Survivant

by Chuck Palahniuk

book data

16,446 ratings, 3.88 average rating, 1,042 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		29%
4		38%
3		25%
2		6%
1		1%

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published

February 14th 2001 by Gallimard (first published 1999)

details

Paperback

characters

Tender Branson, Fertility Hollis, The Agent …more

setting

United States

isbn

2070756270 (isbn13: 9782070756278)

description

Tender Branson est seul à bord d'un avion qui va s'écraser d'une minute à l'autre. La boîte noire de l'appareil sera son dernier confident. Il lui…more

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Aug 20, 2008

Jess rated it:

(review of isbn 009928264X)

Read in September, 2008

I'm going to be honest, I'm starting to become less and less impressed with Palahniuk's work in general-- and it saddens me to admit this. I've read five of his books now (one non-fiction; one too plodding to even finish), and it's becoming too obvious that every character voice is exactly the same. They are all written the same, they all have the same delivery of speech and thought patterns, they are all perfectly one-dimensional. Blank, emotionless, cruel, somewhat hateful. Disenchanted with t...more

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Jun 17, 2008

Cecilia rated it:

(review of isbn 0385498721)

Read in July, 2008

Okay. So I'm a harsh critic. I'm usually VERY stingy with my five-star ratings. But I had a special experience with this book.

I didn't read it. I DEVOURED it. I started reading it yesterday afternoon, and I literally could not go to bed until I had finished it. There are only three other books to date with which I have had this experience:

1. Pride and Prejudice, age 16
2. Everything Is Illuminated, age 20
3. Watchmen, also age 20 (2003 was a very good year!)
...more

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Jan 14, 2008

Matt rated it:

(review of isbn 009928264X)

recommends it for: anyone with a therapist on standby

chuck palahniuk will mess you up. he messed me up. 'fight club' put chuck on the map, but in my opinion, 'survivor' is where he really earned his paycheck.

as others have mentioned, the book starts on page 247 or so and goes backwards to page 1. a simple, but clever gimmick that made me buy the book in the first place. and since the novel's protagonist, if we can call him that, is on a doomed airplane, the page numbering is highly appropriate.

palahniuk expertly traces on...more chuck palahniuk will mess you up. he messed me up. 'fight club' put chuck on the map, but in my opinion, 'survivor' is where he really earned his paycheck.

as others have mentioned, the book starts on page 247 or so and goes backwards to page 1. a simple, but clever gimmick that made me buy the book in the first place. and since the novel's protagonist, if we can call him that, is on a doomed airplane, the page numbering is highly appropriate.

palahniuk expertly traces one man's rise to fame. tender branson is the sole survivor of 'the creedish cult' who decide to stage their own johnstown massacre. consequently he becomes something of a media darling, everyone wanting a piece of the action. palahniuk illustrates just how really susceptible we americans are to clever marketing and the completely ridiculous idea of celebrity. what, exactly, is our fascination with 'celebrities' and hollywood types? i started thinking about the ridiculous number of tv shows dedicated to following celebrities: et, access hollywood, celebrity justice, etc, etc, etc, and not to mention an entire tv channel (E!) devoted to a shoving unrealistic hopes, dreams, and ideals down the throats of the every day, average american who has no hopes of ever achieving 'the hollywood life.' i'm pretty sure hollywood is ruining america.

i think palahniuk's masterstroke, however, is showing us tender branson's 'book of prayer.' it's a sorry commentary on the state of christianity in america. so-called 'christians' who actually try to sell prayers. unreal. (and this from a VERY christian individual) it wouldn't be as funny if it weren't true. he shows our proclivity to bandwagon, to flock to 'the new thing' simply because it's 'the new thing,' regardless of it's actual value or merit.

chuck palahniuk isn't for the faint of heart. like i said, he'll mess you up. this book stayed with me for weeks after reading it. it'll do the same for you. but i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

a biting commentary on contemporary american culture.(less)

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Jun 28, 2008

Kristen rated it:

(review of isbn 0385498721)

bookshelves: eh---books

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Kristen by: Martin, Chris, and a bunch of guys my age.
recommends it for: thrill seekers, those who don't care about facts

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

*******THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW!!!**********

I have been told by SO MANY PEOPLE to read books by Chuck Palahniuk! I do enjoy the twisted irony in writings such as Kurt Vonnegut, and other similar authors, so I came to this book WANTING to LOVE it...and it "fell" flat.

What I disliked in the book was the complete disregard for reality/common sense, when convenient, or necessary for plot. Now, I know it's fiction, but if you are going to write in a realisti...more *******THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW!!!**********

I have been told by SO MANY PEOPLE to read books by Chuck Palahniuk! I do enjoy the twisted irony in writings such as Kurt Vonnegut, and other similar authors, so I came to this book WANTING to LOVE it...and it "fell" flat.

What I disliked in the book was the complete disregard for reality/common sense, when convenient, or necessary for plot. Now, I know it's fiction, but if you are going to write in a realistic style, then you can't just have someone hijack a plane in a book (before he's even ON the plane...as if the security would actually let Tender board the plane...he would have been shot dead on the spot in real life!)and get away with it, or have a formerly devoted religious cult member become a mass murderer, then suddenly lack the balls to shoot his own brother. If Adam was really this embittered killer, he would have been able to blow away Tender with no problem... and Fertility as well. And Fertility...how can she pretend she's a surrogate mother, but really be barron? How would she keep getting clients?? It's nagging questions like this that truly kept me from enjoying the book.

Sure, the shock factor was there, and sometimes it was more than predictable (I'm sorry, but I KNEW that lobster was gonna be alive!!). Survivor was definitely an entertaining read, but it didn't have this lasting affect on me, as it did for many of my friends.

I am an artist/visual person, I can really get into Palahniuk's imagery. That was totally his saving grace in this book. The flowers, the lips and the gun, the porn, the statue of Tender, the telephone...all of these images were really striking and I can see why this book is being used for a movie. It will be as good as Fight Club, I predict. Strong imagery sticks in your subconscious and if this book is lasting for me in any way, it's several scenes that I can see as perfectly as a picture or a film real.

But honestly, I think he's overrated. That's just my opinion. I'm debating whether or not I want to go into another book of his. I feel that I will know what to expect,and find the same characters, slightly altered...with a different name, maybe a hat, but the same critical flaws. At least Kurt Vonnegut had some original concepts in his books!!

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Dec 27, 2008

Heather rated it:

(review of isbn 009928264X)

Read in February, 2009

Palahnuik has a formula to his story-writing, and it's becoming more and more clear that every work becomes less and less impressive upon further examination. Every main character seems plagued by the same sense of nihilism and self-defeat like his Fight club protagonist, as well as the same delivery of speech, and thought patterns.

So. After reading about 3 books in a row with this consistent formula, I was about ready to abandon my faith in him.

But. Then I read this bo...more

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Apr 28, 2008

Denise rated it:

(review of isbn 009928264X)

Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: People who want to read something different.

Strange, intriguing at first, but ended with disappointment. Tender Branson is a veritable oddball, with more against him than the average person. I liked him up until a point in the novel where he ceased to think for himself. After that the book became unbearable, and a struggle to read. What started out creative, interesting, amusing, and with a bunch of mental "oh really"s, ended somehow in dejection. Which is odd, because the ending is quite amusing at parts. It is different ...more

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Feb 26, 2008

G.R. rated it:

(review of isbn 009928264X)

bookshelves: fiction

Read in January, 2000

I really enjoyed Fight Club. I thought it was inventive and clever, well constructed and in it's way very honest.

I knew I was going to finish this book (Survivor), it was easy to read. I read it a few years ago and don't remember much at all about it story wise, but I do recall feeling like people who liked Fight Club are supposed to fall in line with this, and it didn't feel like he had really put the effort in.

Apparently people really liked this book, I know many peopl...more

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Feb 08, 2009

Patrick Gibson rated it:

(review of isbn 0385498721)

bookshelves: contemporary-literature, lasciate-ogne-speranza-voi-ch-intra

Read in February, 2009

recommends it for: dejected angry nihilists

What would you do if you worked as a gardener for a wealthy couple who are mastication-challenged and you’ve landscaped their yard with plastic flowers stolen from a giant mausoleum where you’ve just met a girl, who’s brother you may have killed, and thinks your ugly but can predict horrifying disasters while your therapist slowly obsesses over tile grout, and you are the sole surviving member of a religious cult whose doctrine commands you to commit suicide?

You would hijack a ...more What would you do if you worked as a gardener for a wealthy couple who are mastication-challenged and you’ve landscaped their yard with plastic flowers stolen from a giant mausoleum where you’ve just met a girl, who’s brother you may have killed, and thinks your ugly but can predict horrifying disasters while your therapist slowly obsesses over tile grout, and you are the sole surviving member of a religious cult whose doctrine commands you to commit suicide?

You would hijack a plane (flight 2039), make everyone get off, resume until it runs out of gas and crashes in the middle of Australia (why not?). To break the tedium guaranteed to occur prior to a fiery crash you could dictate your memoir into the flight desk recorder (again, why not?).

Along the way you realize:

“…that people take drugs because it’s the only real personal adventure left to them in their time-constrained, law-and-order, property-lined world. It’s only in drugs or death we’ll see anything new, and death is just too controlling.”

When asked where you might see yourself in five years you could answer: “I see myself dead and in hell. I figured I’d spend my first thousand years in some entry-level position, but after that I want to move into management. Be a real team player. Hell is going to see enormous growth in market share over the next millennium. I want to ride the crest.”

But, if you change your mind “I’d backslide before, I’d backslide again. Practice makes perfect. If you could call it that. I figured, a few more sins would help round out my resume. This is the upside of already being eternally damned. I figured hell could wait.”

Palahniuk skewers just about everything. And then comes up with more. His writing is visceral, sardonic and part gobbledygook at the same time. He is the Tom Robbins of this century but with a much darker sense of the absurd. And a much better command of the obscene. It’s quite wonderful in its own demonic way.

Not for the faint of heart – but then again, his writing is ‘age appropriate.’
(less)

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Nov 19, 2007

Charissa rated it:

(review of isbn 0385498721)

bookshelves: apocalypse, literature

Read in April, 2008

recommended to Charissa by: myself (thanks self!)
recommends it for: lovers of great writing and twisted world views

Damn. That was a good read. I have to say I was a little reluctant in the early stages of the book. He builds the tale so slowly, and you really have no idea who these characters are. But as the layers unfold and you begin to burrow to the heart of the book... I have to say I'm impressed. Mister Palahniuk is all that and a bag of chips. He kind of reminds me of Tom Robbins... but the cynical, perverted version. There are echoes of the themes that run through Fight Club. He has a very sub...more

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Oct 02, 2007

Brooke rated it:

(review of isbn 009928264X)

Read in November, 2005

Scrounged book review from my blog:

I breezed through reading Chuck Palahniuk's "Survivor" in less than a week. This book was a very entertaining read, although not recommended if you are depressed or have suicidal tendencies.

The main character is a "survivor" of the Creedish Church District mass-suicide. A mandate of the Creedish religion is that all church members must immediately commit suicide upon learning that the Deliverance had come. So all tho...more Scrounged book review from my blog:

I breezed through reading Chuck Palahniuk's "Survivor" in less than a week. This book was a very entertaining read, although not recommended if you are depressed or have suicidal tendencies.

The main character is a "survivor" of the Creedish Church District mass-suicide. A mandate of the Creedish religion is that all church members must immediately commit suicide upon learning that the Deliverance had come. So all those members who had been farmed out as labor-missionaries to the "outside world" were also expected to kill themselves as soon as they heard about the mass-suicide. The government gets involved in trying to retain survivors from killing themselves. Anyway, I don't want to give too much away...but the premise is innovative, interesting, and mysterious.

I have read one other Palahniuk book, Diary, and I would say that his writing style was pretty similar in both books. They both revolve a lot around themes of death and mental illness. The tone is sardonic and even biting at times, but it is not satirical in the typical sense. Yes, he provides an critical, witty look at religion and culture, beliefs vs. actions, media and history...but he is subtle in his criticisms and opinions. They seem to flow out of the characters and the story, without being preachy. And yet they are blatantly obvious. For instance, the reference to the crucifixion as good press, that nobody would have known who Jesus was if it hadn't been public and controversial provides food for thought.

The book was also an interesting mix of horribly depressing and blackly humorous. It makes you feel that life is disposable, and yet that thought is immediately resisted by the inherent human compulsion that life is all we have and shouldn't be thrown away on a whim or because somebody tells you that is what God wants you to do. I had a good laugh at the description of the porn landfill ("sensitive materials"), but that was probably the only part I found really funny. The rest was just sometimes exaggerated to the point of being ridicuous, but it did not take away from the impact of the story. Also, they travelled the country in modular houses on the backs of trucks, and I want to do that!!! Riding around in a furnished living room or bedroom...sounds like fun!!(less)

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Jul 16, 2007

Eric rated it:

(review of isbn 0385498721)

Read in February, 2007

recommends it for: the Palanchiuk cult

You know him best as the father of "Fight Club," that fiendishly nihilistic modern tale of materialism and machismo run awry. "Survivor" is a different take on almost the same theme, a fractured look at contemporary living as seen through the twisted prism of a not-too-innocent.

The narrator begins by telling us that he has hijacked a plane and that he will run out of fuel in so many hours. In that time, he will tell us (and the flight recorder) the tale of how h...more You know him best as the father of "Fight Club," that fiendishly nihilistic modern tale of materialism and machismo run awry. "Survivor" is a different take on almost the same theme, a fractured look at contemporary living as seen through the twisted prism of a not-too-innocent.

The narrator begins by telling us that he has hijacked a plane and that he will run out of fuel in so many hours. In that time, he will tell us (and the flight recorder) the tale of how he got to where he is. So then, in retrospect, the narrator relates of having grown up in a religious cult to be a perfect servant to the wealthy people of the outside world, learning everything there is to know about how many folds to place in a napkin and which dinner forks to set out and what products will remove which type of stain. Through bizarre circumstances, his home phone number is repeatedly mixed up with a suicide-prevention hotline. Finally, he gets fed up and tells one tortured man to do himself in.

It is not long before the self-murdered man's sister begins circulating in his world. The narrator soon learns that she is a psychic and has a knack for predicting great disasters. Through plot twists each more fiendish than the last, soon the narrator winds up a pop celebrity, tapping into the woman's precognition powers to become a modern-day Nostradamus. The darker sides of capitalism and celebrity soon rear their ugly heads and a mysterious stranger is tracking him down, perhaps to kill him. To add even more tension, the page numbers count down rather than up, just as the narrator's fuel is running out.

Like "Fight Club" (unread by me), "Survivor" turns on its ideas more so than its plotting. It is a fierce critique of the cult of celebrity, unfettered materialism, and the emptiness of modern living. It is as nihilistic as "Fight Club" in that no one is getting off easy; and there will be no happy endings.

On that note, "Survivor" loses that potential fourth star for the frustrating ending. I demand neither happy nor sad endings, and ambiguous endings can be transcendent and subversive (remember "The Sopranos"?) but "Survivor" just...ends. No apologies from the author and no explanations. I wish he had written just two more pages but I suppose his point is not the story, but the style and the message.

Still...

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Jun 24, 2007

Elsa rated it:

(review of isbn 0385498721)

Siempre que voy en los últimos capítulos de un libro, me pregunto si todas mis expectativas se verán cumplidas. Sin embargo, en el caso de Survivor, mientras más leía y más me llenaba de dudas, mis expectativas iban creciendo y cumpliéndose. Hay varias cosas que Palahniuk pone en cuestión en el libro, como la cosificación del hombre (el culto), la sexualidad como una especie de "liberación" (la frustración también se encuentra en este punto), el destino (el sueño y el asom...more

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Jul 03, 2008

Nicholas rated it:

(review of isbn 0385498721)

bookshelves: favorites

The gimmick of the page number along with the chapter numbers going backwards and counting down to one. The book gave me a weird feeling from the start almost identical to the feeling I got from first watching the film adaptation of Fight Club, also written by Chuck Palahnuik. The story was great where the sole survivor of a Creedish Death Cult becomes a religious leader, which mocks todays culture of botox to eating traits and to celebrities. Its satire is perfectly dealt and the ending is also...more

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Nov 21, 2008

Blake rated it:

(review of isbn 009928264X)

Out of all of the Palahniuk novels, this one is my personal favorite (with Rant coming in a quick second). The main character is the last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult (think Waco, TX if they were Amish...), who, unbenownst to him, is about to become the next big supertelevangelist - sort of. Mixed with sexuality, murder, and that distinctive Palahniuk satirical flair, this book is a page turner. I could not put it down. And if you put it down for a few months, you just want to...more

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Nov 23, 2008

Dennis Burke rated it:

(review of isbn 009928264X)

This is Palahniuk's most compelling book. For fans of the odd contemporary fiction, it's a must have, and a must read annually.

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Feb 01, 2009

*trisha* rated it:

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recommends it for: EVERYONE

AMAZING READ.

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Jan 03, 2009

Boss rated it:

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bookshelves: audio-books

Read in October, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 26, 2008

Pierce rated it:

(review of isbn 009928264X)

I've probably read a lot of Palahniuk down the years. I respect it while sometimes not particularly liking it.

This is the first one I've read since I read some Amy Hempel. You can see her influence all over him. The notion of minimalist writing. No spare adjectives. No unnecessary description.

In an essay on writing he talked about inviting friends over to his house and getting them to discuss everything they know about a topic, and writing down everything they say. You can g...more

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Jan 06, 2010

Stephen rated it:

(review of isbn 009928264X)

Read in January, 2010

Walk into these pages with a sense of humor about modern religion and shitty service jobs and you'll go away happily amused.

The book seems to be telling us that we can't escape our fate. AND IT SPREADS THAT MESSAGE IN A VERY HEAVY-HANDED WAY USING EVERYTHING BUT CAPITAL LETTERS!

The book's main unresolved problem is that Tender Branson, the main character, is raised to be nothing more than a slave, yet he becomes a world-famous religious teacher, TV personality,...more Walk into these pages with a sense of humor about modern religion and shitty service jobs and you'll go away happily amused.

The book seems to be telling us that we can't escape our fate. AND IT SPREADS THAT MESSAGE IN A VERY HEAVY-HANDED WAY USING EVERYTHING BUT CAPITAL LETTERS!

The book's main unresolved problem is that Tender Branson, the main character, is raised to be nothing more than a slave, yet he becomes a world-famous religious teacher, TV personality, and author. Palahniuk lazily neglects to admit that Tender has bested his fate because Tender claims he is trapped in a guilded cage of money with all of the decisions being made for him. Boo-hoo. Sorry. Not buying it. In fact, I'd like me some of that horrible fate!

It seems to me that it's what you do with your money and your fame (or just your time on this earth, for the rest of us) that make the difference between one who thrives and one who merely exists, and Tender definitely chooses not to be one who thrives in our crazy culture. It's all too much for him, and he is depicted as weaker and weaker as the story moves along. The more he finds himself in a situation to be able to change things in our culture, the more he whines and the less sure he is of anything. He is actually depicted as stronger, more content, and more authoritative when he was scrubbing his employer's underwear stains in the early pages of the book than when he is a respected religious figure and celebrity, and this is a very, very strange inversion of the novel format. To claim that this is a journey of discovering one's identity...well, if you're an alzheimer's sufferer, maybe, because this character actually seems to know less and be capable of less by novel's end than he was at the beginning. By actively choosing to not avoid his pre-determined fate of suicide, Tender Branson is just a foil for some strange experiences the author wants to write about.

And Tender has loads of odd experiences (many of which affect thousands of other people), but he continually insists that he is not responsible for the choices he makes, and he would like us to believe that he is therefore not respsonsible for any of the consequences 'HE' brings about (or others bring about through him, if you prefer). 'Victim' might better have been a better title of this book!

An absurdist world like the one presented here, but only slightfully modified so that the author could thoughtfully consider the modern usefulness of fate in a world that clearly believes in personal responsibility, might very well have been an instant classic. Instead, what we have here is just a silly book for snarky yuppies.

Final conflict or resolution? There isn't one. Tender never attempted to fight his fate. He just sat there on the airplane ride of life and let it crashland whenever the fuel ran out. Consequently, this story doesn't really end, it just ceases to be. And that is some mighty weak shit, IMHO.

A much better ending would have been if Tender pulled the airplane out of its death dive and lived. With one simple act Tender could have discovered that even though some shit is literally written in stone according to our occasionally twisted religious leaders, that that same shit is often just plain dead wrong.

The lingering question is whether any absurdist satire can truly be a proper environment for the search for identity (as the author explicitly proclaims the book is in its last pages). It can, but it definitely didn't happen here. The scene where the protagonist sits on a public bathroom toilet between two glory holes while a gun barrel held by his stalker brother 'talks' in the left stall to the survivor's psychic, sexual surrogate girlfriend in the next stall over can only be read as comedy, not as part of a quest for personal growth and self-examination. In The Corrections, there are a few scenes in which the elderly father is having a conversation with a turd that fell down his pantsleg. Those scenes completely worked in that realistic book because the old man was losing his ability to distinguish fact from reality. Tendeer Branson, on the other hand, exists in a land of unreality, and he should have been able to do more than pass through it hoping that someone would take the time to resuce this sad little boy-man

Stylewise, this book is not as good as Haunted, but it wasn't bad either. Told in a strange derivative of 1st person, the protagonist commuicates directly to the reader with both his words and thoughts. It works, partly because Tender has allegedly been telling his life story into an airplane's cockpit microphone for the entire length of the book, but you walk away hoping Palahniuk got this device out of his system and will stick to 3rd person omniscient for the remainder of his career.

Am I being a little rough on Palahniuk? Maybe a little, but only because I expected more after reading Rant. I enjoyed Survivor enough to recommend it. However, I would not read this book again. Take that however you like. (less)

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