Customer Reviews

Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I was fascinated by the level of thinking that went into the movie FIGHT CLUB. It motivated me to read Palahniuk's novel which was the film's basis. The thinking, the cleverness, was there too. And though the novel was extreme, on the verge of being sci-fi or a futurist fable, there was something quite plausible about it as well. The emotional jadedness, the fear of emasculation, the fakery by which the nameless main character lived out his life all seemed quite authentic. I was genuinely intrigued by what Palahniuk had created and made a mental note to read more by this author.

STRANGER THAN FICTION is a collection of articles written by Palahniuk for a variety of magazines. If you're fascinated by the "fight club" phenomenon, you'll find some satisfying glimpses into that story's little sojourn into Hollywoodland and the popular consciousness scattered among these articles. But even more so, STRANGER THAN FICTION offers glimpses into the absurdities, shallowness, and violence that constitute the end-of-the-millennium, life-in-America backdrop for that novel: the world of amateur wrestling ("Where Meat Comes From"), conferences where writers have seven minutes to pitch their stories to agents, publishers, or movie producers ("You Are Here"), a demolition derby in Washington State for combine drivers ("Demolition"), people obsessed with building medieval castles in the late 20th century U.S.A. ("Confessions in Stone"), users of steroids ("Frontiers"), the homoerotic nature of life on a submarine ("The People Can"), and an amateur rocket-maker seeking to win a ten million dollar prize being offered to the first private group to put a rocket into the atmosphere ("Human Error"). My favorite pieces, however, were the longer ones gathered in the "Portraits" section: actress Juliette Lewis ("In Her Own Words"), gay editor and political observer Andrew Sullivan ("Why Isn't He Budging?"), shock-artist Marilyn Manson ("Reading Yourself"), and Michelle Keating, a handler of rescue dogs ("Bodhisattvas"). What you get from Palahniuk consistently is a vision of people coping--one way or another, but coping nonetheless. And in an end-of-the millennium sort of way, this is the closest any of us is likely to get to hope. As Palahniuk says of himself in "Almost California", a self-mocking description of his visit to 20th Century Fox when FIGHT CLUB was in development, "That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. And writing makes you look back. Because you can't control life, at least you can control your version."

From the author whose novels have always focused on people out of the mainstream, "Stranger Than Fiction" is a collection of essays/stories/articles that focus on real-life weirdos and other non-conformists.

- Demolition Derby drivers that crash around in farm combines.
- Amateur wrestlers trying out for the Olympics
- Men who build castles
- Disaster rescue people and their dogs
- etc...

While most of the pieces are very good, there are a couple weak spots, most of which consist of the person just talking and very little writing by Chuck. I am a fan of his writing style and would have liked to see more of that instead of those couple interviews. My guess is that they were just thrown in to fill out the book.

I gave it 5 stars because of those 6-8 pieces that I really liked (worth the book price alone).

If you like this book, check out "Fugitives and Refugees", also by Chuck Palahniuk. It is a collection of pieces and lists about his hometown of Portland, Oregon.

I enjoy Palahniuk's other work, so picked this one up. It didn't disappoint, but it just wasn't that compelling. At its most interesting were the portions of the book where Palahniuk was directly experiencing the events, such as his experimentation with anabolic steroids and the horribly depressing essay on his simple day out in Seattle dressed as a big furry dog. His essays on his self-consciousness and naive attempts to be cool and smooth for his brushes with Hollywood power and stardom as Fight Club took off are fascinating.

Other bits were seemingly endless in their tediousness, like the overlong bits on the Pacific Northwest castle builders, and the numbing play-by-play of the combine demo derby.

From the portraits I learned that Juliette Lewis really is the shallow, ditzy vaccuum tube that I've always gotten the impression that she is. And Marilyn Manson is a vapid, trite little huckster who "reads" the tarot by making every single turn of the card relate to things that he's already done or have already happened.

The book is a quick read, and the chapters move quickly enough that the pain of the bad ones doesn't last that long. But overall it's just not that great, far from a Choke or Invisible Monsters. You can see where Palahniuk's characters and situations come from, and he just out and out admits this, that all he writes is an extrapolation of what he's seen and done, and who he knows. Well, duh.

Bottom line: If you're hard-core Palahniuk, this will work for you. If you liked Fight Club and the others, this won't quite get there for you, as his fiction really is more interesting than the reality offered here. If you're a starving writer looking for insight into how one guy managed to get over that wall and eat regularly, then this is definitely one for you.

Though he refers to himself as an Amy Hempel knockoff, Chuck Palahniuk resides among the best phrase-turners in American pop fiction - if he does nothing else - teasing readers with jabs for rabbit punches and haymakers to come even when the narrative runs from the rails.

Palahniuk's distinct talent for clipped, blunt prose still punctuates "Stranger Than Fiction," an anthology of essays and rants collected from recent magazine assignments, but every other aspect of the book is uneven: It is shabbily assembled, and few pieces are in depth or well-considered enough to be stand-alone gems. A moneymaker for both author and publisher Doubleday but not much more, "Stranger Than Fiction" hardly lives up to its title: Steroids, Marilyn Manson and castles are interesting enough, but not in the realm of Palahniuk's novels. Revealing himself more than ever before, Palahniuk comes off as a guy's guy with a taste for adventure and socializing and multitasking, more content, at least in the non-fiction arena, to hit and run than turn a subject inside-out.

For each segment that creates a full-bodied portrait - Palahniuk's committed, admiring feature on amateur wrestlers - there is the rootless, immature opener, "Testy Festy," a piece on a Montana sex carnival so pornographic it'll run off more potential buyers than it will attract, or the Tim O'Brien wannabe, "The People Can," as Palahniuk catalogs the life of a submarine well enough to frustrate the reader for its brevity. Palahniuk has planned an "on writing" book soon enough; in that case, best to leave out a short paean to Hempel and her minimalist style ("Not Chasing Amy") and expand it to the treatise Palahniuk intends, as evidenced by his Internet workshop. Same for the tribute to Ira Levin's socialite novels, "Sliver," "The Stepford Wives" and "Rosemary's Baby."

The one story for which this book seems made is a portrait of Palahniuk's father, who as a boy watched his father kill his mother than himself, and then in 1999 was murdered at 59 by the ex-husband of his new girlfriend. Palahniuk refers to it in parts of a few separate essays but never makes it a story unto its own (the date of some of these essays become apparent, too, when Palahniuk refers to his father's death as in recent past in one work, and "a few years ago" in another). There is room for three or four "Fight Club" anecdotes, which again should have been poured into one rumination on the entire project. The haphazard morsel approach on serious subjects reads like random toss offs whether Palahniuk intended it or not, while featurettes on Juliette Lewis and Manson are entirely too long and boring - a postscript on the Lewis piece about Palahniuk being kidnapped in a limo is better than both the star-fawning works are combined.

"Stranger Than Fiction" only becomes a must-read for ten pages during "You Are Here," a classic Palahniuk rant on ever-increasing tendency of aspiring writers to think of their own lives in seven-minute screenplays, unable to create the fictional motifs and vehicles necessary for a readable book. Palahniuk makes a compelling, focused argument disciplined right down to the piece's hook line: "Your seven minutes are up."

Better fighting the abstract battle against intellectual apathy than celebrity journalism, Palahniuk hasn't exactly embarrassed himself here. But he shouldn't quit his day job either.

I started reading Chuck Palahniuk's books a few years ago when I read Fight Club and loved it, so Stranger Than Fiction seemed like an interesting read, and for the most part it was. It's nonfiction, and the stories it tells are interesting while giving us a little insight on how Chuck's mind actually works.

What we're given is a compilation of stories and articles Chuck had written for magazines, so for those of us that don't buy into magazines, it's interesting to finally see some of the stuff he's written for them. The downside is that not all of the stories are interesting.

The stories about steriod use, a day as a dog, the submarine, and the psychics are all great reads, ones that I enjoyed a lot. The personal ones were also good, which felt more like excerpts from a novel he may have written than magazine articles, but there are also the boring ones, which unfortunately bring the score down a few notches. I was personally bored by the article about castles. I bought the book to hear more Palahniuk's voice, and some of the articles do deliver, but then there are others that do not have the voice or sounds a little rough around the edges.

All in all, it's good if you have a little time and want to read another Palahniuk book, but don't be expecting another Fight Club.

I think this is Palahniuk's best work since Fight Club. Each story in the collection takes the reader into a fascinating fringe land. From the shocking tour of the world of amateur wrestling ("Where Meat Comes From") to the poignant experiences of a rescue dog trainer ("Bodhisattvas"), the author uses the words of his subjects as well as his own to make darkly honest literary jewels.

Most interesting to me was the story of three Americans building castles in the modern world. They press on despite money-shortages, questioning neighbors, zoning problems, and hostile bankers. What really got me was the contrasting natures, goals, and backgrounds of the three builders. Each so different, yet they share a common but unusual achievement. It's striking that while they live within driving distance of one another, they don't even know of each other's existence.

The only true negative of the book is a puff piece on shock-artist Marilyn Manson. Mostly an interview, the author merely reiterates Manson's shopworn yarn about his life, tragedies, art, yada, yada. This article alone doesn't reach for some deeper truth and comes across as inauthentic.

I recommend you read this book today or, at the very latest, tomorrow.

I am a huge fan of Palahniuk's work. Let's get that out there straight-away. That being said, there isn't all that much here, even for the die-hard Palahniuk fan. It's mostly work recycled from magazines and such, and much of that comes off as filler. Now collections are fine, but this one feels a bit too much: "padded out." There are, however, some great pieces here, some genuine "Palahniuk" moments, unfortunately they are too few. The candor one expects from him, the incisive humor, often seems missing.It reminds me of the MTV Real World intro: "Find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting real..." Here, we find what happens when Palahniuk does the opposite. Chuck, unexpectedly, is a little too polite at times here. Profiling some whacked out celebrities (Juliette Lewis), drunken cowboy combine demolition drivers, reclusive oddities inside their self-built castles... Chuck treats them with kid gloves.

Maybe it's his old journalistic "neutrality" kicking in, but even still, he isn't all that neutral. He paints a picture just enough biased to be less-than-journalistic, but not opinionated enough to really get the reader revved. It's all very factual, all very boring. The mordant, nihilistic, culture-effacing humor is often missing.

When he's talking about himself, his life and his friends, he seems to regain his license to range free. Here we find insights, humor and the sort of satirical commentary of modern life that one would expect from Palahniuk. Unfortunately, as Entertainment Weekly pointed out, it's largely insight from the Fight Club era and seems a bit dated now.

If you're a fan, there is enough you'll like to warrant the purchase price. There is some bio and some old-school Palahniuk riffing that will keep one going till his next fiction release. If you aren't a fan, this isn't the place to start. It's a scattershot amalgam of pieces that have no underlying connection and are more often than not less interesting than the strange fiction Palahniuk usually writes. He always says his novels come out of the stories he hears, unfortunately, those truly "stranger than fictions" did not make it into this collection.

Imagine if *talented* documentary filmmaker Michael Moore set up a tripod in a trailer park and just pressed 'record,' returning at the end of the day to claim the filled tape, you would have the first segment (titled 'People Together') of Chuck Palahniuk's new book, "Stranger Than Fiction," a nonfiction anthology. This first section might have you falling in and out of consciousness, as I was, with the author's description of boondock sex shows and combine demolition derbies, and...zzzzzzzz. Oh, sorry, nodded off for a moment. The second section, 'Portraits', is a series of blandly-written interviews with pseudo-celebrities (Juliette Lewis, Marilyn Manson, and a suck-up to Ira Levin, the only author who would write anything kind about Palahniuk's "Diary"). And the third section, 'Personal'--the most brief and interesting--deals with a handful of real-life experiences that have influenced Palahniuk's work (including the disturbing details of his father's death).

Unfortunately, this autheticity and interest enters far too late to have any chance of redeeming this flat, meandering book, which seems to have no rhyme or reason except to help Mr. Palahniuk pay his bills this month. The stylistic cleverness, sharp satire, and dark humor that punctuated "Fight Club," "Survivor," and "Lullaby" seems like a distant ghost Palahniuk has lost contact with, and it shows. I'm really beginning to wonder if the aforementioned novels were as great as I remember them being, and if I just wasn't swept up in the tidal wave of philosophical brilliance in "Fight Club" that caused me not to question the author's authority. For a while, Palahniuk seemed to be ushering in an era of renewed expectation for modern fiction, but with his increasing yearly output, it's becoming painfully obvious he's having a hard time keeping up. I'd rather wait five years for one well-developed narrative or memoir instead of receiving two substandard pieces of writing in a year. But like Marilyn Manson, Palahniuk's shock value has ceased to be shocking, his style has become predictable, and if he hopes to keep his fan base, he'd better concentrate on expanding his talents outward as opposed to keeping them confined, as he has with "Stranger Than Fiction." Another total letdown, redeemed somewhat by the last section.

When Palahniuk goes on book tours, he often tells a smattering of true-life stories that he heard from his fans, all items that are indeed stranger than fiction. From a man who writes fiction that is often beyond belief, it is interesting to see the true-life tales that pass the Palahniuk strangeness test.

The book starts out with a bang, an opening chapter that provides the reader a voyeuristic field trip into a sex festival. From there, however, Palahniuk doesn't always maintain the momentum. Sometimes it appears as if he's just a bored reporter scribbling down facts, not trying to weave a compelling tale. Several of the stories didn't keep my interest at all, but there is enough good material in here to make the book a worthwhile read.

Palahniuk fans should give it a shot, but don't expect to be blown away.

I had never read Palahniuk and "Fight Club" definitely isn't my thing. Yet I was lured by true anecdotes--who can resist a really strange story? This collection introduced me to a an intriguing man and brilliant writer.

The best thing about this collection is that it takes the reader into odd situations and intimate settings that he/she would probably never experience otherwise. Palahniuk takes us with him as he witnesses odd things such as The Rock Creek Lodge Testicle Festival, hangs out with Marilyn Manson, and reveals his "life as a dog." The book also dives into the personal world of Palahniuk--his past, friendships, thought processes, and life before, during, and after the movie "Fight Club." If you enjoyed the movie or any of other Palahniuk's works, "Stranger Than Fiction" is nearly essential to getting to know the man behind it all. He is apparently a curious person with a keen sociological and psychological insight...and he has a distinct sense of humor!

I recommend this book to every writer...actual or aspiring. A running theme in these stories is the practice of writing. How stories come about, take shape, and draw on other stories. It expresses the connection between writing and life, life and fiction, and how these play off eachother. If you write, you will be enthralled by the introduction to the collection alone...and it only gets better from there.

As others have said in their reviews, this collection does contain a few duds. But it's the many fabulous pieces that make your time more than worthwhile. I learned alot of very interesting things and this book contains stories for varied interests. This book made me gasp, smirk, nearly cry, and laugh out loud. The stories stay with you. I am telling everyone about this book: you owe it to yourself to atleast thumb through it.