Snuff
by Chuck Palahniuk
This
book is: flabbergasting.
Other elements: sex. STDs. Porn. Revulsion. Incest. Dandruff. Suicide.
Read it: if you have absolutely no threshold for depravity.
Overall
rating: 4/10
I
really don’t know what to say about this one. I read Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
a while ago and I thought that book was pretty raunchy. This book is that book’s
unwashed older cousin who bought it its first hit of ecstasy.
I
don’t consider myself to be someone who is easily shocked by sexual subject
matter. I ran a sex education program in college. I’ve answered some really
weird questions from creative 18-year-olds and I believe I answered them rather
calmly (and accurately, I hope).
This
book made me want to take a shower. Not a cold shower, as in to cool me off because
I was turned on, but a cleansing shower, perhaps with exfoliating soap, because my brain felt icky after reading
it. This book is…viscous. It’s sticky.
Why
a 4/10 and not lower? Because the writing is excellent. If the descriptions weren’t so vivid
and the characters so creative and complex, this book would just be unremarkable
smut. Instead, it’s luridly repellent and shockingly revolting. It takes
serious skill to write something that inspires this much of a recoil response.
This book also included a lot of trivia about celebrities who suffered either severe discomfort, bodily harm, or death for the sake of their fame. Macabre, but really interesting. I don't know if it was all true, but a few of the facts were ones I'd heard elsewhere before. The sprinkling of factual tidbits throughout a novel is classic Palahniuk and it's a tendency of his that I always enjoy.
If
this book has any other redeeming qualities, I’m not sure what they are. It
tells an upsetting story in an uncomfortable, disgusting, and off-putting way. But – as always with Chuck
Palahniuk
– the writing is superb.
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