There was an interview with Chuck in Rolling Stone you might find interesting. Wasn't incredibly detailed but had some interesting fluff. His family really did pillage train wrecks when he was young and some of what he writes comes from his own experiences. Not sure if that makes him even scarier than before.
The only book of his I've read is Survivor and I'm not seen Fight Club yet so I'm not sure I get the train wreck reference, but I was discussing Survivor with people last night and I was just struck by how truly weird some of the stuff in the book was.
I got about 50 pages into Survivor before giving up on it. "Fight Club" is much better, but I thought "Choke" was his best.
The movie adaptation was very well done, and I enjoyed it more than the book. I had the same experience with John Grisham's "The Firm." (Grisham does great intros and middles, but not endings.)
I didn't like Survivor much, but finished it since it was for a book group. I didn't like Fight Club the movie (mostly because of squeamish-ness) so haven't read the book. Perhaps I'll give Choke a chance sometime, but given how behind I am on this year's reading I doubt it'll be soon :)
Does this mean that you like these books or that you have concerns for the mental state of their authors?
Someone told me that Fight Club was "not for the faint of heart." Nonsense! I thought. But then I did begin to swoon away. It is one of the few times that I've stopped reading a book that wasn't dauntingly long. I didn't like it at all. As for Howard Waldrop, I think I've read a short story of his and I think I found it disturbing but I think it might have been the professor who assigned it that creeped me out.
The authors whose minds intrigue me include Philip K. Dick and William Gibson. The way Dick wrote about drug use in A Scanner Darkly (morbidly) fascinated me. And, while Neuromancer is justifiably celebrated, it was The Difference Engine (written with Bruce Sterling) that made me wonder how Gibson "came up with this stuff." Also, I think I know how Harlan Ellison thinks and it scares me fairly much.
The author that most fascinates me is Billy Collins. I'll read a poem of his and think to myself, "Yes! That's exactly the way to put it. I didn't even know I was thinking about that." The first time I read something he has written I find it difficult not to race through it to see where he ends up. I have to remind myself to slow down and read it like he reads it. ("Forgetfullness")Somehow his work never ages or fades for me. I am always made wonderous by the ending of "I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey's Version of "Three Blind Mice", The Lanyard always makes me want to talk with my mom and "Litany" always, always makes me laugh. I want to write like him. I want to think like him. He thinks like me. I have no clue as to how he does it.
No concerns for the mental state, just aware that the author's mental state is so different from mine that it's a little hard to see where they're coming from.
There was an interview with Chuck in Rolling Stone you might find interesting. Wasn't incredibly detailed but had some interesting fluff. His family really did pillage train wrecks when he was young and some of what he writes comes from his own experiences. Not sure if that makes him even scarier than before.
The only book of his I've read is Survivor and I'm not seen Fight Club yet so I'm not sure I get the train wreck reference, but I was discussing Survivor with people last night and I was just struck by how truly weird some of the stuff in the book was.
I'll go look up the article though, thanks.
I got about 50 pages into Survivor before giving up on it. "Fight Club" is much better, but I thought "Choke" was his best.
The movie adaptation was very well done, and I enjoyed it more than the book. I had the same experience with John Grisham's "The Firm." (Grisham does great intros and middles, but not endings.)
I didn't like Survivor much, but finished it since it was for a book group. I didn't like Fight Club the movie (mostly because of squeamish-ness) so haven't read the book. Perhaps I'll give Choke a chance sometime, but given how behind I am on this year's reading I doubt it'll be soon :)
Does this mean that you like these books or that you have concerns for the mental state of their authors?
Someone told me that Fight Club was "not for the faint of heart." Nonsense! I thought. But then I did begin to swoon away. It is one of the few times that I've stopped reading a book that wasn't dauntingly long. I didn't like it at all. As for Howard Waldrop, I think I've read a short story of his and I think I found it disturbing but I think it might have been the professor who assigned it that creeped me out.
The authors whose minds intrigue me include Philip K. Dick and William Gibson. The way Dick wrote about drug use in A Scanner Darkly (morbidly) fascinated me. And, while Neuromancer is justifiably celebrated, it was The Difference Engine (written with Bruce Sterling) that made me wonder how Gibson "came up with this stuff." Also, I think I know how Harlan Ellison thinks and it scares me fairly much.
The author that most fascinates me is Billy Collins. I'll read a poem of his and think to myself, "Yes! That's exactly the way to put it. I didn't even know I was thinking about that." The first time I read something he has written I find it difficult not to race through it to see where he ends up. I have to remind myself to slow down and read it like he reads it. ("Forgetfullness")Somehow his work never ages or fades for me. I am always made wonderous by the ending of "I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey's Version of "Three Blind Mice", The Lanyard always makes me want to talk with my mom and "Litany" always, always makes me laugh. I want to write like him. I want to think like him. He thinks like me. I have no clue as to how he does it.
No concerns for the mental state, just aware that the author's mental state is so different from mine that it's a little hard to see where they're coming from.