Rant

Title: Rant
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Published: 2007 by Anchor Books
Genre: ...Palahniuk.
Pages: 314 plus list of contributors




A Dance with Dragons. It just never ends! And I kinda don't want it to, but it is a huge bloody brick, so when the SO and I went for a weekend trip, I picked up Rant for a re-read because I'd been thinking like, how good was it really when I read it the first time? When was it? 2008? Something like that.


And, damn it, it was all that really damn good. I mean, really, really good. Like, laughing out loud good. Like, coughing for the next half an hour good. That good. Yeah.


Buster 'Rant' Casey is dead, and this book is a collection, an oral history of his life by childhood friends, parents, friends and enemies. From fairly odd wonderchild -we're talking recognising people by the smell of their blood and spunk to being too friendly with venomous animals- in the middle of nowhere to a participator in the big city car sport of Party Crashing, Rant will drive you crazy. Because he will infect you with rabies. If he likes you.


Like with most of his books, Palahniuk has filled Rant with more wild ideas than you usually find in a whole series of books. It grabs you and keeps a tight hold until you bite into a thumb-tack or succumb to rabies. Personally I want to grab a car, tie the xmas tree on top -the season's pretty much done with, isn't it?- and go for a ride. Whee!




Shot Dunyun (Party Crasher): It wasn't only the boosted experiences that bothered Rant. It was dipshit kids done up as soldiers and princesses and witches. Eating cake flavored with artificial vanilla. Celebrating a harvest that didn't occur anymore. Fruit punch that came from a factory. A ritual to placate ghosts, or whatever bullshit Halloween does, practiced by people who had no awareness of that. What bothered Rant was the fake, bullshit nature of everything.