Books: Pygmy, by Chuck Palahniuk

Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk


My rating: 1 of 5 stars
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 terrorist sleeper embedded with an American family in some terrorist plot, I’m just getting a headache. Plus I’m troubled with this thought: why did Palahniuk decide to tell the story this way--why would Pygmy be reporting back to his people in broken English and not his own language? I’m sure it’s all part of the satire of American culture and this is so unlike me to crap on something without even getting through it, but it is this stylistic decision that has turned me off from trying to get through the rest of it.
Chuck, Chuck…you’re killing me! Snuff was the first book of yours I ever put down and said “This book sucks.” (I just didn’t like the premise and tried to stick with it but found that I couldn’t--this is what unlikable characters and unlikable situations do for me.) But I didn’t feel the need to pan it. But now it’s two in a row, and I’m starting to worry that either I’m not cool enough to get it, or maybe you’re just not the writer I thought you were. While I’m sure this is clever and amusing and has the elements that made Fight Club and Choke and Survivor so damn good, I am not going to stick around to find out. I am so sorry, you have no idea.

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