Phoenix Unpacked: Part Two – Playing with Time
Note: This essay contains spoilers for the new Kindle Single, 'Phoenix' by Chuck Palahniuk. If you haven't yet read this wonderful story, remedy that right now.
by Chuck Palahniuk
On its most-basic level the story Phoenix is about a week in a family’s life. It begins on a Monday and ends on a Sunday – not unlike the story of Genesis. Or the movie Se7en.
It’s always easier to pace the present moment in a story. Days or actions occur in a sequence that suggests actual time passing. Space breaks allow you, the writer, to imply a jump forward or backward. That’s simple to do.
But how do you keep the past and the future always present in the current moment?
In earlier books I used Tom Spanbauer’s device of reoccurring choruses. Each represents an earlier event in the story, and by distilling those events into a few words the author can revisit the past in a flash. Consider where your mind goes when you read the word “Rosebud” or “Nevermore.” Each word contains an entire story. Like a reoccurring object in a plot, a repeated chorus accrues power each time it’s used, but it also keeps history present for the reader.
I’ve always used choruses to present the past and future, so in Phoenix I wanted to use symbols. At the risk of spoiling the story for anyone who hasn’t read it, here they are:
In Phoenix, the past is ashes, filth and shit. Rachel’s long-dead passion for Ted is represented by the dirty talk that leaks through the motel room wall. Those obscene noises never stop, but she’s gone deaf to them. Ted still hears them, like echoes; actually, he’s so attuned to them that they’re all he hears when she talks. Rachel occasionally hears them, but she tries to hide them by covering the phone. When they catch her by surprise, she’s enraged. She beats at them with her fist and shouts back at them. For her, they’re synonymous with conceiving a child with Ted, an act she deeply regrets. read more »
