Survivor
by Chuck Palahniuk
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recommends it for:
probably just palahniuk fans
i can see something is different about the girl. it's something european. something malnourished. it isn't the daily recommended allowance of food and sunshine that make you beautiful by any north american standard. there's something waxy about how her arms and legs come out of her dress looking raw and white. you could see her living barbed wire. and coming up inside me is the desperate hope that maybe she's dead. this is how i feel watching old movies at home where vampires and zombies...more
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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 he got to...more
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...more
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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 those members who h...more
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 h...more
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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.
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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 one man's rise to ...more
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 ...more
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1 comments
Funny thing happened on the way to the library.... I stumbled across this author as I was browsing online for the book The Haunting of Hill House. Hill House has a waiting list, so naturally I had lots of time on my hands to read the reviews. One of the reviewers of The Haunting of Hill House from right here at Goodreads, listed House of Leaves as a recommend title which piqued my interest, but when that wasn't available, I saw this title and ordered it. (None of these titles shares the same aut...more
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Read in July, 2008
Hello, my name is Monk, and I'm a fan of Chuck Palahniuk.
Survivor is the third book written by this author that I've read. The priors were Fight Club (good, but surprisingly not as good as its movie - a rarity) and Choke (which I liked VERY much).
Survivor ranks a Fight Club response.
The main character never really had a real name, but you may as well call him Tender Branson. Tender grew up in what the media later came to know as the Creesdish Death Cult - a pseudo-Amish Christian cul...more
Survivor is the third book written by this author that I've read. The priors were Fight Club (good, but surprisingly not as good as its movie - a rarity) and Choke (which I liked VERY much).
Survivor ranks a Fight Club response.
The main character never really had a real name, but you may as well call him Tender Branson. Tender grew up in what the media later came to know as the Creesdish Death Cult - a pseudo-Amish Christian cul...more
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Read in May, 2006
recommends it for:
anyone
This is an extremely accurate portrayal of the obsession people have in America of fame. The story itself is about a man who becomes famous for being the last known living member of a cult. But it really depicts more accurately the way people feed off of something new and entertaining and then quickly lose interest when they learn the reality is not as shocking as once believed. The fabrication of elaborate stories that takes place in order to catch everyones interest. The character goes thr...more
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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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Read in May, 2008
So far so good. I kind of wonder if his cleaning tips really work...I also like the backwards-counting chapter/page numbers, and the plot is so far rather interesting. I kind of want to own this, so I can re-read it...oftenly. (Oftenly is totally a word.)
Upon finishing this book, I'm pondering giving it five stars. I really liked Fertility. She was totally jokes. And it was just an overall interesting story (it was...engrossing and unpredictable...I can't think of a good way to say this with...more
Upon finishing this book, I'm pondering giving it five stars. I really liked Fertility. She was totally jokes. And it was just an overall interesting story (it was...engrossing and unpredictable...I can't think of a good way to say this with...more
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Read in October, 2007
This was a random re-read. I wasn't planning on reading it, but I had just finished Invisible Monsters and I just had a craving for more Palahniuk. I read it for the first time nearly three years ago, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how little I remembered. I was still very surprised at certain points, disturbed at others, and happy at the rest. There were definitely a few moments I remembered, but I thought I was remembering them incorrectly and that my memory had skewed them.
Tender ...more
Tender ...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in April, 2008
recommended to DakiniCharissa 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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7 comments
Read in June, 2000
recommends it for:
Chuck Palahniuk lovers
Ok, but seriously - true story . . . I read this on a trans-atlantic flight five years ago, and the chick sitting next to me said, "oh what are you reading?" and when I let her read the back of the book - her face dropped and she said, "you know this takes place in an airplane about to crash right?!" I didn't realize that when I packed it though. hehehe. oops. my bad.
But I continued to read it anyway , and I was just not as impressed as his first two novels (Fight Club a...more
But I continued to read it anyway , and I was just not as impressed as his first two novels (Fight Club a...more
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The problem is, he has no thumbs for English, see, no math for the heart. His books are so mealy in style, their emotional algebra so unreconciled that 10 seconds ago is the only time I've ever had to do research to figure out if I've read somebody's books. Turns out, I have, I now remember, two of them, five years ago or so. There was something about not mixing bleach and ... ammonia. There was something about how that can kill you. There was a really lazy, ankle-deep, exoticized take on a fabr...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone who likes a good read
I'll never eat lobster again. Gag.
That was my initial response, several chapters into the book. It was a fascinating piece from the get-go. I'm really into the way Palahniuk shifts from past- to present-tense with virtual seamlessness, despite the fact that I realized it was part of what I loved about the book when I'd finished it. The author manages to make humorous and biting social commentary on American society at large without robbing the characters of their believability.
First ...more
That was my initial response, several chapters into the book. It was a fascinating piece from the get-go. I'm really into the way Palahniuk shifts from past- to present-tense with virtual seamlessness, despite the fact that I realized it was part of what I loved about the book when I'd finished it. The author manages to make humorous and biting social commentary on American society at large without robbing the characters of their believability.
First ...more
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I've now read everything of Palahniuk's other than Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey. I read Survivor out of sequence because I never saw a copy for sale until recently. I was pleased to read it, because it was significantly better than Haunted, but also saddened because it seemed to confirm my suspicion that Palahniuk's earlier work much fresher and better written.
Told more-or-less forward but counting back down to the opening moment (including reverse page numbering), Survivor is re...more
Told more-or-less forward but counting back down to the opening moment (including reverse page numbering), Survivor is re...more
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This book is just.... omg wtf IDEK. Yes, acronyms clearly sum it up best. IT IS AMAZING. This book captured me from the first page, and not just because I realised the pages (and chapter numbers) count backwards. It is a tragedy from the very beginning, but as any Chuck fan knows, there's no looking up. This novel spirals down from page 288 to 1, dragging you along without mercy.
One thing I love is that Palahniuk's characters always have the strangest insights to life. They're truly unique ...more
One thing I love is that Palahniuk's characters always have the strangest insights to life. They're truly unique ...more
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recommends it for:
the top of the toilet seat
His books are always cause for debate in my mind...i enjoy his writing style, finding it fresh yet easy to follow. further, he has a wealth of trivial knowledge which adds an interesting dimension to his varying story lines. the trouble is that after vorasciously consuming this (and other palahniuk novels) through 3/4ths of it's length, the narrator's voice seems suddenly RUSHED...the tone becomes too tongue-in-cheek, with the stars of the novel making outrageous, out of character statements l...more
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I am always left with a strange feeling after I finish a Palahniuk novel. After putting down "Survivor" last night, I finally identified it: dissatisfaction. I'm always entertained by his books, and find clever witticisms in them, and he has the occasional flash of brilliance even, but he never really does anything or goes anywhere with it. Reading a Palahniuk novel is like riding to the very top of a tall rollercoaster, with all the anticipation implied therein, and t...more
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Read in May, 2007
There just aren't a lot of books like this one on the shelves. The writing is incredible. For me, it was a reminiscent of JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye in some of its style. Its definitely dark & disturbing at times and I could definitely tell it came from the same hands that wrote Fight Club but it also definitely gave me a lot to think about. Th...more
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