Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey [Paperback]

Chuck Palahniuk (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Buster Casey, destined to live fast, die young and murder as many people as he can, is the rotten seed at the core of Palahniuk's comically nasty eighth novel (after Haunted; Lullaby; Diary; etc.). Set in a future where urbanites are segregated by strict curfews into Daytimers and Nighttimers, the narrative unfolds as an oral history comprising contradictory accounts from people who knew Buster. These include childhood friends horrified by the boy's macabre behavior (getting snakes, scorpions and spiders to bite him and induce instant erections; repeatedly infecting himself with rabies), policemen and doctors who had dealings with the rabies "superspreader"; and Party Crashers, thrill-seeking Nighttimers who turn city streets into demolition derby arenas. After liberally infecting his hometown peers with rabies, Buster hits the big city and takes up with the Party Crashers. A series of deaths lead to a police investigation of Buster (long-since known as "Rant"—the sound children make while vomiting) that peaks just as Buster apparently commits suicide in a blaze of car-crash glory. This dark religious parable (there's even a resurrection) from the master of grotesque excess may not attract new readers, but it will delight old ones. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Zombies, government conspiracies, religious epiphanies, time travel, a postmodern Typhoid Mary, and a woman who mixes thumbtacks into her cookie dough—all are fair game in Rant, Chuck Palahniuk's eighth novel. Critics agreed that Rant is vintage Palahniuk, a grim thriller ride filled with his signature black humor, withering social commentary, and stomach-churning details. Some grumbled, however, that the ideas in Rant have been recycled from previous novels, particularly Fight Club. They were also disappointed with the novel's lack of depth, distracting structure (a succession of hundreds of brief eyewitness testimonies), and underlying glorification of violence. The truth is that Palahniuk is an acquired taste. Readers either love him or leave him alone, and will judge Rant accordingly.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (May 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307275833
• ISBN-13: 978-0307275837
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (175 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #22,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

100 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ravin' About Rant, May 3, 2007

By	Mark Eremite "This Is A Display Model Only" (Seoul, South Korea) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)

This review is from: Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey (Hardcover)

I've heard it said that there are no new ideas left in the world. The proliferation of movie remakes, regurgitated pop music, and Danielle Steele novels certainly add to this argument. Even in "Rant," Palahniuk's latest novel, you won't see anything that hasn't already been covered by Sartre, Camus, or The Terminator. The thing about Palahniuk (and other brilliant writers like David Mitchell, Craig Clevenger, and Jonathan Lethem) is that while the message may not be all that new, the manner in which it is told is nothing short of stunning.

If you're paying close enough attention, Palahniuk gives away almost the entire story in the first four pages, and he drops plenty of hints along the way for those who still haven't caught on. "Rant" is about, alternately, an underground cult of car crashers, a rabies epidemic, the true essence of religion, and a guy named Buster Casey who is addicted to spider bites. Like his other novels, Palahniuk employs an encyclopedic knowledge of the macabre. His spare, punching prose ties together a medley of ideas and facts until what you're left with is a dizzying collage that is so kaleidoscopic, it'll probably take you three reads just to get half of what he's saying.

And he says a lot, in spite of the low page count. Some of "Rant," in fact, might feel rewarmed to the hardcore Palahniuk fan. A character named Echo Lawrence makes her money by exploiting the same weaknesses manipulated by Choke's Victor Mancini. Buster's physical immolations recall Shannon McFarland's reality-enhancing disfigurement from Invisible Monsters. And the whole idea of Party Crashing (an underground cult of Nighttimers who get their kicks by intentionally hunting down and wrecking into each other) is an obvious off-shoot of Fight Club's nihilistic pugilism (an observation that is actually made by Palahniuk himself, three-quarters through the book).

While those past books were great in their own ways (although "Choke" was a bit more mainstream than usual), they were also all pretty single-minded of purpose. In "Rant," Palahniuk's blistering pen stabs into several themes -- population control, theistic iconography, segregation, and (of course) life as a diversion from reality, the theft of existence by a society that is happier with blunted and denuded entertainments than with the raw, sometimes poisonous, bite of true, fully aware experience. Most Eastern philosophies are all about achieving true consciousness through an elevation of the mind; Palahniuk wants the same thing, but his methods of transcendence involve far more noise, chaos, and pain.

If it sounds confusing, it is, but the real brilliance (and -- believe it or not -- beauty) of "Rant" is how all of these themes dissolve into one another. There is no clutter here, in spite of the density of the words. The fact that the book is arranged in the form of an oral biography -- told exclusively through snippets of interviews and recorded information -- only adds to the story's web-like framework, highlights each dark, glistening strand.

"Rant" is a lot of things. It is part Strange Days, part Perfume, and part Cronenberg's Crash. It is half a condemnation of a spirit-deadening world, and half a celebration of it. It's morbid, grotesque, unsettling, evocative, and sometimes just plain hilarious.

It's Palahniuk. What more can I say?

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking postmodern experiment in storytelling, May 31, 2007

By	Jason Fisher (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey (Hardcover)

Chuck is back! I can happily and unreservedly recommend "Rant" -- to fans of Palahniuk, that is.

After "Haunted", which had many interesting moments, but which otherwise failed to really come together for me, "Rant" is a satisfying, interesting, challenging read. The narrative structure is definitely different, taking the form of transcripts from oral interviews about a character who's no longer on the stage to represent himself. As a result, what you get is a tangled projection, at times incomplete and often contradictory, of that central character, as seen through the eyes of the people who knew him. And by the way, this narrative technique subtly echoes the neural transcripts described *within* the story.

As the story progresses (NO SPOILERS), it gradually undertakes a systematic deconstruction and reconstruction of the character of Buster Casey, which continues to evolve in unexpected ways throughout. The nice thing about this process is that it makes you keep returning (in your mind) to previous points in the narrative, realizing they didn't mean quite what you thought at the time.

There's also the unique metaphor of "boosting peaks", and once you've read the book, you'll see how that metaphor applies to the perceptual process of reading Rant's story through the senses of people *other* than Rant himself. There's also the metaphor of the car salesman -- in which Wallace Boyer is essentially a representative of the author, Chuck Palahniuk, himself. Like Boyer, Palahniuk carefully, and skillfully, directs readers through a series of "control questions", "embedded commands", and "pacing", taking them exactly and only where he wants them to go.

The novel explores some big, mind-bending ideas, too, all with a vintage Palahniuk backdrop. Surreal touches like the "Sex Tornado", "Animal Fishing", and "Party Crashing" will remind you of other Palahniuk novels, while the voices of the characters in "Rant" are rather different. They remind me of the characters in Mark Richard's "The Ice at the Bottom of the World", which I've also reviewed (and this is meant as a very favorable comparison). Other aspects remind me of the postmodern elements of a Don DeLillo. Also, because of the narrative structure, the novel is *all dialogue*, and no description (except for what you get in dialogue). It's a little bit more like a play than a novel in that way. Very interesting, and usually successful.

An added bonus: Palahniuk manages to put a reference to his own "Fight Club" into the novel, evoking it as a cultural artifact in the world Rant Casey inhabits.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Losing appeal and interest, May 10, 2007

By	Ian David Mcgowan "Ian" (Colorado) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey (Hardcover)

Whatever your favorite title by this author may be, I doubt any of you will champion this new submission by Mr. Palahniuk as your favorite.

In it there's a reiteration of a few thoughts touched upon in his books `Stranger Than Fiction' and `Haunted,' intermingled with what appears to be a strong influence by J.G. Ballard's apocalyptic fetishes ( The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard ) written in the style of Capote.

This may be a personal problem, but I find that his writing technique doesn't much lend itself to long-term memory. Be it his interspersing of the narrative in small bits in every chapter, it's difficult for me, even a few days after finishing one of his novels to recall the plot flow.
Which is a shame, because I can RECall laughing out loud at points, but stumble for words when trying to relay it to someone else.

What's worrisome to me in this book is its consistent references to `Fight Club.' I can't put my finger quite on it, but referencing a pop culture phenomenon that you yourself created while simultaneously trying to create another seems a bit `hack-ish' - for lack of a better word.
He goes so far as to spend nearly 3 chapters outlining the rules of this new car-rendition of `fight club,' in which obvious care and consideration was put towards the safety of his readers whom I expect he hopes will mimic said game, as we have his others.

But something sad happens when you obediently follow an author through the course of their career (I have all of his first editions signed.) It dawns on you; that perhaps to begin with they had wonderful things to say and you were glad to hear them, but you see a very strong equation to their story telling.
With Palahniuk it's simply this:

1. Anti-hero is at odds with environment.
2. Anti-hero then participates in seemingly masochistic acts (sometimes nudged along by a guru that is somehow blood related) to achieve an enlightenment fitting to environment.

He does try something slightly different in this book, towards the end, which I won't mention details - I don't like getting into plot - he deals with some scientific theories through these characters telling the story. It seems a little last minute, usually he leaves the gurus wisdom up for interpretation, but here he attempts to explain, and really does a poor job. I really don't know if philosophical and scientific explanations will ever be his strong point.

Of course its entertaining, and well written, and funny, but there's not much to walk away with here.