by Chuck Palahniuk
You can find one review of this book by Eliot here.
I have to disagree with Eliot on a few points, though.
For one thing, I greatly enjoy Palahniuk's writing style. I have read Fight Club, Survivor, Invisible Monsters, and now Lullaby and I am still not tired of it. I like how he goes into areas where a good number of people shy away from for one reason or another. I like his satire on our modern culture. I love how he jumps back and forth chronologically in his writing.
I also thought that the book had an extremely interesting premise. The guy finds a poem that can focus a person's thoughts enough to kill someone. It would be a lie to say that I have never wondered what I would do if I had that power. My own experiences with my anger have been enough for me to be terrified at having the ability to kill with my thoughts. Seeing how someone else deals with it, however, made the book quite intriguing in my eyes. And I must say that I found the methods of coping with this deadly ability rather...interesting.
Even with that defense in mind, though, I must admit that the plot is thin. Other than people mysteriously dying and a road trip around the US not much really happens in the book. The reader is not told much information about any of the characters other than that they are mostly power-hungry in some way. I also found the ending rather disappointing.
Despite the thin plot and lack of character development, I enjoyed the novel. Lullaby is definitely not Palahniuk's best work, but it is cleaner than the majority of his books I have read. I'm hoping there is not a connection in that. If there is a connection between lewdness and quality, I may find I like Choke the best of all of Palahniuk's books. I've heard it's rather sexually intensive. I guess I'll find out when I eventually read it. Currently, I have six other books to read before I get to it. At my current rate, however, it probably won't take me too long.
Posted by Randy at April 21, 2004 01:43 AM | TrackBack