Survivor: A Novel (urspr publ 1999; utgåvan 2010)

Reminded me a lot of Fight Club, but a little bit less crazy, kind of. ( )

Survivor is a fast, interesting read. It maintains a consistent tone and style throughout—sort of good-naturedly nihilistic. Fully half the paragraphs in the book are one-sentence, creating the sense of a fractured but sincere narrative.

The book is structured as a confession, although not of a religious sort, as the last survivor of the Creedish church tells his story to the black box of a doomed aircraft. The cover of the book pitches it as funny and comic, but I mostly found the satire to be consistently doleful and thoughtful. (The final "miracle", however, was hilarious.) Tender Branson, the narrator of Survivor, has almost the exact opposite attitude as the narrator of Ellison’s Invisible Man—he’s perfectly willing to obey (without illusion) whoever will tell him what to do as he perversely subsumes his identity to whatever is most convenient at the moment: church, employer, media agency, clairvoyant love interest. His main shame is that he hasn’t committed suicide the way he was supposed to. Although one can argue that his failure to commit suicide is a decision to live, Tender’s choice to live (although how little he takes advantage of his life is an issue) creates an ironic existential crisis that comments on subjects including religion, mortality, blind obedience, sex, marketing, and self-imprisonment.

Survivor didn’t knock me over (somehow it didn't offend me as much as I kept hoping it would?), but it’s an intelligent satire in the mode of Vonnegut, and I can easily recommend it. ( )

I've now read everything of Palahniuk's other than Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey. I read Survivor out of sequence because I never saw a copy for sale until recently. I was pleased to read it, because it was significantly better than Haunted, but also saddened because it seemed to confirm my suspicion that Palahniuk's earlier work much fresher and better written.

Told more-or-less forward but counting back down to the opening moment (including reverse page numbering), Survivor is relatively complex and very engaging. Palahniuk engages in some low-key yet profound worldbuilding that is more characteristic of Jonathan Lethem than of Palahniuk's usual style. Palahniuk sometimes has trouble with the balance between depicting his protagonist's brutal (and brutalizing) inner narration and evoking empathy for the protagonist and his or her plight. Not so here--the protagonist is both troubling and attractive. Palahniuk might do well to aim for this blend and not, as his more recent books would lead one to believe, for the most outrageous and disgusting extremes of human behavior and experience. ( )

"[...] everybody thinks their life should be at least as much fun as masturbation (p 138)." The book has many good quotes and scenes, but as a full story it was not all that interesting. ( )

I found Survivor to be entertaining. It was the first Palahniuk novel that I have read and I think I will most definitely check out more of his work.

The narrative and plot of the novel started out strong for me, but I started to become less interested once the fame aspect entered Tender Branson's life. It was just a little too much for my taste.

All things aside; I still think that Survivor is a fun, read before bed, kind of book. ( )