Word Soup

I'm about half way through Chunk Palahniuk's new novel, Rant. It's filled with the typically crunchy nuggets of Palahniuk wisdom.

"After a good-looking boy gives you rabies two, maybe three times, you'll settle down and marry someone less exciting for the rest of your life."

However I'm totally uninterested in one of the book's central concepts: that there's this secret game played on American highways where groups of four spend their nights slamming into others on the nation's highways in some complicated version of tag.

It's a bit of a "fight club" retread that just tries too hard.

It's strange, because I was actually along for the ride earlier in the book, when Chuck was trying to sell me on a road tar chewing half-insane fuck-jedi of a protagonist with a superhuman sense of smell, who submits himself to animal and insect bites for pleasure (black widow venom helps with erections, you know) and wanders the world infecting others with rabies.

Go figure.

I'm teetering toward using words like gimmick, but I feel like he's about to throw me a curve ball, so I'm waiting patiently with the read. I tend to agree with this guy who notes that it seems like Chuck might be trying just a little too hard "to out-Palahniuk himself".

Then again, being a novel critic is easy.

The novel's promotional website is worth a look. Thus far, I'd say Survivor is a much better read if you're looking for something new. Obviously fans of Thomas Kincaide related fiction -- or those who enjoy books with cats as central characters -- probably need not apply.