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Aside form *not* liking Chuck’s writing “style” (and the crime there is I believe he _tries_ to achieve such “style” as opposed to just writing and letting a style happen), I agree with you. Since _Fight Club_ my Palahniuk comment has been “great ideas, horrible, horrible writer”. With...

Or even *vaguely* intellectually stimulating, let alone written for, you know, post-pubescent folks…. I’ve been meaning to offer forth the idea for a potential 2 separate book clubs for some time, so I guess now’s a time as good as any. I have yet to take part in a monthly read due to...

Hmmm, I still have [checking] 89 pages left but I fail to see how this can even be close to a 'redeeming' story. But I'll withhold all other thought until I finish. Although I'm moving slower with it now, as I'm about as interested in Amir (the lead character) as I am in watching paint dry and...

Not right away, but I do go back to enjoyable books from time to time, especially when the newer stuff is depressingly bad. [the Midori relationship didn’t work] In the preface, when he’s much older, he certainly seems to be a detached kind of guy, and there is no mention of a Midori or...

Undoubtedly. No fault in that, we all have certain things that appeal to the individual. And that’s important. I wouldn’t go that far… Hmmm, well, it’s been around 15 years since I flipped through _Perfume_, when it first came out in the US, and I never could finish it. I think I got...

Are we really at such a loss with proper communication, so shoulder-deep in love with talking for talks’ sake that throwing ill-defined labels onto things is proper? And then when called on it it’s deemed as bitchy? Well then, carry on… [Perfume] Not so horrible people –nothing that has...

I’m a bit confused on the term “one hit wonder”. Seemingly taken from the pop market music scene…a “one hit wonder” is generally a band that achieves success and then flounders with their follow-up(s). [I would have to hope and think that colossal shite “bands” like Maroon 5 will be a prime...

Well, sadly, you only have 2 easy options: _Reasons To Live_ (1985) and _Tumble Home_ (1997) both of which define "excellence in writing" If you're lucky you can track down _At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom_ (1990), but copies -even paperbacks- generally go for over a hundred bucks...

Glad to hear you liked her. She simply blows me away... j

Sayeth he who put Palahniuk and Kafka in the same sentence! ;) But I know what you mean, no way can anyone match what Faulkner did, and did on various occasions, I was just citing it as a Prime Example of multi-character views being done. I’d rank his first, _Soldiers’ Pay_ as stronger...

*you're* laughing, you should see the email I just got back from The New Yorker after I sent them that pseudo-pome for consideration! (joking) I guess I'd say who in their right mind _doesn't_ have some trouble with such a word that has been hammered into the ground, amplified over too many...

Yes, no doubt the man was capable of compassion and “love” -I think emotions come in extremes; to feel extreme hate (which I am very capable of) – it’s kind of a form of just being really sad that things aren’t the way they should be, which makes you ‘love’ (not a word I like, hence I keep...

Haunted Spoilers **Haunted Spoilers** I agree, I am under the impression that Chuck has an audience of 15 year olds in mind when he generating his material. I’ll go with that too. I’d put _Choke_ up there too, but the writing came off a bit too sloppy, or ‘stylized’. No longer a young...

He’s certainly someone that comes across as a…unique individual, which is part of his appeal. He fell into the ‘tough guy’ imagine and started living that life. It became cool to act like he wasn’t well read (which he was) and just be the drunken bum. How such an image can still be maintained...

More The Namesake spoilers I never ‘saw it coming’ [the ending], frankly I thought maybe she’d go down the baby-route like we previously mentioned. (I’m glad she didn’t) I’m just guessing that *she* had the idea that that is how the story will end. Some writers know the ending and just...

Hmm, I may have (stupidly) mixed terminology. With Chuck I was moreso talking about his very annoying tendency to break a line mid-sentence, as if he were trying to achieve some kind of poetic metre. But yes, observing not just the story but the way the writer chose to tell it can be...

A new Chuck essay can be found HERE ‘tis about the gawd-awful film with the even more gawd-awful Jack Nicholson, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest”. Pretty good book though…

Continuing on The Namesake [line breaks: time passes] I didn’t mean it as an insult to her, in fact I think it’s a trait more should pick up on. Anyway, I don’t have the book here for a specific example, but I just meant that in the course of a changing paragraph (with a [---] line...

The Namesake - some Spoil-stuff **some spoilers herein** The excellent use of a line break can demarcate mere minutes, days, weeks and even years. And JL uses this often. While I don’t say that the relationships Gogol had weren’t an ok read, they added very, very little to the core of...

Edit in half and it's better Yesterday I finished up _The Namesake_ (2003) by Jhumpa Lahiri. Overall it was…ok. It should have been a short story, most especially since she chose that specific title. The title suggests, as does the beginning of the book, that the name will be the main theme...