Daryl Tay.net

Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

It’s hard for me to review Rant by Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club)without getting into specifics because the twists in the story are so surprising that I wouldn’t want to spoil it for anyone,  but suffice to say that after one read, this book has instantly shot up to one of my top five books of all time.

Rant is pretty different from the usual book in way it’s told. It’s narrated in the form of an oral biography (of Buster “Rant” Casey), and if you don’t know what that is, imagine a Discovery Channel show on a person that has interviews with people who knew that person. Well an oral biography is pretty much a written transcript of those interviews. This style takes some getting used to at first, but Palahniuk gives each character such a distinct voice that before long you can almost visualise the person who is “talking” about Rant.

Rant himself, of course, is the central piece of the puzzle. The oral biography is done after he has died (this isn’t a spoiler) and each chapter provides a little revelation into who he was and who he would grow up to be.

Reading the book, I would come to the end of each chapter and think: masterful. The story isn’t told sequentially, and sometimes the reader has to join the dots. There were nights where I’d come home and try to read Rant, realise my mind was too tired and read something else instead. To fully appreciate the nuances and little connections that lead to bigger payoffs at the end does require some concentration. There were maybe two or three chapters where that word didn’t cross my mind, simply because the twist from those chapters were so powerful, I was speechless.

I know this review is really general, but trust me, if you pick up this book, you’ll thank me for not giving away more than I should. I’d definitely recommend this book (though it may not be to everyone’s taste), and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and end up hunting down his other books just as I will.

[image credits: Wikipedia]