Chuck Palahniuk

Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk (born February 21 1961 in Pasco, Washington, USA) is an American satirical novelist and freelance journalist living in Portland, Oregon. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher. He has one of the largest centralized followings of any author on the Internet, based around his official web site. His writings, similar in style to those of such peers as Bret Easton Ellis, Irvine Welsh, and Douglas Coupland, have made him one of the most popular novelists of Generation X.

Criticism

As noted above, Palahniuk has met with some negative labeling from the media. Some members of the media have labeled him as a "shock writer" because of the abnormality of the situations in his writing, which are treated humorously rather than with criticism for the actions of the characters. There is also some questioning of whether or not the non-fiction factoids that appear in his novels are actually needed, and this is only further used to make the "shock writer" argument. Many critics claim that Palahniuk's works are nihilistic, or explorations into nihilism. However, Palahniuk claims he is not a nihilist, but a romantic, and that his works are merely mistaken for being nihilistic because they express ideas that others do not believe in.{{ref|williams}}

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Still, there are even more serious accusations made against Palahniuk's work. Critics have claimed that they see elements of sexism in his writing. Much of this has fallen on the film adaptation of Fight Club, though it is worth noting that the screenplay was not written by Palahniuk himself. Still, there are those who claim his novels also contain sexist statements. Most famous amongst these critics is Laura Miller of Salon.com, who wrote a scathing review of Diary.{{ref|miller}} Fans have made counterarguments against these accusations, noting that characters who hold these opinions at one point in the novel will change for the better over the course of the story. In particular, some fans (as well as Palahniuk himself) have retorted to Miller's accusations of sexism in Salon's Letters section.{{ref|letters}} Many have argued that Miller and similar critics ignore the existence of Palahniuk's female fans; in fact, some of those who criticized Miller's review are female fans themselves. However, critics on both sides claim these instances neither prove nor disprove his supposed sexist overtones.

Related Topics:
Sexism - Salon.com

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Additionally, some literary critics argue that after Fight Club Palahniuk's novels have been too similar stylistically. For example, they argue that the narrators of Fight Club, Choke and Survivor all have very similar voices and writing styles, despite coming from radically different backgrounds (e.g., Fight Club is narrated by a worldly wise and cynical white-collar worker, but Survivor is narrated by the survivor of a death cult who had been raised in isolation). The common features of all three of these novels include the use of very short paragraphs and sentences, pop culture references, and cynical wisecracks about the status quo.

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There are also some discrepancies regarding Palahniuk's science. For example, in "Survivor" he says that terminal velocity for a person in free fall is 32.2 feet per second, when in actuality 32.2 is the acceleration due to gravity (proper units being feet per second squared) and terminal velocity for a falling person is closer to 170 feet per second.

Related Topics:
Terminal velocity - Acceleration - Gravity

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