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Pygmy

2.95 of 5 stars 2.95 · rating details · 12,344 ratings · 1,286 reviews

The Manchurian Candidate meets South Park—Chuck Palahniuk’s finest novel since the generation-defining Fight Club.

“Begins here first account of operative me, agent number 67 on arrival Midwestern American airport greater _____ area. Flight _____. Date _____. Priority mission top success to complete. Code name: Operation Havoc.”

Thus speaks Pygmy, one of a handful of young a...more

Hardcover, 241 pages

Published May 5th 2009 by Doubleday (first published 2009)

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Oct 28, 2011 Jacob rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008-2009, palahniukyukyuk

May 2009

Begins here account of reader me, Agent Jacob, located rural area _____, date _____. For official record, here review novel "Pygmy," tenth fictional account written master of mediocrity Chuck Palahniuk, borrowed community literature repository of city _____.

Pygmy novel written strange style, uneducated broken English like dumb child. Much time reading, but eventual comprehension. Still not like. Other authors try, much mocking critics. However Chuck much genius, many hipsters want fellat...more May 2009

Begins here account of reader me, Agent Jacob, located rural area _____, date _____. For official record, here review novel "Pygmy," tenth fictional account written master of mediocrity Chuck Palahniuk, borrowed community literature repository of city _____.

Pygmy novel written strange style, uneducated broken English like dumb child. Much time reading, but eventual comprehension. Still not like. Other authors try, much mocking critics. However Chuck much genius, many hipsters want fellate, so this voice narrative much celebrated.

Reader me...oh, fuck it, I can’t go on like this. There’s no way I’m writing an entire review in the same stupid gimmicky voice Chucky P. uses in his latest crapfest. I suppose I have to give the man credit for maintaining this charade for 241 fucking pages, coming up with new and exciting and mostly tired ways to poke fun at American institutions, but that’s all the credit he gets. Ooh, his narrator speaks in hideously broken English, what a novelty. It reminds me of Rant, in a way: the only way Chuck can keep recycling his favorite nihilist-outsider-rebel-type-infiltrates-and-subverts-system storyline and not get called out on it is to change his style: on one hand, we have a jumbled and distracting oral biography, on the other, a jumbled and distracting game of let’s-mock-the-foreigner.

It doesn’t help that our English-challenged narrator, an undercover terrorist agent shipped to America in the guise of a foreign exchange student, is supposed to be a super genius, the best of the best, having memorized the periodic table and other things by the time he was four (we know this because he lists the elements, in good ol’ Chuck fashion, periodically--ha!--throughout the book), yet he somehow can’t grasp the workings of a second language. Better reviewers have already commented on this, but the way I see it, this is just Chuck trying and failing to make astute and ironic observations about America by giving everything a funny description: Church is a religion propaganda distribution outlet, classes are structured compulsory education sessions, Wal-Mart is a retail product distribution facility, etc. etc. The jokes feel old before they even shuffle off the page, but luckily Chuck manages to fill in the rest of the book with even more wit and insight: Americans are fat and stupid, ha-ha! Teenaged girls are promiscuous! Flowers resemble genitalia, giggity-giggity. And there are many exciting and fascinating names for breasts--almost as many, say, as there are fun porn movie titles and slang terms for masturbation, eh, Chuck? And now for a quote from Hitler! How droll.

There really isn’t anything else to say about the book: without the narrative style, which starts to feel tired and forced after the tenth page, this isn’t anything new: Chuck took an idea with potential--a novel about America told from the observations of someone sent to destroy it--but watered it down with weak jokes about vibrators, shallow and faceless (but quirky!) characters, a violent male-on-male rape (in the second chapter, probably a personal gross-out record for Chucky Boy) and plenty of other bits of name-brand Pahlaniukshock!™, and mixed it with one of his weakest endings ever. Had this been written with his usual Fight Club/Survivor/Diary/Snuff narrative voice, no one would give a shit. At least, it wouldn’t feel so pretentious.

EDIT: Apologies for those first two paragraphs. This guy did it better.
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Jan 13, 2010 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: humor

I got so caught up at reading the mangled English that I forgot I was reading a Chuck Palahniuk book, and I had not properly mentally braced myself when the first horrible thing happens in Chapter 2. After getting that shock, it was easier to remember who I was dealing with.

This has got everything you'd expect from a Palahniuk novel. Dark humor, graphic violence, and a bunch of disturbing characters with an outlandish plot and outrageous twists.

This story of a spy trained since childhood by an...more

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Feb 19, 2009 Imogen rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I'm giving this two stars because it's better than Snuff, but only because it's better than Snuff. Like, in hope that ol' Chuck's on an upswing?

Okay so. Did you see that M Night Shyamalan movie The Village? If you're like me, five minutes into that movie you were like, 'clearly these puritanical folks are modern-day back-to-olden-times people! Otherwise why would a director like Mr Shyamalan, who normally pays so much attention to details and specifics, have them all talking like people in the...more I'm giving this two stars because it's better than Snuff, but only because it's better than Snuff. Like, in hope that ol' Chuck's on an upswing?

Okay so. Did you see that M Night Shyamalan movie The Village? If you're like me, five minutes into that movie you were like, 'clearly these puritanical folks are modern-day back-to-olden-times people! Otherwise why would a director like Mr Shyamalan, who normally pays so much attention to details and specifics, have them all talking like people in the oughties?' And then in the end you felt very smart for having such brilliant insights when you were proved right.

My point is not that I am a brilliant, insightful genius. My point is that, if you are going to have people talk a specific, idiosyncratic way, there had better be a goddam reason for it, y'know? The whole hook of this book is, oh hey, this is fragmented English because English isn't the narrator's first language! Which is a legitimate conceit, except that when the narrator is someone who's mastered the periodic table of elements by the time he's four, there had better be a goddam reason that he can barely grasp another language's syntax. And also, while we're at it, if the book is told in the form of reports back to his home country, why the fuck is he reporting in this language he sucks at? It just doesn't hold up.

Oh, wait, no it holds up in the context of xenophobia!

Which is complicated, right, because here is what the book is about: America is full of jerks (a thesis I'd agree with) and other countries don't always like it (a thesis I'd agree with) and sometimes people from other countries do something about it via terrorism (true). This is all fine fodder for a novel, for sure. Let's even make it science fiction, and instead of having the terrorist be from a real country America has declared war on, let's have him be from a made-up, futuristic coalition of countries- that might cut down on the potential for real-world political insight or commentary, but hey, it's fiction, Chuck can do what he wants. Plus they were made-up countries in Brave New World, weren't they? Oceania was, anyway. And Brave New World worked.

That is a good idea for a book! So Chuck, why did you have to waste it on jokes about vibrators and how foreigners can't speak English right? Oh, because you're Chuck Palahniuk and you pander to an audience of manly, bro-ey duders (and me, I guess) who want titillation, not insight. Who want you to play with but ultimately reinforce their prejudices and snappy judgments.

Of course this is old news to everyone except me. Chuck Palahniuk's reputation is: famous dunderhead, churning out stupid bullshit. I think it's more complicated than that, though! Dude has a giant brain, comes up with good ideas- brutal criticism of America from an oppressed outsider's perspective!- he just always then completely blows them with jokes about that murderous vibrator, or fucking your sister or something. (Whereas when he just lets his brain goes and gets less, like, sensationalistic- see Rant or even Invisible Monsters, although I guess Invisible Monsters was pretty ridiculous- he can be pretty amazing.) When you strip away the vaguely xenophobic conceit, Pygmy is just a bunch of goddam predictably outrageous Chuck Palahniuk hijinx: "Oh, Pygmy thought that he could bake the cake in half the time if he turned the heat twice as high! Oh, Pygmy ate all the chocolates!" Whatever.

It's a shame. I want better from you, Chuck! At this point, I almost wish you hadn't written Rant, because Rant was absolutely brilliant and is one of my favorite books and if I'd never read it I certainly wouldn't keep reading this shit. (less)

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Jul 01, 2009 Misha rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, novel

Questing again after the elusive interview.

I'm struggling with the voice a bit. I imagine I'll hit a point where it will click into place and flow a little more smoothly in my head, but right now I'm struggling.

I may have hit a wall with this book relatively early. There was a scene I found disturbing and repulsive, and now I'm in the hands of a narrator who makes my skin crawl. I'll continue, because clearly Palahniuk wants to challenge me, and I don't like to back down from a challenge. But I...more Questing again after the elusive interview.

I'm struggling with the voice a bit. I imagine I'll hit a point where it will click into place and flow a little more smoothly in my head, but right now I'm struggling.

I may have hit a wall with this book relatively early. There was a scene I found disturbing and repulsive, and now I'm in the hands of a narrator who makes my skin crawl. I'll continue, because clearly Palahniuk wants to challenge me, and I don't like to back down from a challenge. But I shall say a heartfelt "Ew!"

Pretending the operatives are extraterrestrials rather than foreign-born terrorists is helping me swallow some of the narrative a little better.

But then Dispatch Fifth just pissed me off. I'm starting to wonder if this book isn't all just a big joke on the sycophantic fanboys (and grrls) who praise Palahniuk's every bowel movement as pure genius, like he said, "Let me throw in every depraved thing I can think of and watch them lap it up. Fucking losers." Well I'm not lapping it up, Palahniuk. In fact, I think it's kind of crap and I'd much rather be reading one of your earlier works instead -- you know, from back when you were still a writer and a storyteller and didn't have your head shoved up your own ass.

Alas, I suspect I'll continue because there are glimmers of something here, and it's early yet, and I'm hopeful I may yet uncover something golden.

5.12.09 The plot unfolds. I think this must be the most incompetent group of revolutionaries ever. Even worse than the ones in Che, Part Two. So, they're infiltrating American culture with no knowledge of said culture? Again I return to the hypothesis that they must be aliens rather than foreign nationals, because that's the only way the plot makes any friggin' sense.

6.7.09 Done! That three-star rating is really more like 3.5. There were parts that infuriated me, parts that grossed me the fuck out, parts that made me laugh (the vibrator attacking the science fair), but the ending left me saying, "Eh." Good message -- prejudice and hatred is based on lies, and if we get to know someone from a group we don't understand, then they start becoming people instead of the Other. But the execution was flawed. The ending was rushed and lacked the emotional punch it should have had, perhaps because the pidgin was a barrier to ever engaging with the book on an emotional level. I like books that make me feel something. This one didn't do that (except for some early revulsion), although it was entertaining enough. I'm just left thinking, "Eh. Could've been better."(less)

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Jan 28, 2011 M rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: the uncharacteristically intelligent who does not have sticks up their a**es

Pygmy is focused on the experiences of Agent Number 67, a 13-year old secret agent from an unnamed totalitarian state. Agent Number 67 along with 11 other young men and women take a journey to America disguised as foreign exchange students with the ultimate goal of executing a terrorist attack named Operation Havoc upon the American society.

When I was watching Angelina Jolie's movie, SALT, I couldn't help but think of this vintage Palahniuk novel. It left me wondering if the people who wrote Sal...more Pygmy is focused on the experiences of Agent Number 67, a 13-year old secret agent from an unnamed totalitarian state. Agent Number 67 along with 11 other young men and women take a journey to America disguised as foreign exchange students with the ultimate goal of executing a terrorist attack named Operation Havoc upon the American society.

When I was watching Angelina Jolie's movie, SALT, I couldn't help but think of this vintage Palahniuk novel. It left me wondering if the people who wrote Salt's screenplay have used this novel as a pattern. Although Pygmy and the movie's stories have great disparities, you can not deny that there are obvious common grounds as well.

At first, I was a bit disappointed when I read the first few lines from the book. It was written in "Broken English" or as other readers call it "Pygmy English". I browsed through the other pages only to have a confirmation that the whole book was indeed written in the same manner... I thought to myself, "What was Palahniuk thinking?!"...with that and my insatiable curiosity, I pushed to give it a try... a few hours later, I was half way through it.
Every word was intoxicating! There is a common misconception that if a person can not communicate well in English, he is as dumb as a cardboard. But in Pygmy, this way of thinking is greatly challenged and was proven wrong countless of times.

Chuck chose the right writing style for Pygmy. It gives the readers a genuine feel of the narrator's point of view. Not to mention that Agent Number 67 is such an innocently witty and funny character. The novel gives the point of view of the "other guys"... the "bad guys" branded by the society. Because of Agent Number 67's musings, you learn to sympathize with him and his group. The readers will also see how very different sets of people could have so much in common.
(just read the book and find out for yourself. I don't want to spoil anyone with my ranting ;p)

Chuck Palahniuk berated the ridiculous lifestyle most people have through the eyes of this new comer. There is a subtle juxtaposition that speaks so much about the differences between the totalitarian culture where the Agents grew up in and the lifestyle practiced by the majority. Through the eyes of Agent Number 67, Chuck once again attacked consumerism, pop culture, racism, the educational system, religion, sexuality, familial living and much MUCH more. It is so refreshing to read all of it.

I think this novel is a wake up call in disguise care of Mr. Palahniuk's genius mind.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Not only because of its "entertainment factor" but mainly because of the messages and moral lessons beyond every "Dispatch". You can actually learn morality from a seemingly dark and flawed character just like the ones in Pygmy better than if you read the generic tales of heroes and heroines.

This book is a challenge! Both intellectually and spiritually!
I recommend it to those who are craving on deviating from the "sometimes annoyingly boring" norms of the literary world.(less)

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May 25, 2009 Jeremy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Let my biases ring clear: I typically love Chuck Palahniuk. No single author has influenced my love of reading and writing more than Chuck has over his career.

"Pygmy", as the book jacket says, is a romance and a comedy (satire would be closer to the truth). It is by far the most obviously humorous of his books (the running joke about Colonel Sanders made me chuckle several times). It's at once a biting send-up of American values (the observations about public education were absolutely priceless...more Let my biases ring clear: I typically love Chuck Palahniuk. No single author has influenced my love of reading and writing more than Chuck has over his career.

"Pygmy", as the book jacket says, is a romance and a comedy (satire would be closer to the truth). It is by far the most obviously humorous of his books (the running joke about Colonel Sanders made me chuckle several times). It's at once a biting send-up of American values (the observations about public education were absolutely priceless) as well as a well-balanced satire of totalitarian socialist states. In the end we find out that Americans are not so much actively evil as just dumb and unaware. It's an interesting conceit to see the world through the eyes of a narrator you initially loathe but then come to understand and even pity. That alone completely reversed my early condemnation of the book as trite, unimaginative drivel. In Chuck's hands this book works and I don't think anyone else could do it so well.

That being said, I saw the ending coming a mile away. But I don't see how I couldn't have.

Pygmy isn't the best thing he's written or the worst. I feel like he made similar points that resonated with me much more in Fight Club and Survivor. And after the early promise of Choke, Lullaby and Diary it seems he's drifted into a strange period (even by Palahniuk standards) and I'm not sure it's totally for the best. For example, I have very little desire to read "Snuff", though I probably will just because it's Chuck.

I guess there's a reason you don't review books based on the first thirty pages. Probably not the book to pick up if you've never read Chuck before. It's difficult to build momentum, given the broken English of the narrator. As usual, Chuck puts in an early shock and, as per my early thoughts on the book (below) it comes off as sort of hackish and attention-seeking. If you give up after thirty pages you'll probably feel about the same as I did at first, but press on and you might be surprised at how much the book redeems itself and its narrator.

These are some initial thoughts on the book: So far this resembles something a talented high school student might turn in for a creative writing assignment simply to freak out the instructor.

More initial thoughts: Less than twenty pages in and there's already been blood, crap and semen as well as an anal rape. The gross-outs are starting to wear thin and even become, gasp, predictable in his hands. It's like he's trying oh so hard to offend me, again like a teenager.

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Jun 12, 2010 Adam McDonald rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Chuck Palahniuk fans and people who enjoy twisted fiction.

CLASSIC Chuck! Hard to read (literally, hard to read in the way it was written), gross, yet making great points about consumerism and how it has infected the American Way. Trust me here, you won't like it at first. It takes at LEAST 20 pages to get into the dialect it's written in (if you've read Trainspotting, you'll understand what I'm talking about) and even after that, there were times I had to re-read the same paragraph a few times to get what was going on.

Chuck presents an anti-hero you re...more

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May 20, 2010 La Petite Américaine added it

Shelves: i-want-my-money-back, sucked

Honestly, what the FUCK?

I wonder how much money Palahniuk made on sales of this piece of shit from fools like me who wanted to give the author one more chance.

Behold, one sentence (just pages after the ass-rape scene in mangled English in the Wal-Mart bathroom): "Here worship shrine, all male neck must bind around with knotted banner, silk banner knotted at windpipe so dangle two long strands down chest to waistband trouser." I get that the main chartacter is supposed to be a Chinese exchange st...more

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Jun 29, 2009 Nicholas Karpuk rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Masochists

"Pygmy" is not a good book. Unlike some of his other works, I'm not even going to praise him for experimentation, because what he did doesn't feel like all that much of a risk.

You will not find a review of this book that does not address the prose. If you haven't already read the book or an excerpt, please do so before continuing this review.... go ahead, I'll wait.......alright, now that we're on the same page on the ridiculous way this is written. It's hard to adapt to because it doesn't feel...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Cina rated it 5 of 5 stars

The first couple of pages where hard to get through for me (literally, the broken english that it is written is hard to follow when you first read it) but once I understood the voice of Pygmy I started to get involved with the book. Pygmy a seemingly normal exchange student, finds himself in normal town USA, where his adventure begins. His adventure however is far from normal and so is he. I found the situations in the book a bit jarring but it went with the flow of the book, it became some kind...more

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Dec 04, 2009 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Cult American author Chuck Palahniuk of Fight Club fame can usually be counted upon for entertaining, eye-opening dissections of the ridiculousness of contemporary American culture, through his deft wielding of satire, hyperbole and gratuitous violence.

Indeed, it wouldn't be a Palahniuk novel if it weren't bristling with vulgarities, crassness, physical torture and sexual mayhem, and in that sense fans won't be disappointed with his 10th novel.

Pygmy has scenes of carnage, violations of the body...more

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Jul 03, 2011 Sammah rated it 1 of 5 stars

I just started this book yesterday, and I can already tell that I'm going to despise it. The broken English is absolutely horrible. I read for pleasure, not to spend ten minutes a page trying to figure out what the hell is being said and trying to follow along.

Further review to come once I've finished it. Providing that actually /do/ finish it.

(Update)

I could not finish this book, and I do NOT just put books down. It annoyed me so badly that I closed it and returned it to the library before it a...more

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Jan 26, 2012 Mnava rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"In realtà è una commedia, romanica per giunta"

Così esordisce lo scrittore sulla copertina del libro non senza una vaga ironia, e non ha tutti i torti. Dopo averlo abbandonato per un pò di tempo, questo Pigmeo è stato un felice ritorno ad uno degli autori da me preferiti. Chuck Palahniuk torna qui in grande spolvero, presentando come sempre una storia al di fuori di ogni ordinaria amministrazione. Con una grandissima vena ironica ci presenta l'America attraverso gli occhi di un ragazzino stranie...more

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May 01, 2013 Jen rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: omg-so-bad, audio-version, did-not-finish

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I listened to the audio version of this book.

I've heard great things about Chuck Palahniuk and I've recently started listening to audiobooks on the commute to and from work. I'm willing to give him another chance on another book, someday, in the future, perhaps far in the future, but for now I'm just going to back slowly away from Pygmy and never speak of it again after submitting this review.

Even with the non-conventional and "challenging" (as I've heard it called time and time again) writing s...more

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Apr 27, 2013 littlemiao rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

As someone who has enjoyed other books by the same author, I was disappointed in this one. First of all, the writing gave me a headache. When I paged through it and realized it would be written in the same garbled lack of style, I forced myself to continue only because I am not willing to let a book get the better of me. I entertained the thought that the book would prove itself worth the trouble, but it was not, except perhaps for devoted fans of Palahniuk. The best I can say about the book is...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Andy rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is the fourth or fifth Palahniuk book I've read and while made it through this novel, I didn't love it.

I found the story very hard to read at first simply due to syntax and style, but grew accustomed to it as it stays consistent throughout. At times the book made me laugh, other times I was disgusted...so it that sense, it's exactly like every Palahniuk novel.

The novel is a pretty brutal satire of American culture, some of which is warranted, some of which I thought missed the mark. Satire...more

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Jan 28, 2013 Chloe rated it 1 of 5 stars

I feel like Chuck Palahniuk is more for the young and rebellious. That edgy read that tears away and perverts the mundane of suburban life and the American dream. I get it, but I am a bit over it.

Reading a few Chuck Palahniuks are enjoyable until the message and delivery get a bit repetitive. At times it seems like he is shocking just for the sake to shock and to shove down what amounts to be the same "fuck the system" message.

I liked Fight Club, I liked Survivor, Choke was okay, Lullaby was lik...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Dave marked it as to-read

Shelves: calibre, fiction

EDITORIAL REVIEW: ***The Manchurian Candidate* meets *South Park*—Chuck Palahniuk’s finest novel since the generation-defining *Fight Club*.***“Begins here first account of operative me, agent number 67 on arrival Midwestern American airport greater _____ area. Flight _____. Date _____. Priority mission top success to complete. Code name: Operation Havoc.”*Thus speaks Pygmy, one of a handful of young adults from a totalitarian state sent to the United States, disguised as exchange students, to l...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 31, 2012 Dave Christofer rated it 2 of 5 stars

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

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Dec 30, 2012 Sarah rated it 1 of 5 stars

I've always been a huge fan of Palahniuk. I never got around to reading Fight Club (enjoyed the movie!), but devoured and loved Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Choke, Lullaby, Diary, and Haunted. I'm still working my way through his later titles.

Pygmy is pretty gritty and hardcore. It's narrated in first person by an unnamed "Agent number 67," a young man whose mission is to blend in as an exchange student in America, while carrying out a major act of terrorism. Seasoned Palahniuk readers should r...more

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Nov 22, 2012 Ned Rifle rated it 1 of 5 stars

It has been many years since I read a Chuck Palahniuk novel. My memory of the three that I once read is hazy and my ideas of any one are likely my opinions of the others, seeing as they not only explore the same terrain but do it using the same techniques (barely remember anything other than the obligatory listing of facts, the most facile use of research possible? Perhaps it wasn't research and he simply had many useful cleaning tips which he thought it would be cruel not to share with the worl...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Shana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Last Saturday was spent luxuriating by the pool and devouring Pygmy, by Chuck Palahniuk. Having never read or seen Fight Club, I wasn’t sure of what to expect but I was hooked immediately, as I imagine everyone else who reads this will be too. It takes a few pages to get into the flow of the awkward wording, but then it becomes a game.

The premise of this book is that Pygmy is from an America-hating nation who is posing as an exchange student with other operatives from his home while planning a m...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Courtney rated it 3 of 5 stars

Okay. I just need to start off by saying AUGH THE LANGUAGE IN THIS BOOK. AAAAAAAUGH.

There. It's out of my system.

There are a trillion other reviewers who have expressed an extreme dislike for the way this book was written (and how it doesn't make any sense at all that a genius like Pygmy couldn't master English), so I'll just ditto what they've said.
~~Though a part of me wonders if maybe that was the point. If the narrative was so garbled because it was an expression of Pygmy's inner conflict and~~...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Kriti rated it 1 of 5 stars

I tried really hard to like this book, but I could not bring myself to give more than a half smile every now and then. I have to comment on the prose. It makes the reading incredibly difficult. Usually, when the writing is strange (A Clockwork Orange) it’s consistent and one gets used to it after a while. However, with Pygmy I felt that fluid reading of the book was hindered by the writing and I was struggling to understand passages. I often had to read parts over again just to understand what w...more

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Apr 16, 2012 Alice rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, humor, literary, political

I read Pygmy on audio. Unless you're really used to keeping up with audio books, I would recommend you don't do that. My husband and I took very different experiences from this book, because I'm used to keeping up with spoken word stories, where he had to intensely concentrate to follow the narrative. The style in which it's written doesn't lend itself to an inattentive, background-noise approach.

The book is written as if a non-native English speaker with a heavy philosophical background is writ...more I read Pygmy on audio. Unless you're really used to keeping up with audio books, I would recommend you don't do that. My husband and I took very different experiences from this book, because I'm used to keeping up with spoken word stories, where he had to intensely concentrate to follow the narrative. The style in which it's written doesn't lend itself to an inattentive, background-noise approach.

The book is written as if a non-native English speaker with a heavy philosophical background is writing reports to his higher-ups, which is precisely what Pygmy is supposed to be. On that point, this is tremendously well-written. The tone and language is consistent throughout. However, that does mean that one has to translate some of the concepts either by context, or by remembering what the narrator was talking about the last time the subject came up. If you lose the thread, you may find yourself having to back up a few paragraphs to figure out what happened. And some of it isn't explicitly revealed.

The character of Pygmy (or "Operative Me," as he refers to himself) is deliberately obfuscated. His real name is never given. His home country, city of origin, and cultural and ethnic background are intentionally left vague. Every clue which points to one country or another has another to contradict it. This saves the author having to plant the book in a certain place and time, from finger-pointing at a particular culture, and from having to get it exactly right. I didn't see it as laziness on the author's part, though. It was a deliberate tactic to call attention to the biting satire of American culture, instead, and it works.

It wouldn't be Chuck Palahniuk without some disturbing bits of prose, and this is no exception. It didn't drive me away, like a certain short story that I blame for never having read any of Palahniuk's novels before, but it was deeply discomfiting. There's a male-on-male rape scene early on in the book that is remarkable for its ability to portray the act as one of dominance, with no titillation. I can't say that about every book that involves rape, so kudos to the world's most disturbing writer. A pet dog is consumed within the text, and not because it's Pygmy's culture to cook dogs. An eye is nearly spooned out of its socket. And there's a "smart" vibrator that is purported to lower one's gas mileage, in one of the funnier bits of disturbia.

I greatly enjoyed the satire in this book, and I found it entertaining. I don't think it's for everyone, though; a dark sense of humor is definitely a requirement before you think about picking this one up. Also, be aware that the audio book may be hard to follow, and written text may go more slowly than you're accustomed to, as you have to translate and adjust to this narrator's patter.

But, if you like dark humor and satire, if you've read and liked any of Palahniuk's other books, if you're looking for something different and a little disturbing, Pygmy is an excellent choice.(less)

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Feb 05, 2012 Timothy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Pygmy provides a fascinating approach towards writing that is rare and shocking in its magnitude, dynamic in its eclecticism and sometimes horrifying in its implications. Before looking at the positives though, I think it's best if I talked about the negatives. The style that Pygmy is written in is non-traditional and, while bold, can sometimes be grating, and oftentimes presents a challenge for accessibility. When the narrative in Pygmy fails, it fails horribly, and can swing your opinion of th...more

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Sep 29, 2011 Mandy rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: couldn-t-finish, reviewed

I once heard someone say, "Only read Pygmy if you have a lot of patience," but I really think they gave the book too much justice. As one of my favorite authors, Chuck Palahniuk has consistently let me down with his new publications and Pygmy was the worst of the worst.

Told from the perspective of a supposed foreign exchange student who actually plans to commit massive acts of terrorism, the entire book is written in broken English with attempts made to sound like a spy. The idea itself is ridi...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Opiated rated it 2 of 5 stars

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

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Jul 28, 2011 Rob Dewitte added it

Pleasantly surprised, especially in light of Snuff, which felt more like a long, deleted chapter of Haunted than a book in itself. Where that was recycled, Pygmy is mostly original--though it's hard to ignore the nod given by "Operation Havoc" to "Project Mayhem." In a way that's the same as the book here. The reader gets the idea that what Chuck did was write a short story, and then go back and rewrite it in broken English. It sounds painful, and at times it is, but it's also an effective way t...more

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May 27, 2011 Robyn rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed, i-love-this-author-but-wtf, hard-going-in-places, tricky-prose

I never thought that when I was considering "Worst books I have ever read", something by Chuck Palahniuk would be on the list, but here we are; One Star.

I'm not even sure I know where to start with this. Listen, I've read books with messed up prose before; Illuminatus and A Clockwork Orange are easily in my top five favorite books of all time. But this is largely because I managed to fall into the rhythm of those books, and after the first few baffling chapters, was able to read them with fluid...more I never thought that when I was considering "Worst books I have ever read", something by Chuck Palahniuk would be on the list, but here we are; One Star.

I'm not even sure I know where to start with this. Listen, I've read books with messed up prose before; Illuminatus and A Clockwork Orange are easily in my top five favorite books of all time. But this is largely because I managed to fall into the rhythm of those books, and after the first few baffling chapters, was able to read them with fluidity. Heck, I was thinking in Nadsat for like, a week after reading ACO.

That sort of flow just never happened here. The entire time I read it I was acutely aware that I was reading a book, and had to stop every few sentences to try to mentally translate what the narrator was saying. Palahniuk is trying for broken english, (I think?) but this borders on unreadable gibberish in places. Other works which make such whimsical use of the language have a purpose and logic behind them but I could never quite figure out what was being conveyed with this tricky writing. The narrator is obviously intelligent, and understands english well enough to hold his own pretty well in a spelling bee, so the idea that he just doesn't speak the language seems off. If it's simply a by-product of the super regimented lifestyle the narrator was brought up in... Well that doesn't fit either.

You see early on the narrator is supposed to be this super proficient spy, but how did his teachers just overlook the entire idea of making him somewhat able to speak the language of the country he's infiltrating? I can understand wanting to play the fish out of water angle for the kid, but seriously how are we supposed to believe that this agency is smart enough to co-ordinate the kind of plan they have in place and completely overlook any and all cultural training?

Sometimes when Palahniuk goes through such great lengths to exaggerate something, it's to a good effect, but this just didn't make any sense. Was there supposed to be some symbolic reason behind all this muddle? I didn't see one, and so I'm firmly saying the execution was sloppily done.

Aside from the prose, there really isn't anything here to hold me like his other works have. There wasn't a question in this book that pulled me through, making me desperate to get to the end. It was like this "Shocking thing, Shocking thing, Some stuff about capitalism, Shocking thing, broadly drawn side characters, predictable twist, the end."

C'mon, Chuck. Jeez man, get it together.

(less)

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About Chuck Palahniuk

Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American Transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist of Ukrainian ancestry born in Pasco, Washington. The press release for his book, Rant, states he is now living in Vancouver, Washington. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher.

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“Real smarts begin when you quit quoting other people……..” — 119 people liked it

“For official record, if become bankrupt old retail distribution centers-labeled supermega, so-enlarged foodstuff market- later reincarnate to become worship shrine. First sell food-stuff, next then same structure sell battered furnitures, next now born as gymnasium club, next broker flea markets, only at final end of life...sell religions.” — 4 people liked it

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