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Who is Chuck Palahniuk?
Chuck Palahniuk is a novelist who has become closely associated with Generation X culture. Born Charles Michael Palahnuik on 21 February 1962, Palahnuik gained major recognition after one of his novels was turned into a film. Fight Club, directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, turned Chuck Palahniuk into a best-selling author overnight.
Chuck Palahniuk was born and grew up in Pasco, Washington. In 1986, he graduated from the University of Oregon's School of Journalism. Short stints followed at a local newspaper and as a mechanic, but after becoming increasingly dissatisfied with his career choices, Palahniuk volunteered to work at a homeless shelter. He also spent time as a volunteer transporting terminally ill patients to support group meetings.
Chuck Palahniuk used these dark experiences in his third novel, Fight Club, published in 1996. Fight Club was originally written to annoy a publisher who had accused his work of being too disturbing. Before Fight Club, Palahniuk's previous novels, Insomnia: If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Already and Invisible Monsters, were both rejected by publishers, though Invisible Monsters has since been published and is to be made into a film.
Palahniuk’s style of writing is sparse. He writes in short sentences and uses the main character’s voice to tell the story. He has often been described as a shock writer who uses graphic and horrific descriptions in order to shock the reader on an ever increasing scale. At many of his readings of his novel Haunted, people were said to have fainted due to the gory content of the stories.
One of Palahniuk’s trademarks is to intersperse his stories with pieces of factual information. This technique serves to draw the reader further into the story. However, many of the so-called facts are actually fiction.
With Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk became hailed as the modern voice of anti-materialism. Both the film and the book behind it struck a chord with many people who were dissatisfied with large corporations and the influence they had on people’s lives. Some people have criticized Palahniuk's writing as nihilism, a tag that he has rejected as an easy label used by the media.
Fight Club turned Chuck Palahniuk into a cult phenomenon and a best-selling author. He has the largest Internet fan base of any author. He is exceptionally considerate of his fans and replies to every letter written to him. Chuck Palahniuk also contributes to an official website called The Cult. Chuck Palahniuk has written nine fiction novels and three non-fiction books.
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![Chuck Palahniuk once quit his job to volunteer in a shelter.]()
By: Jasmin MerdanChuck Palahniuk once quit his job to volunteer in a shelter. -
![Chuck Palahniuk wrote "Fight Club," which was turned into a movie starring Brad Pitt.]()
Chuck Palahniuk wrote "Fight Club," which was turned into a movie starring Brad Pitt.
Discussion Comments
There is some interesting information in this article about Chuck Palahniuk. For instance, I did not know that he has the largest Internet fan-base of any other author. That is a cool and telling accomplishment!
What is even more interesting about Chuck Palahniuk is that he reads every message his fans' write, and respond back as well. This shows a lot about his character, that he truly cares for all his fans, and he isn't just a writer for the fame and fortune.
I wonder if Chuck Palahniuk's sensitivity to his fans, has led him to have more and more fans, in fact the most fans on the internet.
I can just imagine if I went on website and wrote a favorite author a letter, I would feel so special to get a reply back. I would probably tell my friends about it, and some of them who may not even have heard of the person would become intrigued and maybe even become a fan. Word of mouth can be a very powerful advertisement tool.
Whatever the reasoning is behind his success, it seems like his success is much appreciated and taken seriously and humbly by him, which is a very endearing and rare characteristic in most people who acquire fame and fortune.
One quote from his book The Fight Club speaks volumes to me: "The things you own end up owning you." This is not a hundred percent true, but sadly about ninety percent true in our society, in my opinion.
Many people are consumed by material things. A lot of the wealthiest people in a materialistic sense are bankrupt in every other sense. People need to wake up and smell the coffee, for what matters in life is the riches of the heart.
We can not take our possessions with us when we die, so what is the point on buying more and more useless items, especially when there are millions of people who could use the money for good, helpful things.
I did not know who Chuck Palahniuk was until I read this article. I saw Fight Club when it first came out, when I was fourteen, and to say the least, I did not understand it. It was also too gory for me.
I bet if I were to watch Fight Club again, it would make a lot more sense than it did back then. I think that Chuck Palahniuk is a smart and brave guy to tackle the opposition and problems with materialism, in a time where materialism was at it's highest.
Unfortunately, I don't think most people took heed to the message Mr. Palahniuk taught. Many people seem to either not care about Chuck Palahniuk’s message on the corruption of materialism, or they did not fully grasp the message, as I didn’t so many years ago.
I think we all should read Mr. Palahniuk’s book and/or watch the movie The Fight Club, to be reminded just how corrupt materialism is.
@Izzy78 - I think for most writer's not named Stephen King a movie adaptation of their book only enhances their careers.
Yes, usually the book is very popular before the movie, but a movie only makes the book more mainstream and allows more attention to be put on the author of the book.
If it was not for the Fight Club movie I would not know who Chuck Palahniuk is and I do not think that this is due to the message of his book, I simply do not read a lot and I am like a lot of people.
Besides any successful writer must satisfy their fans and write for their audience of readers. It is very hard to write outside of their audience and most authors do not succeed in doing so. So that makes Chuck Palahniuk no different than most successful writers.
What I would like to know is what other books did Chuck Palahniuk write? I am sure that he has written some other good books but I do not hear very much about them. Maybe writing Fight Club has overshadowed everything else he has written?
@kentuckycat - I find that very believable. Chuck Palahniuk's book concerns with a subject that does go over a lot of people's heads. The whole concept of materialism nowadays is something that a lot of people realize, but do not really think about.
People in America have so much material nowadays that they lose sight of what is important and begin to rely on their material wealth too much. America is not the only guilty party, much of the world is, but this still becomes a major problem and a as some theorists would call a social dilemma.
The whole concept of the movie does not seem like it would appeal to an audience, but it does do to the hooks they added and the background of the story. Chuck Palahniuk's book was aimed at a target audience and if you were outside of the target audience you probably would not like his book, despite how good of a story it really is. I honestly feel like the movie greatly helped Chuck Palahniuk's career due to this fact.
@titans62 - I think that there is more to the story than you think about Fight Club being optioned into a movie.
I have always been under the impression that the reason why it took so long for the movie Fight Club to to become a reality was because the story itself was hard to be turned into a Hollywood script and find a fan base among audiences.
The story itself is such an out there type of story and concerns a subject that is so deep that studios did not see the movie adaption finding an audience and it was not until they got big name actors who wanted to do the movie that they were able to finally get the backing to make it.
I do not know much about Chuck Palahniuk, but I do know a lot about the movie Fight Club. The movie Fight Club, which stars Brad Pitt and Edward Norton is seen as one of the best "out there" movies ever made and is definitely has one of the greatest cult followings to any movie ever made.
Although the movie is a little different from the book they both speak the same message. They both speak of the materialistic culture that was the 90's and that a change needed to occur. The story itself was great and was well known for years that it was to be optioned into a movie. It was not until that they got the appropriate people on board that they were able to do so and release the movie in 1999, an appropriate year for the end of the most materialistic decade in history in my opinion.
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