Friday, September 01, 2006

Oh, and...

I finished Chuch Palahniuk's novel Diary. Palahniuk really does horror fiction well, IMHO, though it is a more subtle kind than Stephen King could touch.

The book is set on a creepy resort island and has much to say about class disparities and, more centrally, the relationship of suffering and art.

I got my copy from the library and somebody had underlined a sentence where Palahnuik was writing about the very rich's habit of finding a peaceful vacation place and ruining it. Sedona, Key West, Sun Valley, the paradox of a half million people going to the same place to be alone." Much as I disagree with defacing library books, I did agree that this was a line worth noting.

The plot's a little thin, but plot is rarely the point of a good horror novel, even a mostly psychological one like this one with very little actual violence. There's an aspect of the end that still doesn't make much sense to me.

But I'm creeped out. Profoundly so. So the book has done its job.

CC

Who has also read Christopher Buckley's No Way to Treat a First Lady this week. That was a lot of fun, with humor really reminiscent of a very well-written Boston Legal episode. But it really didn't inspire a post.

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