chuck’s invisible monsters (ew)
as you read, try to track:
who are the invisible monsters? how is “monstrous” defined? what’s the relationship between the characters and the society they inhabit? what’s the terrain of the society? how is identity at issue in this story? how is appearance deconstructed?
love lidia
May 6, 2008 at 1:39 am
It is a significant novel, however it is completely whimsical. It refers to different concepts of beauty and identity which is remarkable. The events of the story are all connected in a twisted manner. It refers to hatred, mistrust and revenge simoltaneously. In conclusion, it’s a great narration about a woman coming to grips with her strange nature immaculately.
May 6, 2008 at 1:59 am
I’m just going to warn everyone right now that I’m in the mood for stream of consciousness writing, so if you don’t mind my unorganized mind, continue. If not, looks somewhere else, cause I’ve got some things to say.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this is the best book I’ve read all term, not to mention in the past few years. I had a really difficult time putting it down, and instead of being late to work, i managed to get there on time, and spend the first half hour to hour doing nothing but reading. Man, it was good. I have always been a fan of Palahniuk’s, and this was one of two of his entire collection that I haven’t read. On to Rant!
Anyway, i was amazed, and often left laughing hysterically at moments, by this piece. It was so wonderful, how connected everything was in the end, in the middle, in it all. I love his style of writing, and his voice, which has inspired me to keep with my writing. I have already suggested this piece to a friend, but am hesitant to give it to her, for I’m tempted to read it again, immediately!
Although I would love to meet him in person, I don’t have a clue what I would say. ‘Hi, I’m heather, I love your work, blah blah blah….now about Brad Pitt…” No, I’m joking, I don’t even really like Brad Pitt. Anyway what I’m saying is that I am completely obsessed, in a healthy way of course, with this book. I have a feeling, also in a good way, that most of what I will read in the future will not come close to comparing to the way this book connects with me and makes me feel. So thanks for ruining my future relationship with literature. I’m joking. Sort of.
But really, there were moments where my jaw was literally dropped, literally. Do you know how often that happens. Where I am just shaking my head, laughing like, how did I know see this coming! I mean, This could be because i am not usually one to catch on to foreshadowing details, but man, was that even intentional? Look at me, I’m just rambling on and on about something everyone is reading and probably feeling. I can only hope that this book has the same effect on everyone else, and that in the future, a piece of my writing will also effect others in the same way.
All in all, Go Chuck.
Man.
Seriously.
I’m just speechless.
May 6, 2008 at 5:25 am
WOW, is all i have to say. this no book KICKED ASS. To say the least i must add to heathers post and say, this is quite possibly the best book i’ve read this year, even in my entire life. my favorite passage was in the beginning when this was said “Another thing is no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close. Except for all this high drama its a very nice day.” I loved how the bloody burning scene is followed by a, eh its a nice day at least, kind of attitude. the authors uncanny sense of bloody, freaky, almost funny way of beginning the story just roped me in. Im not sure after reading this book if i am beautifully confused. Chuck in a way describes things like i do, maybe thats why i took such a liking to the story, the plot itself left me a bit lost but the writing and language drew me in. I love the way he described things in a more babbling way, don’t ask me why that way of description is so appealing to me but apparently i need to read more babble books. I personally agree with heather GO CHUCK…
The more I think about this brutality, gruesome and strangely dark and disturbing story I really find myself lost in the book. I got a bit sickened during the more, unsettling parts the rape, the blood the murder. over all i feel almost bad for saying i enjoyed reading this, partially because its so disturbing I feel ashamed for wanting to read more and more. although most people I know would never touch the book, I definitely will recommend it, fantastic!
May 6, 2008 at 5:48 am
GO CHUCK indeed. J
This book rocked my socks and felt that it had a sweet ending. After reading this book I did a diagram mapping out how everybody (and their pseudonyms) are related to each other, mainly because I felt that that would be one of the easier ways to sort things. It was a good illustration for just how intertwined everything was in this story.
To address some of the questions (this may will contain spoilers) EVERYBODY is an invisible monster in their own right. The narrator is the most plain example of this, given the fact that she has no lower jaw and covers it up with scarves so that people either see her as a mystery or don’t give her a second glance. Hence, Brandy Alexander gives her said invisibility. Until these two met up the narrator was simply a monster who stole turkey. Brandy Alexander is one, in the same right as the narrator. (Whose name we find out is Shannon.) Brandy Alexander’s sex change was inspired because she couldn’t think of anything that she wanted less, and “I figure, the bigger the mistake looks, the better chance I’ll have to break out and live a real life.” says the Queen Supreme concerning her choice to become a woman.
The book said, “A sexual reassignment surgery is a miracle for some people, but if you don’t want one, it’s the ultimate form of self-mutilation.” And that is what she was counting on.
Although I do believe that even Brandy Alexander admits that Shannon outdid her in the arena of self-destruction.
Both of these siblings felt that to live a real life they needed to destroy themselves in order to have the ability to create themselves.
Something that the narrator said was striking in concern of self-mutilation, “I wanted the everyday assurance of being mutilated. The way a crippled girl can drive her car with the windows open and not care how the wind makes her hair look, that’s the kind of freedom I was after.”
She also said, “If I can’t be beautiful, I want to be invisible.” And that she was addicted to being beautiful and to break said addiction, she needed to go cold turkey (no pun intended).
One thing that was interesting about this book was the way that the narrator was so self aware of just how self-involved she was. Brandy Alexander starts the book by being shot and because there is not a camera involved, she does not get into it. Instead of doing what a normal fiction character would do when Brandy Alexander asked, “Do you love me?” instead of just parroting it back in the form of, “Yes, I love you Brandy, please don’t die!” She looks at it in the form of having now been put into the role of supporting actor with a bit of resentment. Less of the spotlight. I pretty much love this book for even just that alone. Although I love this book in it’s entirety as well.
On this tangent, I could go on for a very long time, but I believe that I will save that for discussion tomorrow.
“So me, I’m here eating smoke just to document this Brandy Alexander moment.”
Identity is at issue in this book because it is so much more fluid than people usually care to think it is, (this can be applied on many different levels.) Even starting with… Oh what was his name at this point in time. Seth! Seth, the Narrator and Brandy Alexander traveling around peddling drugs to club kids, at a moment’s notice their identities could be change depending on what story BA felt like weaving at that particular moment.
Even going deeper than that, Shannon (the narrator) herself says, “Give me anything in this whole fucking world that is exactly what it looks like!” when she finds out that Evie started life as a man. Evie is an irritating, catty bitch. The fact that she could do this and not even start life as a girl is pretty damn impressive. And this realization, the part about Evie’s sex change, not the bitch part. That was me. However, this realization pretty much rocks the narrator in a disorienting way.
All of the characters, even Shannon’s parents have at LEAST two identities throughout the course of this story. There may not be fake names involved in all of them, but there are no static characters here and while this could have been chaotic and confusing in an irritating way, Chuck pulls it off in a way that is intriguing, mind opening and at times shockingly awesome. If there’s one thing that he does well, it’s plot twists that leaves a person’s mind reeling. He does a lot of other things well.
I too couldn’t put this book down once I started it, the story was engaging and AWESOME.
(Geeze… 820 words later…)
May 6, 2008 at 5:52 am
“Invisible monsters” is definitely my favorite Chuck Palahniuk book. I know that that is random, but, well, what can I say. It rocked. I actually thought it had a kind of sweet ending. No, I am not completely crazy; it just occurred to me that all of the characters had their own self-defined happily ever after.
When I was reading this book I had to keep an open highlighter constantly in one hand to highlight all of these really really awesome lines. Like when the main character was explaining why she did not want to get her jaw rebuilt and she said;
“The truth is, being ugly isn’t the thrill you’d think, but it can be an opportunity for something better than I ever imagined.”
Total rock stars. This book is very anti-addiction, and that’s awesome. Addiction sucks. The ways that the characters in this book deal with their various addictions (beauty, etc.) while unconventional are very affective.
This really is a piece about self-discovery and growing as a person. Sort of like when the main character said;
“I’m an invisible monster, and I’m incapable of loving anybody. You don’t know which is worse.”
Then when Brandy Alexander was in the hospital and the main character gave her her life, and the main character said;
“I’m giving you my life to prove to myself I can, I really can love somebody. Even when I’m not getting paid, I can give love and happiness and charm.”
Oh, and Pricilla;
PLATYPUS!!!
May 6, 2008 at 6:30 am
I love to think that you get these right as I send them on your phone.
What great technology we have! I remember way back in the 60’s we had nothing like this……
Okay, so I wasn’t born until the late 80’s but hey…..it still all amazes me.
Anyways, I am not done reading yet. I just have a little bit more to go. I will try and finish during by BIO lecture tomorrow. hehe
I will post again tomorrow afternoon!
Good night!
May 6, 2008 at 7:00 am
I want to sum this book and define monstrous by quoting the last paragraph on page 259, “It’s because we’re so trapped in our culture, in the being of being human on this planet with the brains we have, and the same two arms and two legs everybody has. We’re so trapped that any way we could imagine to escape would be just another part of the trap. Anything we want, we’re trained to want.” This shows who the real monster is. (SOCIETY) It’s unfortunate that our society creates a system of values based upon glamour, looks, money, success, religous morals, sexuality, and material objects. The cover is a great example of the quote from pg 259. It exemplifies how the same person can be seen as beautiful and prominent but also ugly and socialy unnaceptable when life is turned upside down. Both images on the cover are the same peron with the same brains we have, and the same two arms and legs everybody has but one defines beauty and one appears the monster.
The struggle for attention and acceptance thru the means of mischief is an all to common ocurence in our capitalistic society. As Shannon and her brother struggle to control one another and gain acceptance, they both loose sight of who they really are and ultimately disfigure themselves in hopes to come out the victor. This basic game of success is seen all over our society, as greed (greed for acceptance, greed for success, greed just for the rush, greed established as a want by societal values) drives people to be succesful in life they often loose track of their original values and ideals because along the way they are brainwashed to follow certain paths and that there is grave consequences if they don’t. To think that we are all modeled and sculpted after our parents and then programmed by pop culture or raised in specific value systems makes one wonder if the term “individuality” is realy just a farse. Even if one has there own thoughts, or even “Look” they still have to play within certain guidelines set by the society that they live in in order to function. If not, they are often outcasted like a lame duckling would be from the flock in order for the rest to survive.
We are the real monsters as we feed off what we are told to want. But if we all stood up against society and said no more, no more brain washing it’s time for change, would we really be free or still be trapped in the same paradox because individuality still wouldn’t exist. Instead we may just create a new societal system in which people are now told to stand up and not partake in what YOU ARE TOLD TO WANT. Bottom line, unless you decide to live in the woods alone and feast off the land, individuality will never exist and you will always be governed by being told what to want. Hopefully it doesn’t cause you to disfigure yourself mentally or physically in order to survive within the vast jungle societal acceptance rules.
May 6, 2008 at 7:14 am
I’m tempted to lie and say this book sucked just to like break up the parade of gushing praise but I can’t. It is very strong and I really felt like his use of repetition was spot on in this one and very effective rather than being somewhat distracting as in other books he has written. I guess that is a fickle stylistic bitch about other stuff he has done, but oh well. He is obviously witty and it always amazes me how funny his books are in spite of how horrifyingly dark they tend to be, at least in spots. Maybe we are just desensitized.
Clearly Palahniuk is satirizing the vanity of our society and deconstructing the consumer based power of feminine beauty. Models such as our protagonist are bought and sold and seemingly treated as though they are objects used to accentuate the fine line of products they are peddling. It is a vapor-like essence of sexuality that they sell.
Clearly the way people in this book identify themselves is based on their perception of their own beauty in an almost class based way. They seemingly maintain a sense of being above society but at the same time servile to it. It is interesting because in her pre-accident flashbacks she seemingly felt confident in her beauty but at the same time needed to have it validated externally.
Is chuck (1st name basis? why not?) satirizing the idea that a woman’s power (if power is the right word) in our society is based on sex and appearance? Is he making the point that without that beauty women in our society are considered by others to be somewhat worthless? Maybe he is taking the piss out of the idea that we have moved forward in society post women’s lib.
May 6, 2008 at 7:25 am
If at first I said reading “Invisible Monsters” disallowed me from pulling myself away from the book, you might interpret that as a good thing. Really though, I can only liken the feeling to television – it’s a disengaging hypnotism that doesn’t really compel the viewer to continue participating in the thing itself, but to not engage in anything else. Basically, I read this book in three long stretches, only feeling afterward that I could’ve been gazing better navels. That’s quite an extraordinary feat, considering 1. the phenomena of coincidence is one of my favorite motifs in literature, and 2. the potential for an exciting, thought-provoking book is here, the execution is too absorbed in its own satire to ever be anything more. It’s exposure of a society overindulgent in shallow appearances doesn’t go beyond that shallowness. I’m not saying Palanhiuk should have moralized in the story, but it seems any analysis made is an act of putting pearls before swine. Also, I don’t think authors are obliged to make characters relatable, sympathetic, or esteemed to the reader; but that standard holds up conversely – that readers aren’t obliged to invest interest in any characters if they don’t want to. The book felt easy, as vapid as its targets. One chapter actually warned the reader about the squeamish matters it was going to deal with, and then gave an account of plastic surgery that couldn’t live up to its own disclaimer (perhaps, because it immediately brought to mind Thomas Pynchon’s great rhinoplasty-with-hyper-clinical-details-as-male-sexual-dominance scene in V. which literally makes your nose soar from reading it). What I have admired from Palanhiuk, his smarmy one-liners, seemed forced in “Invisible Monsters” (did anyone feel that he put the Brandy and Co. in Canada just to make his loonies joke?). Partially what annoys me about books like this (Notes From Underground, anyone?) is the fact that these anti-heroes expect too much from society, letting them suffer and fall and go insane. The general response to these characters is that, no their actions aren’t admirable, but society did fail them and its not really their fault. General readership tends to identify with these invisible monsters, rationalizing their convoluted pettiness, as if they were somehow reacting or rebelling against some faceless devastating machine. We tend to have instilled in us this belief that putting our faith in some grand undefined externality will somehow pay off. After a few years of realizations that that faith is futile we deceive ourselves into idolizing the Brandy Alexanders for their supposed schismatic attitudes. Schism, iconoclasm, disharmony, all these are lacking, however, in “Invisible Monsters” – these are people destructing in a way that promotes the faceless machinations of a society. They’re mold in the compost heap; deathrow inmates shanking each other to death in prison – their self-destruction is exploited to expand society’s potential.
May 6, 2008 at 7:26 am
Yeah. its an awesome story. i love the beginning. everybody-run-the-homecoming-queens-gotta-gun can be so much fun. charina and i agree that the best piece is when the parents are discussing all the types of sexual activities gay men engage in, at the dinner table. let’s just get it all out on the table, chuck. the meatloaf and then the meat-loaf. ok i get it. every one of those characters resonates within me and secretly i cant wait to succumb to the myriad of surgeries available for reconfiguring my body.
i’m sorry, are we allowed to talk politics here?
May 6, 2008 at 7:29 am
I like Michael’s take on what invisible monsters are, well put. The pessimistic last paragraph is like something I would have depressingly thought. The invisibleness (I love to use words that probably are not right, in the hopes of making them right, the English language is a whore) are probably our vain consumerist desires that we typically deny or at the very least fail to analyze or define. I think maybe (as Kelsie deftly points out) the addiction that this book is primarily against is our addiction to transitory material happiness. Also I liked Heather’s “healthy obsession” statement and blog, it was a good read and a meaningful take on this book.
May 6, 2008 at 7:45 am
Also, Palahniuk’s take on beauty wasn’t clever, it was boring and obvious. It’s easy to attack those we simultaneously privilege and set atop pedestals. Ours is a society that idolizes beauty, and then turns that beauty into disease and decay. It’s the need for sensationalism that drives us to build up straw men simply to burn them down because we privilege them, set them aside, and then decry our exclusion. It’s not that I’m defending the industry and practices behind BEAUTY CO. USA, but I’m not going to just complicity shout Hallelujah simply because someone threw a felt alienated enough to write a book about it. Frankly, neither camp interests me; but if I keep reading books like this I might end up writing one in defense of the fashion/beauty industry. Because really, what sounds more offensive? Palahniuk is a writer billed (or should I say built up?) as extreme, shocking, offensive. But in reality, his role is to reassure his readership, to comfort them in their disaffectedness, to take revenge on those too-popular-but-not-a-cell-in-their-brains kids in highschool that made us feel oh-so-awkward. Fuck that. That’s easy.
May 6, 2008 at 8:21 am
My first thought when I finished this book was, that was “the grass is always greener…” on steroids. Another book crafted on the idea that the world is a truly miserable place for all the lonely self-destructive people out there looking for acceptance, love and repentance, but with an ironic humor that made it a bit more palatable than The Jiri Chronicles. There were moments when this book made me laugh out loud, but if there was any deeper message, it was lost for me at the end with what I can only call a transsexual frenzy. I did wonder later when processing the work as a whole if this was maybe Freud in reverse, boob envy rather than penis envy.
I did enjoy how the story was built, giving little bits and pieces along the way until you had the full picture. It made it feel more private, as if these very personal revelations and dirty secrets were being revealed in the context of a one-on-one conversation. Details about the childhood exposed the inner workings of a dysfunctional family in what I can only hope is exaggerated way, but not so outrageous that many of us could find a tiny nugget of our own dysfunction there too. He painted such a good picture of the parents that I could easily imagine their reaction if they were ever to find out the truth about the brother, and maybe it’s just the mom in me, but even though they were pretty crappy parents, I really wanted her to reach out to them.
May 6, 2008 at 8:23 am
Shit. So I stared at the blog in a computer induced trance for I don’t know how long trying to figure out how to word my thoughts and it’s still not coming out. I’m going to chew on it a bit longer before I post my real post, but I wanted to say I did read everything everyone wrote. I didn’t love the book, but I didn’t hate it either. I had trouble getting into it at first – I couldn’t help but think the narrator was a whiny shallow bitch for about the first 50ish pages (I know it’s satire, but still!) It’s all very Jerry Springeresque with the intertwinedness (I can make up words too other Morris
). I also liked what Michael said about the invisible monsters, I was thinking they were ingrained in the characters heads. Psychological monsters. Ahhh societal programming. In pys101 I was taught that shame is not a natural/instinctual(?) human behavior and that it is instead something we are taught to feel as children. Just think how much control shame along can have on a person. -Anyway trying to write coherently at 1:30am can be challenging for me. I think my not real post might be my real post now or at least 1/2 to it.
May 6, 2008 at 8:47 pm
one could also argue that shock satire is easy in a dumbed down, politically correct society. I don’t think that the fact that Chuck doesn’t specifically blame his charachters and does seemingly blame society does not absolve those charachters, or us.
May 6, 2008 at 11:31 pm
So this was the first book this term that I didn’t have to force myself to read. Actually, the first book in a while that I didn’t have to force myself to read. It still took me a while, as I am easily distracted, but overall I enjoyed the time I spent with the book.
There were times throughout the book that I literally found myself laughing out loud. I don’t know why, but I liked the way that animals were thrown into the story, such as the constipated pigs and the bird who flew away with Shannon’s jaw. Both odd, but nonetheless entertaining to me.
I loved the ways that the characters all connected together. I, like Shayna, also drew a little chart, or whatever you might call it, so that I could fully grasp how everyone was linked. Things like this really excite me for some reason. I love family trees and stuff, and this was like one wacky, twisted, “family” tree. And I liked it.
To answer some questions: (although I hesitate to do this because I feel ignorant when it comes to understanding the points that books try to get across)
I feel as though the invisible monsters are each person themselves. I feel like each person is there own monster, and that is why they are all seeking and seeking for something that they cannot find, no matter what identity that they hold.
Identity in this story is a really loose thing. No one has a strong self identity nor do they seem to hold pride in who they truly are, or even who they try to be.
May 7, 2008 at 12:58 am
Well, apparently, no one thought this week’s novel was potentially “alienating,” its satire ineffective because Palahniuk confronted the reader with overly disturbing images—or whatever. Where’s all the talk about “subtlety,” and what not? Mitchel even thought it wasn’t gruesome ENOUGH, writing that “the book felt easy, as vapid as its targets. One chapter actually warned the reader about the squeamish matters it was going to deal with, and then gave an account of plastic surgery that couldn’t live up to its own disclaimer.” If I remember right, he was arguing in class last week that stuff like Di Blasi’s can make readers acquiesce, turn them off, and then I interrupted him and made my big spiel. (In his blog post that week, he actually had no problem with her). But he loves “Thomas Pynchon’s great rhinoplasty-with-hyper-clinical-details-as-male-sexual-dominance scene in V. which literally makes your nose soar from reading it.”—a male writer, talking about the oppression of women. Palahniuk is male, too, and famous. And that’s what I want to get at in my post. Here’s Di Blasi: a women, avant-garde writer, obscure, writes about offensive shit but is more experimental. Here’s Palahniuk: a male, mainstream writer, famous, writes about similar shit but is more conventional. People didn’t react overwhelmingly well to Di Blasi, but Palahniuk—everyone loves him, except for Mitchel. Also, Jesse, who last week in his blog posts picked apart Di Blasi, now seems to find nothing alienating or ineffective about Palahniuk’s writing, and seems to think that he gets his point across very clearly: “He is obviously witty and it always amazes me how funny his books are in spite of how horrifyingly dark they tend to be, at least in spots…Clearly Palahniuk is satirizing the vanity of our society and deconstructing the consumer based power of feminine beauty.” Di Blasi did the same thing in her The Jirí Chronicles! And Jill’s hatred for De Blasi’s “pure self indulgence” is nowhere in her post on Palahniuk. Is it maybe an aversion to her specific writing style, like all the images, footnotes, and word collages? I don’t think so. It might be that Lidia’s question about the “alienation effect” led people on, but, again, I don’t think so. To be honest, it’s something that can be observed every time “minorities” voice themselves, and are confident. The reactions to the Black Consciousness movement, Women’s Liberation, Native Americans talking about genocide or the efforts of AIM; even today, with atheists becoming more vocal—all that comes to mind. When people that represent these groups speak, they tend to be portrayed as obnoxious, arrogant, self-absorbed, or elitist. With Black Power or Black Liberation Theology, they are seen as practicing black racism; Women’s Liberation, some kind of reverse misogyny; atheists, secular fundamentalism; Native Americans, as focusing on the past. I think the negative reactions to De Blasi’s “uppity” attitude and prose reflect this general trend. The fact that Palahniuk, who writers conventionally (regular prose, male, famous) is more received—reinforces it.
May 7, 2008 at 3:37 am
Jon- Fucking beautiful rant! I love it.
On a much more shallow/random/pointless note, I have to ask, has there always been strange colorful square bits of art by our names on the blog? Is that new? Or am I more oblivious than I thought
May 7, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Dear Jon, (Sorry always wanted to do that)
Some key differences between Chuck and Deb:
I personally did not like the style or structure of the Jiri Chronicles. This is a totally biased, completely subjective point, but oh well.
I did not find it entertaining. Was she trying to change society? who knows? I didn’t find it entertaining.
I was kind of turned off by this notion that she invented the concept of words and pictures in books, maybe I’m looking to much into that, but after reading her interview, the (oh my god I’m sooooooooooo judgmental!) arrogance turned me off.
I still say alienist satire is terrible because it actually breeds apathy, which interestingly is the very thing it seems to often be trying not to do. The points on that we have already exchanged. Agree to disagree?
I understand your point about the poor woman who must be defended against the evil patriarchy who savagely attacks any woman who speaks out, although that can be a dangerous road. I respect your opinion and find your rhetoric well thought out. I did not dislike Jiri because it was written by a woman, which seems to be your assertion. I had other (I would subjectively say) valid reasons for disliking it. People can disagree with you in a subjective way and not be like advocating that woman go barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. It seems interesting that you seem to think the only reason to dislike Jiri is sexism and not like personal taste. I respect your opinion but using this book which is shocking as a great piece of evidence for your minority backlash case is a stretch. Maybe you could mention how MLK was treated when he was far less scary to white people than X. Maybe talk about how Susan B Anthony was treated for simply wanting to help women vote. The problem with that though is that those people actually changed society, which is something that Di Blasi apparently wasn’t trying to do? Alienist satire won’t, even if it tries. Agree to disagree?
Jesse
May 7, 2008 at 10:29 pm
also, by way of clarification: I did not argue that Di Blasi wasn’t savagely satirizing our culture. My main point was in regard to Lidia’s question about alienation in art and satire. What is alienating is wholly subjective. Some would call MLK a radical, and others (Malcolm X for example) would attack him as being completely un-radical. I personally (subjectively!) found Chuck’s book to be very un-alienating. You clearly (subjectively!) found Di Blasi’s book to be un-alienating. It wasn’t even really so much that I found her book alienating as that most people in our society would. That is an arguable assessment but as many arguments in class say, she will never reach as many readers as Chuck, the reasons for which are not as simple as pithy blog passages.
May 8, 2008 at 2:10 am
she won’t reach as many readers ’cause the readers suck
May 8, 2008 at 8:58 am
speaking of pithy blog passages
May 9, 2008 at 10:47 am
Dear Jesse,
You spelled my name wrong! So did Jodie. Anyway, so you personally don’t like the style of Di Blasi or find her entertaining—I get that. But I think that is something minor in your critique of her (since you went further than that), and not something you can use to completely justify what you said about her. You jumped in with the other people that didn’t like her work but applauded Palahniuk for taking on the same themes (even proposing to write Invisible Monsters in the style of a glossy magazine) in a more conventional, marketable style, coming from a famous male. That’s why I set those critiques aside in my original post: I think the main push for the negative reaction against Di Blasi runs deeper. I think you have to understand that my problem with the negativity towards Di Blasi by the people in our class, juxtaposed against the predominately affirmative reactions to Palahniuk, is due to the sentiment involved, the labeling of Di Blasi as arrogant, and the devaluing of her writing as simply rantings. As you said, “I imagine this was a deliciously cathartic book [The Jirí Chronicles] to write and vent with.” That woman, she’s just blowing a bunch of hot air, right? Also, you said, “I did not argue that Di Blasi wasn’t savagely satirizing our culture.” I know, but no talk about how Palahniuk’s satire—and he did take on many of the same themes as Di Blasi—could be potentially alienating came up in your posts, when it was the dominate force of your, as well as other’s, arguments against Di Blasi. What I mean is: if they both dealt with the same shit in a shocking way, why is Di Blasi alienating and Palahniuk not? As you said, “It wasn’t even really so much that I found her book alienating as that most people in our society would. That is an arguable assessment but as many arguments in class say, she will never reach as many readers as Chuck, the reasons for which are not as simple as pithy blog passages.” But Jesse, a story about a model that blows her face off, finds out her transsexual friend is really her brother that she thought died from AIDS, and that her boyfriend raped him to give him AIDS in the first place—that’s not going to be alienating to the general public? And it’s not like Palahniuk holds back, or is at all “subtle” with his novel, employing all the mirrors that you’re fond of when it comes to satire. How is it that Palahniuk is so popular? I really doubt it’s simply because he writes in conventional prose or is more entertaining. People love Palahniuk because he shocks, alienates, and does it creatively. When a woman does it, there’s suddenly a huge discussion about her relevance. Palahniuk can get away with it more easily because he’s a male. It’s more acceptable. Like I pointed out in my original post, Mitchel even thought that Palahniuk didn’t go far enough. Where was this plea when we read Di Blasi?
Look, I don’t get where this idea that Di Blasi thinks she invented multimodal prose, and is therefore arrogant, really came from, other than a bored glance over the interview Lidia provided or a misunderstanding while discussing her in class. As Di Blasi explains in her interview, “the term ‘multimodal’ only came about in the past couple of years, and then in the U.K. Multimodal has made its way to the US via Allison Gibbons, a PhD student in Linguistics who uses it in her dissertation that include deconstruction of part of The Jiri Chronicles, Steve Tomasula’s writing, and others of similar hides.” Multimodal prose is all over the place. Writers—male writers—like Mark Z. Danielewski and Jonathan Safran Foer have been praised for writing in similar styles, incorporating images, footnotes, blank pages, weird refrains, and confronting equally “alienating” issues: Foer’s last book, which came out in 2005, was one of the first to have the events of 9/11 as a centrality in the plot. His first book, Everything Is Illuminated, was even made into a movie. Here’s a picture of a page from House of Leaves, one of Danielewski’s books, something the New York Times Book Review called “funny, moving, sexy, beautifully told, an elaborate engagement with the shape and meaning of narrative”: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d9/HouseOfLeavesPage134.gif. Di Blasi didn’t invent this shit, she just, like a lot of her peers, writes under it, and even—oh, god—has her own ideas about it and tries to get people interested in them, giving lectures and interviews. To boil that down: she is a woman, so she has to confront biases that her male peers don’t—and actually benefit from. When she is attacked for doing something many male writers already do successfully, while trying to innovate within it, it’s hard for me to take it only as an attack on her character or personality.
Brandon thought the same thing, that she was arrogant, and I think it’s interesting how two out of four males had that to say about her work, while only one out of ten woman did. I think there is also something to the fact that almost every women in our class liked Di Blasi, or at least could respect and understand what she was doing, while out of four men, three questioned her significance; one woman absolutely hated her. (I’m going off the blog posts for that week because I think there are more people actually in the class). A lot of the women liked seeing another woman write in a strong voice about controversial themes and could relate to some of the events she described. Jodie said, “I think female writers need to write about this stuff because it is in them like all human beings and they need to let it out in creative ways.” It’s just that when they do, they are doing something that a majority of men and some women find “arrogant” or a lost cause. My question is—why? Again, like I said, when any historically subjugated group stands up and does something different, gets “uppity”, or veers outside of their normal role in society, they are portrayed as arrogant, self-absorbed, elitist—whatever. It doesn’t matter if they are advocating social change or not, just that they are doing something different. The whole thing is a way of devaluing their stance without addressing their claims, a kind of ad hominem attack. You, and whoever else had similar problems with Di Blasi, sometimes play off of that in your posts, and in class. That’s what I’m saying. It’s not that you don’t like her writing style that bothers me; it’s that you don’t hold up famous male writers like Palahniuk to the same level of scrutiny. And I don’t know if I’m totally comfortable with thinking I’m accusing you of being sexist—maybe that’s not even my job—more that you’re coloring some of your comments with views that have been handed down to you by a sexist society, and when someone confronts you, you’re like, “What? What did I do?”
So you want me to talk about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Susan B. Anthony? Using them as examples isn’t saying anything different. The fact that you think they are less radical historical figures, and that they were negatively received shows some kind of kink in my argument, doesn’t hold up to the fact that they, well, were radicals during their day, and what they fought for was extremely controversial. Plus, again, it doesn’t matter how radical the action is, just that someone is operating outside of a traditional role; it doesn’t matter how far a nail protrudes, it’s always going to get hammered back into the board. (I think that is from Ken Kesey). King stepped out of the traditional role of a black man living in America, and was stabbed, assaulted at protests, and arrested for it. King was hated, but not because he was simply advocating for the civil rights of black people. In meetings with his staff he discussed democratic socialism. David Garrow, his Pulitzer-winning biographer, has written that he was a Marxist. He wasn’t any less radical than Malcolm X, who saw King’s methods as misguided, as playing into the hands of white people, that King could not bring about fundamental change, peacefully. Malcolm also, it should be pointed out, began to change his opinions about a lot of things after his travels in Africa and the Middle East, after his exit form the Nation of Islam, becoming willing to work with King and other civil rights organizations, even saying to believe in capitalism is racist before being assassinated. After King came out against the Vietnam War and started publicly questioning capitalism and American imperialism, as in his speech at Riverside Church in 1967, he was ripped apart by the media as betraying his role as a civil rights leader. According to a recent commemorative program on Democracy Now!, “Time magazine called the speech ‘demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi,’ and the Washington Post declared that King had ‘diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.’” Here’s the link: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/21/dr_martin_luther_king_jr_1929. King didn’t just make a speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, advocating civil rights for black people in the United States. And even if he did—that was radical. He wasn’t a leader white people were particularly unworried about compared to Malcolm X, like you claim. I mean, look at the reaction to Rev. Wright today, and then imagine King, who was a hell of a lot more vocal, fifty years ago.
The condemnation Susan B. Anthony got wasn’t anything compared to Emma Goldman, an anarchist and feminist, fighting for similar causes, on top of fomenting revolution. She got deported and, like King, was eaten up in the press. Helen Keller got torn to bits, as well, after she announced that she was a socialist, breaking out of her accepted place as a role model for do-it-yourselfers that had been crafted for her. She was a member of the Socialist Party of the United States, voted for Eugene V. Debs, spoke out against World War I as an imperialist war, and eventually abandoned electoral politics and joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), becoming a Wobbly. People hated her. That’s why her life story, when it’s taught in school, stops at her entry into college, where she became radicalized. Dude, she was blind and deaf! Personally, I think she exposes the truly blind and deaf in society. She’s one of my favorite human beings. All it took for her to figure out capitalism was bullshit was someone signing into her hand articles from magazines.
The fact that these people were dedicated to trying to change society doesn’t separate them from anyone else who takes controversial stances on a more personal level. The whole argument just gets shrunken down to meet the demands of the situation. So I think my “minority backlash case” stands. Di Blasi might not be trying to change society in the fashion of Emma Goldman, but she is certainly trying to express herself, and she definitely has things to say that confront established views of women, beauty, gender, consumerism—just like Palahniuk in Invisible Monsters. It’s just that when Di Blasi does, you paint her as venting and arrogant, while Palahniuk is an elegant satirist. Those critiques have nothing to do with her prose or whether or not she is entertaining, since they’re just similar ideas flowing from the minds of two different authors. In my opinion, it’s because she’s a woman, expressing those ideas, and that’s threatening.
Anyway, I’m just waiting for what you think about Blood and Guts in High School.
May 9, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Jesse- I thought blogs were all about pithy passages!
honestly I had to look up pithy though, I’m learning so many new words lately!
I can attest to your not sexistness (making up more words I just like ‘ness’), although, I think John might have a valid point when he writes:
“And I don’t know if I’m totally comfortable with thinking I’m accusing you of being sexist—maybe that’s not even my job—more that you’re coloring some of your comments with views that have been handed down to you by a sexist society”
When you grow up and live in a sexist society it’s difficult to not, as John put it “color some of your comments” with those views sometimes, unconsciously or consciously. I know I am not immune to it, although, I think I would like to be.
John- Sorry I spelled your name wrong, I usually make an effort to not mis-spell names because mine is often mis-spelled. I noticed you spelled it right twice though.
May 13, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I get your point about sexism. I liked the Diblasi piece we read the first week a lot but I still made the same point about alienation and “shock” satire. They are different points. As I pointed out, my dislike for Jiri had almost everything to do with wholly subjective matters of taste and personal opinion. The Lid question I was responding to was very general and about alienating people with art and satire. Also I am very very certain that in other classes and social circles you would find women that would be turned off by Jiri, your point about mostly being men has some truth to it but is essentially conjecture.