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by Chuck Palahnuik
For people who don't mind their humor
served up bloody.
What will people do for money? Most people have seen or
heard of "Fear
Factor," "Who
Wants to be a Millionaire," "Survivor," and a whole bevy of
reality shows where people eat outrageous things or put themselves in
physical danger all for the vague promise of cold, hard cash. What happens when
society takes over and brain-washes people into only focusing on the
entertainment value after a show is over? What happens when people only care
about shocking stories and news bytes? Chuck Palahnuik explores these questions
and takes the situation to the extreme in his novel, "Haunted."
Twenty-three people answer an ad for a writers' retreat, unaware of the fact
that the host has kidnapped them in order to make them better writers. Each
story gets more and more outrageous as the host cuts the heat, power, and
eventually does away with the food. Instead of fighting to survive, the hostages
think that each new test is only designed to give them a new "human perspective"
to improve their writing -– so they even start to sabotage themselves.
Even when the hostages start dying, killing, and eating one another, they
continue telling stories. Each story revolves around the premise that the
remaining hostages will eventually star in a
reality show about their traumatic experience. Surely a producer would want
to chronicle that. And who better to play the heroes than those who survived
hell to tell the tale. Some of the tales are simply amusing, but the further
into the novel the reader gets, the more grotesque and bizarre they become. One
of the writers boasts that his tale has never failed to make at least one
audience member faint and another to become ill at readings. The tale did not
fail to make this reviewer cringe and feel queasy, either. Palahnuik’s tale is
twisted, but is an interesting commentary on the base American desire for fame
and fortune at any cost. In a Lord of the Flies-esque decline and failure
of democracy, the characters sabotage themselves and become barbaric. Eerily
perceptive, shockingly blunt and completely unafraid, Palahnuik’s work is truly
“haunted.”
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