Rant by Chuck Palahniuk Review

All of the sudden, I have become hooked on Palahniuk and his out of this world works. Ever since picking up Haunted two months ago I have been reading all of his books. I dropped everything the day the new book by Chuck came out on May 1st, even though I was in the middle of finals week. The book was a little different then any of his last, written in an interview type of way. The book chronicles the life of Rant Casey, by having interviews of people who were directly involved or somehow affected by him in life. The way it is done is quite genius, to write something from different perspectives keeping all the characters in mind, and then actually putting a story together with each character having different input on the main one. This book like all of Palahniuk's books has facts that relate to how the government is somehow controlling us, and plans to have absolute control over us all eventually. There are random facts throughout the books about certain civilizations that used disease or viruses to control or just wipe out people. Then there are the little weird habits of certain characters, not as much sexual in this book as you would expect, but this book sure has a boat load of actions that aren't typical in our everyday nature.

Do I dare say that Chuck is slowly approaching the status of a great author known as George Orwell with his talk about the future concerning government intervention in our everyday lives? Chuck closes the gap between imagination and reality with this novel. Maybe one day this will be classified as nonfiction, or maybe it already was nonfiction as he says in the end. If there ever was something to take away from a fiction book that seemed so far fetch, yet so possible was the idea of "boosting" as explained by Shot Dunyon, who is one of the main characters influenced by Rant Casey. The concept behind "boosting," is that humans in the future will have neural transmitters in the back of their necks. They can plug devices into them or record certain moments of their lives for future pleasure. Think of them kind of like a USB port, but they record all five senses. Matrix mixed with real life kind of thing going here. The future doesn't have books or movies, just boosting. Then the other futuristic idea was "Party Crashing," were Nighttimers drive around hitting people with their cars, of course there are certain rules that pertain to running full speed into people. What the idea is like though, is kind of like the idea in "Fight Club," putting yourself in a position of fear and pain that will make you feel euphoric for a little, possibly even reaching a sense of enlightenment.

Nighttimers and Daytimers is the gap between people. More or less like Vampires and real people. The lines are drawn to provide more of a racial separation though. On top of all this is a rabies outbreak caused by Rant Casey which attacks the whole world in a violent zombie like stage that makes people go mad. It's a shame Palahniuk didn't concentrate on this part of the book a bit more. He eventually ends the book with a cool twist on time-travel from his perspective, explaining how it is possible to live forever and become stronger by having sex with those who gave birth to you. It's way to complex for me to explain on here, but it's a neat idea for someone to think of. Then the idea of Rant being his own dad was kind of odd. I mean in the beginning of the book he hates his parents and his dad's a dick, so why would he's dad be a dick to himself. I wasn't sure of that, and how could his dad fall for the tricks he did to himself. The gold coins were also interesting, but how he exactly got them was confusing as well. There are so many things left open for the reader to explore once he reads the book.

Palahniuk puts on another terrific showing of his brilliant skills with Rant. In the end I was satisfied with the plot, although the time-travel theory was almost too much, but maybe it was just enough since I love to think of time-travel and somehow he explained the different possibilities and how it work to one's advantage if executed properly. The future always seems bleak, but as Rant put it, "The future you have tomorrow, won't be the same future you had, yesterday." I give this a 4.6 out of 5. I was completely enthralled with this book once I hit the party crashing chapters, then I hit time-travel and it blew my mind. I love how Chuck gives reasons of why things are possible if something per se like time-travel is possible. The best of authors can only convince you of the impossible, and Chuck sure does that. I just wish the ending was a little more clear, and we had some input from Rant on this oral interview besides the few lines he said before he vanished. Plus if he goes back in time again, wouldn't that cause more problems, and would that mean he would be his own grandfather? If anyone could maybe explain there different view on this book, I would like to hear it, I thoroughly enjoyed but I bet I missed a lot or at least looked at things a lot different.

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