Survivor: A Novel | Chuck Palahniuk | Page turner and funny (Palahniuk is amazingly observant)

Survivor: A Novel | Chuck Palahniuk | Dark, disturbing, humorous, engaging

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Survivor: A Novel

	Survivor: A Novel Chuck Palahniuk Anchor, 2000 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 389 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Page turner and funny (Palahniuk is amazingly observant)

This is only the 3rd of Palahniuk's books I have read. This was the first real page turner, and it was full of humorous observations and satire about every day America. Choke and this one are highly recommended. Fight Club...well interestingly, the book might not be as good as the film. I cannot wait for Survivor to be made into a movie!

Dark, disturbing, humorous, engaging

Chuck Palahniuk's "Survivor" takes the reader into the world of Tender Branson, the last surviving member of a suicide cult. As the book opens, Branson, the narrator, has hijacked a Boeing 747 with the intention of crashing it, with himself on board, into the Australian outback. Having emptied the plane of passengers, he proceeds to tell his account of his life - ostensibly as it 'really happened' - into the flight recorder, from his childhood under the repressive authority of the Creedish Church to being propelled years later to media stardom as the last survivor.

The first thing that the reader will notice is that the book begins with Chapter 47 on page 289 and counts its way down to Chapter 1 and page 1 at the end, a device which serves to constantly remind the reader that Branson's last minutes are ticking away even as he retells his story, lending an air of foreboding to his words. Palahniuk also has Branson constantly backtrack upon himself in a way which mimics such a stream-of-consciousness dictation. The writing style throughout is informal and extremely sketchy as regards description. Even the names of key characters are never revealed - including the government caseworker appointed to prevent Tender from following the rest of his cult members into suicide, and the agent who later drives him to stardom. On the other hand, by having Tender talk at great length about apparently unimportant and superfluous things such as how to correctly eat a lobster, Palahniuk gives us a sense of Tender's quirky and disturbed nature, almost as if he exists slightly out of tune with reality.

This is a book which tackles big themes: birth and death, murder and suicide, free will and determinism, belief and unbelief, truth and falsehood. Palahniuk conjures up a vividly dystopian and disturbing world, which only grows darker as Tender is drawn within the media culture - a culture which proves every bit as restrictive, false, twisted and soul-destroying as the Creedish society that he used to belong to. What really engages the reader, however, is the strength of the main characters: firstly Tender, who struggles throughout the story to find meaning in his life and to become truly free; and secondly his friend Fertility Hollis, who claims to be able to see the future and acts as Tender's guide. It is their relationship which forms the backbone of the story right up until its climax in the final chapter.

Pacy, inventive, often funny, "Survivor" is a fine (though dark) book, and one that I can easily recommend.

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Chuck's Second Best Novel

Survivor covers the same territory as a lot of Palaniuk's cultural criticism--our anti-hero has mommy/daddy issues, sex issues, girlfriend issues. He's an outsider, critiquing consumerism, mocking religion, an expert on obscurity (victorian flower symbolism and home ec, in this case). His story includes a spattering of repeating sentences and is titled ironically--Survivor.
Despite revisiting such familiar territory, Palaniuk creates a character who is unique from his others. The main character--Tender Branson--has been banished from the Garden of Eden, as the story begins. His sex interest, Fertility Hollis, is Palaniuk's equivalent for Eve. Fertility (an appropriate name for the Bible's mother of all mankind), who knows everything (tree of knowledge), guides Tender and his twin brother--Adam--until the story's last page.
Adam's greatest contribution is debunking Tender's illusions that the home he was kicked out of was a paradise. This idea that paradise is a lie, a false construction is reinforced by Tender's job as the book begins. He's charged by his masters (secular gods) to maintain their garden, a job which he completes by using fake flowers.
I thought this metaphor was really clever and I only caught onto it on the second read. Not that I didn't enjoy Tender's later transformation in a desperate bid for eternal life--in name if not in fact, but the first part of the book was just more fun for me.
Even with that said, I think Choke is a better written book. But after you've finished that, Survivor is a worthwhile second read.

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