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< BACK TO Radar Reviews Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk
SEED OF CHUCKY Palahniuk's latest The bulk of Snuff's threadbare story takes place in a green room where 600 men await their chance to make erotic history by appearing in a world record-setting gang-bang movie: World Whore Three: The Whore to End All Whores. The star is Cassie Wright, an over-the-hill-in-porn-years adult actress whose oeuvre includes Sperms of Endearment, Gropes of Wrath, and Bang the Bum Slowly. If concocting fake adult movie titles and cataloging metaphors for masturbators ("monkey milkers," "jerk jockeys," "ham-whammers") is a new-millennium literary skill, Palahniuk is pornlit's Norman Mailer. Told from the perspectives of three men—Mr. 600, veteran woodsman Branch Bicardi; Mr. 72, a young man bearing a bouquet of flowers for his costar; Mr. 137, a Hollywood actor slumming it—and one young woman, Sheila, the event's postfeminism-ranting, stopwatch-wearing gatekeeper, Snuff pretends to comment satirically on the pornification of America in the 21st century. In Palahniuk's brave new X-rated world, the American Dream is appearing in a gang bang for 60 seconds—forget Warhol's 15 minutes. As Mr. 137 points out in a rare moment of insight, porn "is a job you only take after you abandon all hope." And that's the problem with Snuff. Every character has a perverted secret that keeps the barely-there plot lurching forward, but Palahniuk's book has no heart. The final scene is so overblown and maudlin one can only imagine public readings of it will send scads of Palahniuk fans into another series of likely feigned fainting bouts that the author can tout on his publicity tour. Sex sells, and so do Palahniuk's books, which is why his publisher published what amounts to little more than porn itself, a so-called novel that does little more than snuff out literature with each new page. 
I wish to thank the reviewer for this. It occurs to me that, the reviewer, while reading this crud which is truly only published because the author is either part of an inner connection with the pubishing house of some kind, plus the author must be young and hip, or because for some reason the virus is getting out of hand ... you know, the one that shuts the imagination down and allows shit to parade as art? Yeah, that's the one ... I can't imagine reading something like this beyond the first page, which I actually did, and , well, after I began to doze someone knocked at my door and luckily I was able to answer the door with a straight face. bravo for this review Posted by: Moqui_Takoda on May 21, 2008 11:31 AM the times book review just rightfully trashed it, too. He's cynical and just not that good and also weirdly never writes about homosexuality eventho he's a big mo. Posted by: yoko on June 10, 2008 10:21 AM First up, it's Branch BAcardi. Not sure how Bicardi made it through that spell check. I like this book for mostly one reason. It's scientifically proficient, historically factual and it's dirty as all hell. While it doesnt stand up to his earlier works, it certainly brings him out of the lull that was Diary and well, Rant. It doesn't move like some of his other books, but it's pretty much a story contained within 2 rooms from the perspective of 4 people. I think he explored those rooms and personalities pretty well, at least with the limitations he created for the story itself. It is what it is, and it's only about 200 liberally spaced pages. I don't find that to be a flaw. If you're a fan of Chuck, you will like this. It gets towards his descriptive writing style ala Fight Club. It's really quite funny in a dark and sick way. If you laughed at the movie "Happiness" you'll probably find yourself laughing, at least in the inside so no one thinks you're really sick. I must say I was certainly entertained by this world that is about as foreign to me as the sport of Buzkashi. Especially when sent from the world of Chuck. Posted by: bvllets on June 14, 2008 4:20 AM Advertisement |
 
  
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