Hey, mate!
Come here.
Wanna talk about Fight Club?
The best reviewer on this side of the Mississippi River
In pursuit of good books
Will review everything he can get his hands on
Literature Sheriff
The first rule of Fight Club says not to talk about Fight Club
and the second rule of Fight Club says not to talk about Fight Club.
The hero of today's episode is
Chuck Palahniuk.
He is not my favorite author,
I don't like many of his books.
But he's definitely the author who has the strongest influence on me.
Actually, it is thanks to him that I wrote my Master's thesis,
he is a very nice person,
thanks to him I have also started to lead writing workshops
and so on and so forth.
I would like to talk about the books
that he's not really known for,
since you may know Palahniuk first and foremost
as the author who wrote Fight Club.
Let's start with the fact that his last name
can be pronounced in various ways.
I have already heard PAH-LAH-NYOOK, PAW-LA-NIK
and many, many other versions.
But according to what I once learned,
here's a fun fact for you, because why not,
the Palahniuk family originates from Ukraine,
his grandfather's name was Nick,
his grandmother's name was Paula,
and when they emigrated to the United States,
an officer chose a new last name for them
that was a combination of the names of the grandparents -
PAUL-AH-NIK
Fun facts, a new Sheriff's column
Based on Fight Club, David Fincher has directed a movie of the same name,
translated to Polish as Podziemny Krąg,
where shirtless Brad Pitt makes a deal with Edward Norton
who, I think, wears a shirt
but doesn't wear his pants at some point.
The movie is better than the book but that's it.
Firts of all, apart from his works, I admire his phenomenon
that did develop from that one freaking book that he's known for,
but I really encourage you to search his name on YouTube and
watch any meeting with the author.
If you have a possibility to go to a meeting with Chuck Palahniuk, definitely go!
There are baloons, rubber chickens, plush tigers, games
and in general everything possible.
I admire him for trying to create something different every time,
both in teaching - publishing essays on writing
and in writing books - you can see it here.
Every one of the books is a little different narrative.
Some are written as entries straight from hell using Twitter,
some are a journalist's report about magic and the Book of Satan,
and some other ones are comic books, coloring books for adults
and other different grafical liasons of literature with something else.
Similarly, Palhniuk started to create comic books and coloring books
because he had enough fans who stole his books from libraries and book shops
for which he, after all, encouraged them himself.
A great manual that he recorded is "How to Prevent Stock Shrinkage".
So maybe let's start from the fact that
in Poland, on the Polish market, Chuck Palahniuk's books are mainly published by "Niebeska Studnia" publishing house.
"Niebieska Studnia" is my dream publishing house, and if you are watching this,
I beg you to finally reply to some of my publishing offers.
If it is finally suitable, I will continue to harrow you, unfortunately.
It's a publishing house that sometimes stays silent for a long time
and allows Survivor, which was actually Palahniuk's debut,
to cost 100-250 złotych on Allegro
and then suddenly says that they are going to reprint it
so all the wanna-be businessmen can cry because they won't sell their old Survivor copies anymore.
It's always a joy for me when a new Palahniuk's book gets published
because "Niebieska Studnia" makes sure that the the cover designs,
which are among the most interesting ones and vary a lot,
are created by a person called Paweł Jońca.
And I would like to introduce you to at least a part of Chuck's works that one can find in Poland.
I will talk about my most favorite and least favorite books.
So let's start with the favorite one. It's Lullaby.
Carl Streator, a journalist, works on a series of articles about sudden infant death syndrome.
He looks into the incidents scenes and examines the circumstances of the tragedies.
I will only read this.
It's a story about magic, spirits, wonders,
it's a road trip novel,
it's a detective riddle
and much, much more.
The main thing I have learned from this book is
that people are quiet-ophobics
and also that one can deal with one's problems in a really interesting way.
I highly recommend it.
If you are fond of detective stories, try this "detective story"
that is a rather alternative road trip novel and story about spirits.
In general, when it comes to Palahniuk's works,
in Poland it is classified as "transboundary fiction"
or trans... transboundary...[transgressive fiction]
A very interesting book by Chuck,
especially concerning the cover design,
is Make Something Up, which is a collection of short stories.
Novels are important of course, but for me Palahniuk is first of all
the author of short stories.
Always when he goes on a tour to promote a new book,
he prepares those short stories in a professional way,
tests them there,
this is an essential part of his workshops.
Writing the stories and reading them to the public,
he knows which moments he should change, which ones provoke laughter
and which ones made the audience pass out.
The latter also happened, which demonstrates his incredible creativity.
With this, I refer to a once existing web-page sadistic.pl,
where one can find a non-oficial translation of his short story called Guts.
I'm warning you against reading it while eating your breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert or anything else.
Make Something Up is actually a collection of stories.
I was really, really looking forward to it and to finally translated couple of stories
that I heard Palahniuk recite,
and, unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed with this book.
It seems to me that the problem of the book is that
its translation, so it's actually no surprise, was made by three translators,
female translators to be precise,
and something didn't work out.
Maybe it's simply a collection that shows not only Chuck's best stories but also those less known.
If you want to know my favorite short story, it's Romance
that you can also find on YouTube, Chuck recites it himself,
or another short story - Audrey.
And somewhere among it all there are other two books -
Invisible Monsters, available in the US in the Remix version,
where the reader is told to go to a certain page,
and Palahniuk's debut, Survivor.
All his works can be described as
having a hero who can't really find himself in life,
with some weird things happening,
who has some weird phobias, habits...
Here I don't have some of his books
because I haven't collected them yet,
for example the well-known Choke
about a person who stuffs himself with food in restaurants
and in this way finds people who save his life
and only at such moments feels satisfaction although he is sexually addicted.
Palahniuk's story about how he came up with this collection is connected to a highway trip.
When he was driving after his grandmother's funeral
and realized that his beloved grandmather was no longer alive,
the author stopped on that highway, somewhere on the side,
lied down in the light of headlamps at a safe distance
and hoped for somebody to stop by and give him a hug asking if everything is fine.
Damned, which in Polish can easily be confused with Haunted,
is a book that I found in a chain store.
It is comprised of Twitter posts from hell.
A young girl, Madison, had a marijuana overdose
and writes to Satan because she thinks she shouldn't end up in hell but in heaven.
It's a trilogy, the latest classic novel by Chuck Palahniuk
that I also recommend.
After it, began the period of coloring books, different experiments
that eventually resulted in this -
the sequel of his most known book,
a comic book called Fight Club 2
and Fight Club 3 that should be released in the US soon.
But as I said before,
we won't talk about Fight Club.
Talked: Maciej Tuora
Screenplay writer and director: Maciej Tuora
Starring: Ivan Davydenko
Editing: Joanna Majdanik
 
Animation: Natalia Bałabasz, Joanna Majdanik
Subtitles: Tetiana Hutsalenko
But we won't talk about Fight Club because it's pointless.
Have you gone mad? Pointless!
You will talk about Fight Club, do you understand?
You will! [evil laughter]
