Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk
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Book Reviews of Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey
Book Review: Ravin' About Rant
Summary: 5 Stars
I've heard it said that there are no new ideas left in the world. The proliferation of movie remakes, regurgitated pop music, and Danielle Steele novels certainly add to this argument. Even in "Rant," Palahniuk's latest novel, you won't see anything that hasn't already been covered by Sartre, Camus, or The Terminator. The thing about Palahniuk (and other brilliant writers like David Mitchell, Craig Clevenger, and Jonathan Lethem) is that while the message may not be all that new, the manner in which it is told is nothing short of stunning.
If you're paying close enough attention, Palahniuk gives away almost the entire story in the first four pages, and he drops plenty of hints along the way for those who still haven't caught on. "Rant" is about, alternately, an underground cult of car crashers, a rabies epidemic, the true essence of religion, and a guy named Buster Casey who is addicted to spider bites. Like his other novels, Palahniuk employs an encyclopedic knowledge of the macabre. His spare, punching prose ties together a medley of ideas and facts until what you're left with is a dizzying collage that is so kaleidoscopic, it'll probably take you three reads just to get half of what he's saying.
And he says a lot, in spite of the low page count. Some of "Rant," in fact, might feel rewarmed to the hardcore Palahniuk fan. A character named Echo Lawrence makes her money by exploiting the same weaknesses manipulated by Choke's Victor Mancini. Buster's physical immolations recall Shannon McFarland's reality-enhancing disfigurement from Invisible Monsters. And the whole idea of Party Crashing (an underground cult of Nighttimers who get their kicks by intentionally hunting down and wrecking into each other) is an obvious off-shoot of Fight Club's nihilistic pugilism (an observation that is actually made by Palahniuk himself, three-quarters through the book).
While those past books were great in their own ways (although "Choke" was a bit more mainstream than usual), they were also all pretty single-minded of purpose. In "Rant," Palahniuk's blistering pen stabs into several themes -- population control, theistic iconography, segregation, and (of course) life as a diversion from reality, the theft of existence by a society that is happier with blunted and denuded entertainments than with the raw, sometimes poisonous, bite of true, fully aware experience. Most Eastern philosophies are all about achieving true consciousness through an elevation of the mind; Palahniuk wants the same thing, but his methods of transcendence involve far more noise, chaos, and pain.
If it sounds confusing, it is, but the real brilliance (and -- believe it or not -- beauty) of "Rant" is how all of these themes dissolve into one another. There is no clutter here, in spite of the density of the words. The fact that the book is arranged in the form of an oral biography -- told exclusively through snippets of interviews and recorded information -- only adds to the story's web-like framework, highlights each dark, glistening strand.
"Rant" is a lot of things. It is part Strange Days, part Perfume, and part Cronenberg's Crash. It is half a condemnation of a spirit-deadening world, and half a celebration of it. It's morbid, grotesque, unsettling, evocative, and sometimes just plain hilarious.
It's Palahniuk. What more can I say?
Book Review: Warning: You must be at least "this tall" and "this twisted" to stomach RANT.
Summary: 5 Stars
RANT: An Oral Bigraphy of Buster Casey is another wild Chuck Palahniuk E-ticket ride. Warning: You must be at least "this tall" and "this twisted" to stomach it.
Buster "RANT" Casey can be best described as RABID--an adjective that means:
1. Irrationally extreme in opinion or practice
2. Furious, raging or violently intense
3. Affected with or pertaining to rabies
4. Mad--as in "crazy"
Synonyms of the word RABID include:
Berserk, bitten, corybantic, crazed, deranged, extreme, fanatical, fever-pitched, frantic, freaky, frenetic, furious, insane, mad, maniacal, obsessed, overboard, poisoned, radical, raging, sick, twisted, ultraist, violent, virulent and wild. Palahniuk delivers all this and more in his long-awaited novel "RANT." Not only is Rant Casey bitten, corybantic and violent... the entire story--and how it's told--is twisted, freaky and fever-pitched from start to finish.
Palahniuk is known for writing outside-box-box, not just content but also literary style. In "HAUNTED" he tells 23 unique short stories by carefully threading them into the framework of a single larger story--23 strangers attening a writer's workshop. Palahniuk wrote "RANT" as an oral biography. The entire novel is a carefully arranged rotational chronology of short takes on Rant's life, from birth to death, as told by members of Rant's family, friends, radio DJ's, medical experts, law enforcement, priests, and the dozens of people that have never met him but swear on their life that they intimately know him. Rant's no hero, but Palahniuk twists him into some sort of an iconoclast.
The interview-like format reads a lot like a documentary. And like "CHOKE" and "SURVIVOR," Palahniuk peppers the storyline with medical ramblings. Are they medical facts or just part of Palahniuk's fiction? I'm not sure. I've come to wonder if Palahniuk actually knows what he's talking about or if he's just a master at playing his readers. I'll just assume medical descriptions are factual-which beats constantly putting the book down mid-sentence to look up stuff on Wikipedia.
"RANT" comes close to being one of my favorite Palahniuk books. It's definitely in the top three with "CHOKE" and "INVISIBLE MONSTERS."
Book Review: my lovey has returned.
Summary: 5 Stars
It is so refreshing to hear Chuck's voice again. Like most, I was a little concerned with Haunted and Diary, but he's back, with a vengance.
First of all, about 85% of you need to open your minds. This is not a Nicolas Sparks novel where everything is laid out for you before you even get there. You have to use your own intellegence. Chuck makes you think. If that's too painful, I don't recommend picking up another Chucky P. book because you will only get another headache. And it is nothing like Fight Club, so stop it. It's as if thats the only Chuck concept you understand because it was spelled out in basic Hollywood fashion. Please. Rant is not Tyler Durden. He's nothing close. The only thing they share is their idea of anarchy. Tyler's was very obvious. Rant's is incrediblly subtle. Please.
For those of you who know, don't listen to the rest. Nothing falls apart. Nothing is disappointing. The first few chapters could stand alone as short stories, they are so excellent. And then, in the city, in true Chuck fashion, things become a little more tangled, and a little more subtle at the same time (GENIUS!) Having an open mind towards everything that is happening is key. Really focusing on the discussion of time travel is also key. This isn't a cheesy si fi channel concept. It is logical, and for all we know, entirley possible.
The large cast of characters is necessiary. And they can be as flat as a wall, since they are not important. It is Rant that the reader wants to know about.
Everything connects. Follow the dots and its not hard to catch on. And then like a ton of bricks it will hit you; screaming up from the pages in Chucky's subtle way is a cynical, but beautifully illustrated symbol for our own culture. We are not far off from those in the book. Think.
Chuck is an artist. Amazing.
Book Review: Try to keep up with me on this one.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been a big fan of Chuck Palahniuk's work ever since I read "Fight Club", shortly after the release of the movie, but I almost didn't read "Rant". The idea of a book about a guy with rabies who goes around crashing cars just didn't appeal to me. Yet, just as "Fight Club" is so much more than just a book about a group of guys who like to get into fights, "Rant" is so much more than just a book about a guy who likes to crash cars. Yes, there are many similarities between "Rant" and Palahniuks's other works, in particular "Fight Club": Rant could easily be the second coming of Tyler Durden and once again Palahniuk deals with the theme of living life through first-hand experiences. Yet, this book is Palahniuk's most sophistocated work to date and he brings enough that is new to the table so that the reader is never bored.
"Rant" is essentially a three-act novel: act one tells of the childhood of Rant Casey, the recently deceased protagonist of the novel; act two tells of his adventures in the city; and act three, well that's something else entirely. In act 3, Palahniuk takes what appears to be a relatively simple story and spins it in a way you won't see coming. There are clues along the way, but you won't realize that they're clues until the end. Nothing is superfluous in this book. I suspect that, because of this twist, people will either love this book or hate it. You'll either follow what is going on and love it, or you'll find it unnecessarily complicated. Personally, I thought it was a great book which holds its own well against "Fight Club" and I'm glad that I wasn't put off reading it by my preconceptions of it.
Book Review: This is amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
Like many people, I heard of Chuck Palahniuk because he wrote a book that was later turned into a little movie called "Fight Club." I later got his book for Christmas from my girlfriend, and I was blown away.
Of course, I already knew what would happen, but I still loved the book.
So I read a few more of his Novels, and liked them, but they didn't have the effect Fight Club had on me, where I was talking and thinking about the book long after the last page was read.
Then Rant came out. I saw the book at our local Target (where I worked at the time), and it excited me. I don't know why, but I felt this would be an amazing book. So with my next paycheck, I bought the book, and couldn't put it down.
The book does start out a little slow, but most literature does. At first the book was hard to follow, since it is in the form of a oral biography, but I quickly saw how this was a genies move. Though Buster Casey was (technically) not in the book, his character was larger then life. I started missing him, even though he was a disgusting person.
Most authors will experiment with changing genre in the middle of the book, but Palaniuk does this effortlessly, only changing it. Instead of changing the genre, he just neglects to tell you that it's always been this way. When the books over, you'll wanna read it all over again, because most of what you thought was one thing, ended up being something else.
This is on my list of top books and I read 20-30 books a year.