Bibliomusings: Snuff--Chris Palahniuk

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Snuff--Chris Palahniuk

Genre: Fiction
Year Published: 2008
Pages: 208
Rating: 3/5

"One dude stood all afternoon at the buffet wearing just his boxers, licking the orange dust off barbecued potato chips."

I have to admit, I felt a little dirty after I read this book. Palahniuk's detailed description of the waiting room where 600 men wait to make history by having sex on camera with an aging porn star is enough to give anyone the willies (no pun intended!). The characters are repulsive and loathsome, and yet somehow sympathetic in how pathetic they are. There is a little bit of a mystery weaving through this book, regarding the porn star's child, given up for adoption two decades or so ago. There is also a little bit of crime thriller, as we begin to suspect that someone is going to die on camera. While guessing at the ending is fun, I doubt anyone could predict what actually happens in the climax (ha ha! No pun intended, again!).

This book is graphic and raunchy, and not for the easily offended or grossed-out. But it is a quick and interesting read, and not quite like anything I've read before.

Book a week #: 25
Date Read: 4/14/09

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Great Quotes

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." (Atticus, To Kill a Mockingbird; Harper Lee)

"But maybe the last part of the symphony was the music she loved the best--glad and like the greatest people in the world running and springing up in a hard, free way. Wonderful music like this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen." (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers)

"Dark of the invisible moon. The nights now only slightly less black. By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp." (The Road; Cormac McCarthy)

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Douglas Adams)

"I ought not to have listened to her," he confided to me one day. "One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should simply look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace. This tale of claws, which disturbed me so much, should only have filled my heart with tenderness and pity."

And he continued his confidences: "The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little strategems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her..." (The Little Prince; Anton de Saint-Exupery)

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. (Betting on the Muse; Charles Bukowski)

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business. (Tom Robbins)

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. (The Prophet; Kahlil Gibran)

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. (C.S. Lewis)

"For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valor. Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless time. And of those who labor and of those who--one word--love." (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers)