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Pygmy

Chuck Palahniuk (Goodreads Author)

2.96 · Rating details · 23,835 Ratings · 1,819 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

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Hardcover, First Edition, 255 pages

Published May 5th 2009 by Doubleday

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Nov 21, 2008 Jacob rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2007-2009

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 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.
...more

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Jul 18, 2011 Lyn rated it liked it

"I am Palahnuik damn it!"

He may be the Vonnegut of our age. Scathing satire with all the subtelty of a sledge hammer. And a fun read, too, though the stream of consciousness pigeon English took some getting used to.

Flying panda kick! BAM POW!

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Aug 26, 2009 Chris rated it did not like it

Begins here paragraph the first of reviewer me, goodreader Chris, upon completion great American subversive novel. ISBN: 978-0-385-52634-0. Title: Pygmy. Author: Esteemed sodomite Chuck Palahniuk. For official record, expose novel as shit of iguanadons.

Sales of novel great, fueled by author prior reputation as popculture satirist. For establish goodreader history, this reviewer previously read Choke, disliked as bite in testicle by rabid wombat nut-chomp, however, is willing to give chance the ...more

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Jun 03, 2009 Kemper rated it really liked it

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 14, 2009 Imogen rated it it was ok

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 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. ...more

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Mar 09, 2018 Sara rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2018

CW: rape, violence, racism, sexism, school shooting

This review is going to have spoilers, so feel free to skip if you don’t like that.

What the literal fuck? I cannot read this for another second. This book is only 256 pages but it felt like eternity. I only have an hour left of the audiobook but I will not subject myself to this any longer. If I could give this zero stars I would.

The story centers around what I assume to be an Asian spy from a communist country. He comes to the US as a foreign CW: rape, violence, racism, sexism, school shooting

This review is going to have spoilers, so feel free to skip if you don’t like that.

What the literal fuck? I cannot read this for another second. This book is only 256 pages but it felt like eternity. I only have an hour left of the audiobook but I will not subject myself to this any longer. If I could give this zero stars I would.

The story centers around what I assume to be an Asian spy from a communist country. He comes to the US as a foreign exchange student and everyone refers to him as Pygmy. His actual country of origin is not revealed, but racism is present in abundance and gives you insight into how Pygmy might appear. The fact that I had to figure out what the character looks like based on racial slurs is abhorrent. The story is told in broken English, which not only makes the story hard to follow, but also adds to the whole racist atmosphere of the novel. Even the name Pygmy seems racist because the literal definition of the word is “a member of certain peoples of very short stature in equatorial Africa and parts of Southeast Asia.” Also, Pygmy is essentially a terrorist, as his main goal is to go to D.C. and set off a bomb. Harmful stereotype, much?

But don’t worry if you thought it couldn't get any worse. This book isn’t just racist, it’s also sexist. One of Pygmy’s other goals is to impregnate an American woman. Pygmy constantly looks observes women as “receptacles for seed” and there is no shortage of slang terms for women’s breasts. All of the men in the novel regard women with little to no respect. The American girls are characterized as being loose and slutty. After Pygmy saves the students from a school shooting, multiple girls come up to him, offering him sex.

There are many scenes where I think Palahniuk’s only intention was to make the reader uncomfortable. There is an anal rape scene of a bully in chapter two and also a scene where the main character removes a vibrator from his host mother’s vagina while she is unconscious. I’ve never read any other of Palahniuk’s books, but I have seen Fight Club, so it doesn’t surprise me that he is into shock value. I just thought such a revered author would have more substance. I am surprised that this book was written in 2009. This book just feels like a bunch of tired racist and sexist cliches.

After the anal rape scene, the bully comes to Pygmy begging him to love him. Apparently, the bully has been hiding his sexuality and Pygmy awakened his inner desire for gay love. (WTF???) Pygmy turns him down and this leads the bully to later bring a gun to the school and shoot his classmates. This school shooting felt like a big joke and, in 2018, it wasn’t very funny.

This just feels like a book written by a gross nihilist who wants to shock you with how cretinous he can be. I know that some authors use dark topics to prove a point, but this just feels like Palahniuk wrote haplessly with the intent of showing us how Edgy™ and Against the Grain™ he is. I understand this book is meant to be satirical, but, I’m sorry, I’m not impressed with a white cis man writing any of this.

If you’ve ever read a Palahniuk book worth your time, do let me know in the comments. I’ve heard good things about some of his other books, but I’m hesitant to pick another one up. ...more

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Oct 27, 2009 Christy Stewart rated it did not like it

Shelves: contemporary, experimental-writing, reviewed

I'll give it another chance as soon as they translate it into English.

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Apr 27, 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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May 11, 2009 Nicholas Karpuk rated it did not like it

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 we're on the same page on the ridiculous way this is written. It's hard to adapt to because it doesn't feel like ...more

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Jan 24, 2011 M rated it it was amazing

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 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. ...more

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Jul 19, 2009 Sara rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction-madness-literaryish

If your reading level and vocabulary aren't excellent, you don't have a good grasp of 40's-80's Communist history, and your tolerance for extreme sexual weirdness isn't pretty high, don't read this book. All of Palahniuk's books are a little... extreme, but this one has reached a whole new level of weird.
As a quick check of the synopsis should tell you, Pygmy is an exchange student from an unnamed Communist country. His story is told in a series of mangled-English dispatches back to his masters. ...more

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Jun 01, 2010 David Barbee rated it it was amazing

I really liked Pygmy. It’s Palahnuik’s brand of demented satire, only this time it’s aimed at traditional American ideologies. Here, a group of youngsters from a far off communist state are sent to America as exchange students. It doesn’t matter what country they’re from, just that their native land is the pinnacle of everything America isn’t. The kids are drones that have been conditioned almost since birth to carry out the will of their hyper-socialist state. Basically, they’re everything righ I really liked Pygmy. It’s Palahnuik’s brand of demented satire, only this time it’s aimed at traditional American ideologies. Here, a group of youngsters from a far off communist state are sent to America as exchange students. It doesn’t matter what country they’re from, just that their native land is the pinnacle of everything America isn’t. The kids are drones that have been conditioned almost since birth to carry out the will of their hyper-socialist state. Basically, they’re everything right-wing America is afraid of.

There’s plenty of humor in pre-pubescent communist killing machines infiltrating Middle America and plotting to destroy it. Scenes of the ultra-left country that Pygmy comes from show the flaws of that system, but so-called “mainstream” America is what’s on stage here. Through Pygmy’s eyes we see everything bad about ourselves. Ultra-consumerism, over-indulgence, religious corruption, greed, corporate culture, social gossip, and dysfunctional family dynamics are all on display. In other words, the traditional American ideal is a sham, and Pygmy provides the perspective to see it.

Iconic American rituals are seen on Pygmy’s journey. We see a school dance, a church baptism, trips to Wal-Mart, and a science fair. There’s even a mock U.N. meeting performed by the students that’s particularly twisted. These scenes along with flashbacks to Pygmy’s homeland show that both right and left-leaning systems are flawed and wrong. One is stern and cruel while the other is hypocritical and corrupt. And when these polar opposite cultures interact, they never seem to fully understand one another. The miscommunication and faux pas are funny, and I thought they served to shed more light on the schism of old politics (and how they’re carried on to this day).

And all that isn’t even taking into consideration Palahnuik’s style in Pygmy. He’s written the entire thing in broken English, the way a boy like Pygmy would say things. Some may find it hard to follow, but I didn’t. Mixed in is the usual wordplay you can expect from Palahnuik. He’s taken careful steps to weave lots of thematic phrases into the language, like references to breasts, martial arts, the periodic table, and quotes from various revolutionaries/madmen from the 20th century. The character of Pygmy always finds interesting ways to talk about his situation and the people around him. That character along with the political imagery made this book very entertaining.
...more

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Jun 12, 2010 Adam McDonald rated it really liked it

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 06, 2009 Misha rated it liked it

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 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." ...more

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Jun 20, 2016 Zuky the BookBum added it

Shelves: dnf

I legit read 50 pages of this and gave up. I'm not wasting my time on this shit. I don't want to have decipher every fucking sentence in the entire fucking book. No.

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Feb 03, 2018 Aldo Meza rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-read

Muuuuy bueno !!! No entiendo por qué las calificaciones tan bajas, está como para hacerse un cómic o una serie, lo he disfrutado mucho.

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May 20, 2009 Jeremy rated it liked it

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 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.

...more

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Jun 11, 2011 Samantha rated it did not like it

Shelves: regular-garbage, seriously-horrible, total-let-down, totally-absurd

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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May 22, 2012 Sentimental Surrealist rated it did not like it

Shelves: college, comedy, contemporary, satire, literature, chuck-palahniuk, sick-and-twisted, quite-some-misanthropy-there, 2009, 2000s

The Vapidity Wars: 1,188 Words and Running

This was originally a long rant about not just Palahniuk but also Bret Easton Ellis, Rick Moody, and Jonathan Franzen, who I feel have problems similar to Palahniuk's, although I'd take Moody and Franzen over Palahniuk and Ellis. I saved the whole rant in Word and plan to work it into a much more elaborate and less Palahniuk-focused essay, because while I really wanted to publish the whole thing here, this review is long enough even without the outside a The Vapidity Wars: 1,188 Words and Running

This was originally a long rant about not just Palahniuk but also Bret Easton Ellis, Rick Moody, and Jonathan Franzen, who I feel have problems similar to Palahniuk's, although I'd take Moody and Franzen over Palahniuk and Ellis. I saved the whole rant in Word and plan to work it into a much more elaborate and less Palahniuk-focused essay, because while I really wanted to publish the whole thing here, this review is long enough even without the outside authors.

The basic idea of this book: young terrorist crashes into America as a mole, discovers American teenagers are disgustingly vapid, does some other shit, a parade happens, dildos, child rape as an object of hilarious uproariousness, childish cynicism, &c., &c., everybody laughs and learns absolutely nothing (butthat'sthepointyouguys) and comes home and concludes that they were just had. Whaaaaaaat a crock of shit. Now get ready for my signature literary analysis weenieism. Try your best not to beat me up and take my lunch money and break my glasses. My glasses look quite modern, I'll have you know.

I guess the slippery thing about Palahniuk is that what he wants to do looks decently high-concept pre-analysis. Palahniuk's whole routine is built around this famous sense of "well sure, my books are vapid, my characters are empty spiteful petty people with an absurd sense of entitlement and no sense of proportion, but that's only because your average American is the EXACT SAME WAY. If my books suck, what you should really be concerned about is the fact that you suck." I mean, surely it's at least a little sophisticated to blast a reader's expectations right back in their face, isn't it? To write in anticipation of receiving a certain reaction, and not just that but to write an argument for the reaction into your text, isn't there some sort of art or whatever in that? I probably would've made that argument two years ago, although I wouldn't have worded it quite that way, but I certainly remember having thoughts along those lines, i.e. "this bit of stupidity is actually brilliant social commentary, wotta genius, etc., etc." And so imagine my excitement when I, in full thrall of what I perceived as Palahniuk's powers, picked up his satire on the War on Terror! No way to lose, right? Erm, not exactly. We can run these circles of "it's vapid because we're vapid" all the livelong day, but all Pygmy does is reveal just how limited Palahniuk's abilities as a novelist really are, because to my way of seeing things, vapidity with an artistic agenda behind it is still fucking vapidity, and Pygmy fails to really say anything we don't already know about this War.

Which means that Palahniuk just plain isn't as smart as he thinks he is. Yes, he's trying to be smart and has a distinctive artistic agenda; what this man does is, in its own weird way, art, or at least closer to "art" than it is "entertainment," but it isn't good art. I can sometimes find the exaggerated grotesqueness of Palahniuk's humor entertaining - I'll admit I still get a few chuckles off of Choke's more absurd sexual gags, because my sense of humor pretty much stopped developing when I hit twelve - and if he was comfortable with being just this dark humorist who just told these fucked-up stories about fucked-up people, I'll admit: a lot of his books would probably sit safely in my three to four star range. BUT, but but but, Palahniuk so frequently references being influenced by writers like DeLillo and Wallace and Hempell, whose work is not only art but fucking good art (I mean, I praise the first two authors to high heaven on a daily basis, so I'll change it up and ask: have you read Hempell? The novella at the heart of Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories is a reminder of why I'm alive) and therefore probably sees himself as an inheritor of their legacy, isn't supposed to be "just" a funny author or "just" a guy whose books you read and have a good laugh at and forget about until the next one comes out, like that Christopher Moore guy who I see all over the place these days. Except we're supposed to see him as an important prophet of the Vapid Age.

This is all a very long-winded and essayistic that way of saying that Chuck Palahniuk isn't saying anything about the War on Terror that an angry teenager couldn't tell you, i.e. yes okay the Islamic terrorists are regularly doing unacceptable things but I mean look at US idiots! I feel this is in a way true, that both sides of the War on Terror debate are wrong, but here's the deal: the specific wrongdoings that Palahniuk points out within this book just ain't that daring and smack to me of intellectual subterfuge. "America really is this morally bankrupt nation because our children are running wild in the street with their sex and their drugs and their loud music, a ha ha ha ha I've got you all beat" just isn't a patch on, for instance, "America really is this morally bankrupt nation because we've engineered and instigated two centuries of economic exploitation." And for all he talks about how this stuff is supposed to suck, look how proud he seems of the orgy scenes Pygmy reports on! Look how much sickening writhing detail he goes into with his report on this sex and drugs-type insanity! Which leads me to believe that the "it sucks because we suck" thing that people put around Palahniuk is a subterfuge in and of itself, that he might to some degree actually see this "deliberately inane" material of his as brilliant and insightful and that the deliberate inanity is an after-the-fact justification tacked on by his more rabid fans which Palahniuk sure isn't doing much to discourage.

But you don't get to do that. That's the bottom line of this review. You don't get to say "well, you think my commentary on the War on Terror is stupid? Look at the War on Terror itself, it's pretty dumb." Because then you yourself get stuck in your own ridiculous labyrinth of vapidity, you yourself end up the butt of your own clever-clever jokes, you yourself look just as vapid as the vapid people and mindsets you've set out to criticize, and maybe other readers will give this guy points because it's ambiguous as to whether or not he chose the vapidity for himself, but I for one do not. Yes, setting out to play both sides of an issue and make it unclear as to where you stand, like Pynchon does with irony and paranoia, is interesting in theory, but I have my limits, and when it comes to the Vapidity Wars, you're either vapid and trying to pretend you're not, or you're no better than the "get-a-load-of-this-guy cam" from Wayne's World, which means you may be pretty smart but you're also spiteful and petty, so either way you're not in a good position. Either way, you lose. ...more

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Aug 07, 2016 David Joseph Mikels rated it did not like it

This book was poop .... That being said it was hard to read the writing style was ridiculous... Chuck will always have a place in my heart for writing fight club but his other works have been disappointments altogether

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May 13, 2009 Mallory rated it really liked it

Finally, I got around to reading and reviewing a recent book. Feels good to be with the times. Though I have to admit that I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the new releases table if I hadn’t been anxiously anticipating this book for the past year. Ol’ Chuck is one of the few authors whose entire bibliography I’ve taken the time to read. He has rarely disappointed me. I was nervous about this novel, because his previous novel Snuff was one of those rare disappointments. Fortunately, Pygmy was m ...more

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May 04, 2009 christa rated it really liked it

Do I dare say that Chuck Palahniuk is back? I mean, not quite "Fight Club" back, or "Choke" back. But at least "Diary" back, and that was the novel that got me to join Team Palahniuk in the first place, so it's a start. Especially after the grueling, repetitious, obsessive-compulsive, list-of-porn-movie-titles disaster that was "Snuff" [which I ranked among the Top 3 worst novels I read in 2008:].

"Pygmy" is fantastic social sattire: Portrait of suburban Americana, through the lens of a foreign Do I dare say that Chuck Palahniuk is back? I mean, not quite "Fight Club" back, or "Choke" back. But at least "Diary" back, and that was the novel that got me to join Team Palahniuk in the first place, so it's a start. Especially after the grueling, repetitious, obsessive-compulsive, list-of-porn-movie-titles disaster that was "Snuff" [which I ranked among the Top 3 worst novels I read in 2008:].

"Pygmy" is fantastic social sattire: Portrait of suburban Americana, through the lens of a foreign exchange student, sent here with a teen-aged posse of other foreign exchange students to perform the opaque "Operation Havoc." Pygmy settles in with a typical American family: chicken-faced mom, Viagra-breath dad, pig dog brother and cat-like sister. They welcome his visit with the gift of a too-large Jesus T'shirt, a promise to fatten him up, and a grand claim:

"We'll make an American out of you, or swear to our Lord almighty God, we're gonna die trying."

A few minutes later, Pygmy is raping the school bully in the "spa" [read: men's bathroom] at Wal-Mart.

The story is told in 36 dispatches that range from the progression of "Operation Havoc" within the scope of, say, church, junior swing choir, high school dances, or just hanging out with cat-sister as she solder's her science fair project [actually, a vibrator that has an alarm and the ability to play music:].

Pygmy goes from maligned freak show, to hometown hero when he kills a school shooter at a Model United Nations event in the school gym. He becomes the first-pick for dodgeball in gym class, and a science fair wizard. And when he is attacked by his fellow operatives, who resent his public profile, the high school girls think the attack is an elaborate collection of new dance moves and make a protective circle around him.

Pygmy occasionally includes, for official record, how he came to be this young terrorist. A process that included getting 100 percent on a test, being told his family was dead, learning American slang, and learning combat techniques such as "flying giant stork death kick." Some of these maneuvers are illustrated on the back of the book by faceless, red terrorists, in a way that is reminiscent of yoga manuals from the mid-1980s.

The most impressive thing is that this story is told in a language that Palahniuk seemingly invented. Stilted, literal, anti-intuitive collections of nouns and verbs and adjectives. These are sometimes confusing, but always worth the effort of decoding. [The price of decoding is that you may find yourself talking to yourself in this language whenever you set the book aside.:]

"For official record, have not yet violated secure entry host sister vagina. More easy this agent able violate secure American national border."

I can't think of another writer who could make this novel work, the consistency of the stilted language alone would be exhausting. But I also can't think of another writer who would try. ...more

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Dec 04, 2009 David rated it did not like it

Shelves: did-not-finish

One of the good things about reading for pleasure (instead of, say, reading for school or because someone has a gun to your head and says “read it or die!”) is that when I don’t like something, I can put it down without finishing it.
Thus ends my experience with the second Chuck Palahniuk book to disappoint me(the last one being Snuff). I’m sure this book is brilliant on some level, but after 2 chapters of this 1st person perspective story told in some kind of broken Pidgin English, about a terro ...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Kriti rated it did not like it

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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Jul 21, 2013 Shovelmonkey1 rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: a-sphincter-says-what, bizarro, read-in-2013

If you came here looking for the next Fight Club then walk away now.

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Dec 30, 2017 Ashley Daviau rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This book was such a huge disappointment for me. I adore Chuck Palahniuk and his wonderfully twisted stories but this one was just not for me. From the very beginning it failed to capture my interest and I really struggled to keep with it until the end.

I think the main reason I struggled with it so much is the way it’s written. It’s done in such a broken English that sometimes I had absolutely no clue what was going on and would have to reread a page multiple times to make sense of it. Not real ...more

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May 27, 2009 Gerund rated it it was ok

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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May 27, 2009 Matt rated it it was ok

It would have been difficult, perhaps impossible, for ol' Chuck to publish a book worse than Snuff, which read like Palahniuk Parody and, honestly, seemed as though the author in question was simply (and as quickly as possible, as it had only been a year since the superb Rant) fulfilling a contract. So, yes, Pygmy is a more satisfying read than Palahniuk's previous outing. But that isn't saying much.

I give Chuck credit for the, uh, unique voice that relates the story: All broken English, euphemi ...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Ned Rifle rated it did not like it

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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Jul 30, 2012 Kim rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: No-one

Shelves: never-going-to-finish, disliked, 2000s, 2009, male-author, conspiracy, twisted-and-disturbing

I had completely forgotten about this book until I found it while packing up all my books yesterday. A couple years ago I was put on to Palahniuk's books and enjoyed Fight Club, Snuff and Choke. Then I heard he had a new book out and thought I'd give it a try.

What a waste of money. The writing style was horrible, I just couldn't get into it at all. I gave up after a few chapters and will not ever pick it up again. It turned me off Palahniuk to the point that I've never read another of his books.

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About Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk

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Written in stolen moments under truck chassis and on park benches to a soundtrack of The Downward Spiral and Pablo Honey, Fight Club came into existence. The adaptation of Fight Club was a flop at the box office, but achieved cult status on DVD. The film’s popularity drove sales of the novel. Chuck put out two novels in 1999, Survivor and Invisible Monsters. Choke, published in 2001, became Chuck’ ...more

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