It's terrible, but honestly if you don't want bad thoughts avoid the communities. I'm a huge Palahniuk fan, but this book honestly blows. I'm several chapters in and having a really hard time going on.
I went to Borders to buy it. While in line I started reading it and... I dunno. I just skimmed a couple of lines but I decided I'd wait and hear what people thought of Pygmy before buying it.
Good Choice my Friend. I was pleasantly surprised by Rant, Pygmy makes me want to burn my eyeballs out with hot sticks. As someone who has always respected Palahniuk, I'm confused by what he's chosen to do with the grammar.
I'm sticking with my theory that he's laughing at us.
This is the sentence I'm currently on (Don't worry, no spoliers BECAUSE IT MAKES NO SENSE):
"During mating ritual cloaked dim interior arena atop floor of basketball wood, against din of music encourage premature random sexual reproduction, pig dog brother make finger straight to indicate females ranked along opposite wall. Across distance, give introduce."
It's like he's laughing at us. As if he's deliberately written something terrible so that he can laugh at us for buying it. The really sad thing is that the writing would have taken so much work, you can tell, with all the little nuances that he put a lot into it. But, it's so BAD!
it sounds like its written in speech, ie the characters thinks and speaks like this. Like in trainspotting or other books that do this. I haven't read any of this but I guess the character himself cannot speak or read well?
That's exactly what he's trying to do, but it's done to the point where the book is barely readable.
The frustrating part is that the character who's writing the book writes perfect grammar when other character's are talking, when he's quoting them. So he understands perfect grammar when it's said to him, I believe the bad grammar is deliberate (I'll be giving away parts of the story if I go any further), but there's better ways to go about it than making the story nearly incomprehensible.
When the other characters have dialogue it actually feels like a moment to breathe.
But...but...but... the jacket says it's his best since Fight Club. Surely the jacket never lies!
I'm going to read it after I finish Crash (Ballard) and maybe before or maybe after I read Ape-Shit (Mellick). Then, I am going to go and read happy things with happy puppy dogs for a couple of days.
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I hope it's not bad. I'll start it tomorrow...
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And I hope you're wrong. (Although, popular vote says you're right. oh jeez.)
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I ended up getting Rant, haha.
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I'm sticking with my theory that he's laughing at us.
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This is the sentence I'm currently on (Don't worry, no spoliers BECAUSE IT MAKES NO SENSE):
"During mating ritual cloaked dim interior arena atop floor of basketball wood, against din of music encourage premature random sexual reproduction, pig dog brother make finger straight to indicate females ranked along opposite wall. Across distance, give introduce."
It's like he's laughing at us. As if he's deliberately written something terrible so that he can laugh at us for buying it. The really sad thing is that the writing would have taken so much work, you can tell, with all the little nuances that he put a lot into it. But, it's so BAD!
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The frustrating part is that the character who's writing the book writes perfect grammar when other character's are talking, when he's quoting them. So he understands perfect grammar when it's said to him, I believe the bad grammar is deliberate (I'll be giving away parts of the story if I go any further), but there's better ways to go about it than making the story nearly incomprehensible.
When the other characters have dialogue it actually feels like a moment to breathe.
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I'm going to read it after I finish Crash (Ballard) and maybe before or maybe after I read Ape-Shit (Mellick). Then, I am going to go and read happy things with happy puppy dogs for a couple of days.
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You know, under all the crappy sentence structure and deliberately bad grammar there might be a good story, but no one will ever find it.
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