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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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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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 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 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 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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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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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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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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Read in January, 2007
I've ripped through most of Palahniuk's books and this may be among the top three favorites. It has everything - commentary again on our "Easily made, easily spent" society, a suicide cult, and gauche reflections on our lewd and classless nature. He eschews group think and cuts down our endless "spirituality seeking" secularity. Is this accidental? Who knows, I may be misreading the author's intent. Unfortunately, this gets a three star rating because, as I feel it is th...more
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Read in November, 2005
That weirdo did it again. I just finished reading Chuck Palahniuk's "Survivor" and there's a reason that the "Fight Club" author is making himself a name as one of the most entertaining writers working. "Survivor" is about Tender Branson who is a worker sent into the world to earn money for his cult. He's supposed to kill himself when he hears that the rest of the cult does at their compound...he doesn't. He's placed in a program to keep him alive, he serves ric...more
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Read in February, 2008
O.k., so as (mostly) always, I am extremely late in jumping onto the moving bandwagon, but this is the first palahniuk book that I have read.
I finished it within the space of 24 hours (and that includes working). I loved it. If I had to choose an author that he reminds me of, it would be Douglas Coupland. I know that would be blasphemy to a lot of Palahniuk fans, but that's what came to mind at various points in time.
Overall, the plot moves along quickly with a couple of surprises. T...more
I finished it within the space of 24 hours (and that includes working). I loved it. If I had to choose an author that he reminds me of, it would be Douglas Coupland. I know that would be blasphemy to a lot of Palahniuk fans, but that's what came to mind at various points in time.
Overall, the plot moves along quickly with a couple of surprises. T...more
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recommends it for:
anyone who reads
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Read in August, 2000
My very favorite Palahniuk book, and the one that got me hooked on his writing. Palahniuk tells incredible yet believable stories about very very strange people, and he somehow manages to throw in all these...details! "Survivor" involves a former cult member who's spent his life cleaning for rich people, so the author constantly throws in these random tidbits about how to clean things. Any other author and you'd be impatient for him to get back to the story, but with this you're someho...more
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Read in February, 2008
WOW. Well you know it's going to be an interesting book when it starts out with black box confession on an empty plane (which he hijacked), save the main character, which is about to go down in flames in a few hours. He tells his life story, which is dysfunctional in the worst way- member of a Creedish (fictional) suicide cult...the only surviving member. The pages are numbered backwards, which I thought was pretty interesting...It was a extremely masculine book. Palahniuk reminds me of Vonnegut...more
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Read in April, 2007
Survivor narra la historia de Tender Branson, último superviviente de la llamada "secta suicida del Credo", de su conversión desde un niño creyente a un mesiánico telepredicador.
Survivor es una sátira mordaz y reveladora del precio de la fama y de la locura sobre la que se cimienta el mundo moderno.
Con un lenguaje incisivo, pleno de malicioso humor y con los tonos de fondo de reveladoras y surrealistas imágenes presentadas como es habitual en su literatura, en un ritmo im...more
Survivor es una sátira mordaz y reveladora del precio de la fama y de la locura sobre la que se cimienta el mundo moderno.
Con un lenguaje incisivo, pleno de malicioso humor y con los tonos de fondo de reveladoras y surrealistas imágenes presentadas como es habitual en su literatura, en un ritmo im...more
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.86 (6207 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.81 (103 ratings) number of reviews: 452popular shelves
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"What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized yet."
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