palahniuk, this would not be a bad book with which to introduce yourself to him.

I wanted to like this way more than I did, as I love stories about the things and the people who occupy the margins of society. Unfortunately many of the essays read like collections of notes, rewritten as to form a cogent narrative, but really lacked that certain something that makes them readable. There were a few times I nearly dozed off during an essay - never a good sign.

HOWEVER. There were two really wonderful pieces that I think made the whole experience worthwhile. The first was about the writers at a writer's conference, you know, one of those deals where a writer pays $75 in exchange for the opportunity to pitch her story to agents and publishers. It was so sad and yet so poignant, to think of all of the people out there hoping they can peddle their story into something bigger, some recognition or some money, perhaps. He took it beyond that, and talked about the way writers mine the world around them for material, to the point where sometimes they get so wrapped up in thinking about how they will turn this thing or that person into fodder for their latest story that they lose the ability to take life on its own terms. I really loved this essay.

I also loved the final one, which mostly pivoted around the murder of his father by some jealous lunatic ex-husband of a woman he had just started seeing. Very powerful.

But aside from those two essays I didn't really like much about this book.

You will like this book if you are easily amazed by the things your fellow humans do for fun or to make a living, or to survive or to fend off loneliness and despair' if you are not surprised but what we do to light the flickering light of "I am special". You will like this book if you prefer understatement and no-sentimentality in presentation of the harsh and the painful and the noble, and if you prefer examples of the profane in the presentation of the mysterious and even the mystical. If you like to sense the writer's hard lived experience in what you read, you will like this book.

I first learned of the author after watching Fight Club five billion times with my friends, upon seeing a friend reading the book I didn't know existed. I finally read a couple books by Palahniuk several years later, and enjoyed them. Though the Fight Club novel is wonderful, and the movie owes everything to it, I must admit I enjoyed the movie more. The author is just a bit dark for my taste, but he is also brilliant, creative, and knows how to bruise the ol' brain batter just right. So I keep coming back like some abuse addicted lover.

This, the third book I've read by Palahniuk, is less dark (than Survivor and Fight Club), but just as creative and immersive. Don't get me wrong, there were still a number of moments when I felt punched in the gut... but in a good way?

Anyways, I recommend this book to anyone, as it shares little nitch worlds that most people never think about, and provides one the opportunity to increase their empathy.

I'm pretty sure that Palahniuk's writing is a fight club. It's like visiting some secret dark basement, where the author dishes out punch after punch. Laying us out on sweaty concrete, bleeding and wondering what the fuck we've done with our lives, yet embracing the pain. Then there are moments when reading can lead us to throw mental punches at the rest of this fucked up world, and feel comfort in knowing that we're standing over it with bruised knuckles, thinking we're at least not the scum laying on the subfloor. Or maybe I'm just fucked up.

3* è una pura media: ci sono racconti (pochi) da 4, e parecchi da 2... Nel complesso un po' deludente, non si sente lo spirito del mio Palafuffo preferito :|
Ho invece apprezzato, da brava groupie, le parti autobiografiche.

3 stars

Hace unos meses busco Monstruos Invisibles en las librerías. No entiendo si el libro no se edita más en español o si no lo busqué con la suficiente vehemencia. Tal vez sea una señal para que lo compre en inglés y se lo encargue a algún amigo viajero.

El punto es que no terminé leyendo a Palahniuk ni de la forma ni dentro del libro que buscaba. Se me cruzó una noche de verano densa en las que todos respiramos más despacio. Una de esas noches porteñas de febrero en las que pienso que el calor es más democrático que el frío porque todos estamos lo más desnudos posibles y nos entregamos al sudor que nos humedece las cejas y la espalda y nos deja la piel pegajosa.

Fui a un asado donde no conocía a nadie, en una casa con una biblioteca en la que me hubiera sumergido toda la noche, autista y maleducada. Lo pensé, pero no lo hice. En cambio, me sumé al sauna a cielo abierto dónde todos esperábamos un asado que no había ni empezado y matábamos el tiempo con copas de vino frío. Era una carrera sin finalistas. El principio de una película de terror. A una de mis amigas, la combinación de porro, pucho y vinito le sacudió el cerebro hasta el vómito. Me tocó a mi el privilegio de cuidarla hasta que vaciara su cuerpo de líquido violeta. No sé quién transpiraba más en ese baño sin ventanas. Sé que el esfuerzo de soplarle la nunca me mareó, y para no detenerme en el poco alivio que podía ofrecerle, agarré, al azar, un libro de una pila abandonada sobre un parlante. Era lo suficientemente chico y blando para servir de abanico. Me fui de la casa con mi amiga colgada del hombro, la certeza de que nunca más vería esa biblioteca. En mi mano derecha aferraba este libro como si fuera mi DNI.

Pienso que yo no busqué leer a Chuck Palahniuk, él me encontró a mi. Y esta historia podría haber sido un capítulo más de este libro, si hubiera ocurrido 24 años atrás en Estados Unidos y Chuck fuera mi amigo. Funcionaría mejor bajo la mala traducción en español que tiene de título (Error Humano) que de su original en inglés (Stranger than Fiction).
Tengo de pronto la decisión que no tuve en los últimos meses coronada por la necesidad de leer su ficción.