Es adictivo. Por una parte, sientes vergüenza ajena y por otra, un cierto regodeo en la mediocridad y el absurdo humano. Esta lleno de reflexiones por las que merece subrayar sus páginas, de humor inteligente y, sobre todo, está muy bien escrito.

The first rule of Fight Club is that no one talks about it – but CP goes and writes a book of short stories where his cult-followed-novel is recurrently a topic of discussion and persistently a backdrop. Maybe he knew what he needed to do to get this published – I don’t think anyone would pick this up unless they were already familiar with Palahniuk and wanted to get inside his head. One reviewer said that this book is ‘unrecommendable,’ and I think I agree. Not because it’s bad, but because it is uniquely interesting to fans of Fight Club or CP’s other books. I can only think of a few I’d recommend it to, all of them already disillusioned and endearingly resentful young men who resonate with Edward Norton.

That being said, for anyone reading this book, go ahead and just skip the first piece. I think CP means to use it as a way to weed out readers – it’s stomach turning. I mentally compare it to what the creators of ‘Black Mirror’ may have been aiming for with their pilot episode. Do yourself a favor and move on past those pages – the rest of the stories are mostly worth the read.

In the chapters about men building castles, I see my father. In CPs ability to write with purpose, to extract comedy from the disappointing, I envy what I could never accomplish. I appreciate his reverence of the writing of Amy Hempel (At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom, IS a book of shorts I regularly recommend). I enjoyed his allusions to Brad Pitt and the making of the film. CPs sarcasm, irony, and awareness shine through in several of the later stories – I got what I came for when I finally got to those.

For example: “Do cats bother you as pets, or do you admire independence?” A reference to the ages-old cat person vs. dog person debate and simultaneously a vicious drag. With that question he lets us know what he appreciates (independence) and also reveals in himself a desire to insist on his own opinion as truth – an immaturity many of us possess (myself included). Self-awareness is present there, and he still shrugs it off and throws the grenade anyway.

I was reminded in reading this though, that Fight Club before anything else is a story for men. A dark catharsis for women is not included and apparently unnecessary – CP believes men need one more. (See his interview with Joe Rogan, if you can put up with Rogan’s pompousness for a few minutes.) Disappointing. I’ve decided though that Invisible Monsters might deliver what I’ve always found Fight Club to lack – maybe that one will be next.

n  "About the third week, the priapism subsided or seemed to spread to my entire body. Weightlifting gets better than sex. A workout becomes an orgy. You're having orgasms, cramping, hot, rushing orgasms in your delts, your quads, your lats, and traps. You forget about that lazy old penis. Who needs it. In a way, it's a peace, an escape from sex. A vacation from libido. You might see a hot woman and think grrrrrr, but your next egg white omelet or set of squats is a lot more attractive."n

This is the Chuck we all know and love. This right here is why he's my favorite author. No matter what he writes or does, he picks you up and never disappoints.

Short stories are always difficult to talk about. Obviously, some are way better than others but these all were unique enough to stand out from each other.

Palahniuk is one of those authors that doesn't pull any punches when it comes to writing from personal experiences. He's lead quite the exciting life and we all crave more.

If you aren't sold with the title or author, I'll say this.... Testicle Festival! You're welcome!!!

Sorry, your seven minutes is up!

Here’s a question for you: can Chuck Palahniuk do wrong?? It doesn’t seem so to me. From someone who I associate so strongly with dark, twisted, soulful fiction I have now found dark, twisted, soulful nonfiction as well. Stranger Than Fiction is a masterful blend of storytelling, lecturing and questioning; in every way that Palahniuk explores his stories to find something deeper about them, he does the same to his readers and pushes them to look beyond the ordinary. Through Palahniuk’s way of speaking about the extraordinary as if it were run-of-the-mill, each of the book’s sections — People Together, Portraits and Personal — flip the world on it’s head in unique ways; from a touching (yes, touching) interview with Marilyn Manson to a Testicle Festival, GQ photo shoot gone wrong and a drunken seance, Palahniuk crafts morals like a man who dared to stare the devil straight in the eyes and broke the silence with a fart noise.


That’s a good thing, I promise.

okurken sıkıldım açıkcası. otobiyografik özellikler taşıyan, hikayeler diyemeyeceğim düşünce sekanslarından oluşuyor kitap. palahniuk'in hayatına karşı özel bir merağınız varsa ancak tavsiye edebilirim.

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.

*Official rating is 3.5, but always round up!

Collections of short works are tricky things to review. I say this almost every bloody time I review one. The reason being that each story or article or piece is inevitably pitted against one another in terms of likeability, and by a law of averages certain ones swim while other sink. A talent-fueled tale, followed by an even better one, tends to devalue the first.

This is often the case with Palahniuk's 'Stranger Than Fiction'.

This book was on my radar for years. Someone bought it for me last Christmas and I finally got around to diving in. I dig Chucky P quite a bit, enough to cite him as a writing influence of mine. Generally, there is a mixed response to his books and subject matter, but I've always admired his minimalist style and the way he strolls through territory where other writers fear to tread. However, his shock and awe tactics can get a bit transparent at times. Like a lot of his works, 'Stranger Than Fiction' is no different in this department.

For example, the first story you encounter is called 'Testy Festy'. It's about the Red Creek Lodge Testicle Festival, and an all-out in-your-face collage of blowjobs, handjobs, and crude lewd public sex acts in a nudist campground setting. It's signature Palahniuk, acting as a gatekeeper of a story that will make a number of readers put the book down before they've gotten through the first few pages.

If you can get past that one, you'll be fine.

The rest of this collection of non-fiction shorts offers some incredible insight to Palahniuk's considerably different, sometimes slightly demented, world. The book is divided into three sections: People Together, Portraits, and Personal. There is so much variety to take in, but it does have its problems. And those problems will often boil down to what you personally find interesting or engaging.

I loved reading about the author's life in 'Personal', his trials and tribulations, successes and failures. Mostly, it's his own eclectic experiences with family, friends, loss, steroids, shitty day-jobs, sickness, and writing that I found most fulfilling. A lot of the 'People Together' stuff was pretty great too; a combine harvester demolition derby, a collection of American DIY castle builders, the wrecked world or amateur wrestling, uncomfortable life aboard a US nuclear submarine. These stories couldn't be more different from one another. The spectrum covered is as wide as it is odd and interesting.

But the 'Portraits' section was often a let down for me. I can't fault Palahniuk too much for this, as most of them were gleaned from interviews with famous folk, and an article can only be as good as its subject. Let's just say I didn't really care about Juliette Lewis before I read Chuck's article about her, and I certainly couldn't give a shit about her afterward. Ditto for Marylin Manson and a couple others. There were other slight annoyances, like the mentioning of "Brad Pitt" a little too often throughout the book or Palahniuk occasionally passing judgement on people or topics that felt a bit unfair, particularly in the face of evidence that suggested his conclusions were wrong or weak.

I think the people who will mine the most profit out of 'Stranger Than Fiction' are writers themselves. There is a lot we writers can relate to in this book, and it's always a treat to be invited inside a successful author's head to be granted insight alongside memories recovered/analyzed. If you're at all a fan of Chuck Palahniuk, 'Stranger Than Fiction' makes a great companion to whatever collection of his books you already possess.

This was excellent. I particularly loved the essays that talked about Palahniuk's family and childhood, as well as the ones about Marilyn Manson and Juliette Lewis. He's such a talented writer. I love the way he puts things into words and his particular style of sentence construction. It's intoxicating.

Tre stelline perchè non so che voto dare, mai stata così in dubbio.
Le prime due parti le ho trovate troppo assurde, perfino per gli standard di Palahniuk, però l'ultima, quella denominata "Personale" mi conquistata: per la prima volta mi sono trovata interessata a "conoscere" Palahniuk non solo come autore, ma proprio come persona.

The high rating is purely because:
This is still one of the good ones from Palahniuk. This is still one of the ones he writes actual sentences and thinks. You can read all the thinking! I truly enjoyed reading about things that I knew to be actual facts, never mind how much I've heard urban legends about fem fight clubs or people choking on food at restaurants for money, I know the stuff Manson said is true coz I've read his book years back.
There is a certain kind of honesty in Stranger than Fiction that I feel Palahniuk lost at some point. His need to make up things and spiderweb worlds overlaps his ability to tell it how it is. In Stranger than Fiction he still tells it.

There are times he digs deep into humanity (see the essays on castle building, taking testosterone, The Lady, sanctity and HIV, or writers conferences, or Ira Leavenson), but most of the time he has a fascinating idea or interesting topic that never quite hits or goes on far too long.