Chuck Palahniuk – Choke and Invisible Monsters (nine & ten)

The greatest contemporary writer I know is Chuck Palahniuk. If you haven’t already, pick up one of his books the next time you pass by a book store.
A dark shadow looms over all that Chuck writes, and its name is Guilt. Every main character in every book looks upon him or herself and sees failure. Let downs. They are viruses and bacteria, running through the vascular system of the world. Taking refuge in the shadowy corners of its gastro-intestinal tunnels, all the while irritating and provoking the host. It’s socio-economic guerrilla warfare, fanning the funeral pyres of resistance. It’s a world of dark futures and even darker minds. But at the same time, and in the most beautiful way, they are heroes and will save us with a black plague. Our next extinction level event will come from within, erupting through the streets, the contents of long forgotten sewers will bring a new world order. Duck – cover and roll. It will be known, by their hand, that we all stink. And the more we try to contain our festering innards, the heavier a pungent odour will ooze through our pores, the more violent the explosion and the deeper the pock-mark.
This would all be very depressing and bleak if it weren’t for the undeniable, unbelievable, beauty, oh my what beauty, of the paced and sifted language. Masterly, Palahniuk also manages, seemingly without effort and certainly without compromise, always to contain the most extravagant stories to involve only a few characters. No man is an island, but an ocean of past and future, always urgently connected.
Yes, I get a bit carried away when I try to write down what I think about these stories. I find it fantastic how the writing negates the pessimism and hopelessness, making each chapter a love poem to language and human beings, while still allowing, or perhaps underlining, the occasionally strong criticism of modern society.
Choke deals with a self-proclaimed sex addict, wandering around in the shadow of his dying mother, the weight of her need the only thing tying him to this life. If she dies he has nothing holding him back, and no reason to go anywhere. It’s funny, explicit and perhaps the one of his books that is most focused on guilt and forgiveness.
Invisible monsters main character is a former super model, her face now mutilated and her entire previous life shattered. The story is told in a machine gun fire of flashbacks from the floor of a burning house in the presence of a bride with a rifle. Sorting through her life up to now, the narrator lets veil after veil drop from her story, and as you may imagine, what one imagines is never nearly as weird as the true story.

Henry Miller – Tropic of Capricorn (eight)

It took me a while to get through it, but I’ve finished “Tropic of Capricorn”. Since I didn’t really like “Tropic of Cancer”, my expectations on the Capricorn were low and I thought I would have to struggle through it. Quite correct. For the most part I was struggling through it. It’s a dense jungle of words, written without interruption or chapters, and I found myself several times praying for it to let up, to relent, to give me a chance to surface and breathe. But what it also is, is great. From the very first page its awesome in the true sense of the word. Only, the greatness is crammed, too tightly packed into the pages of the book. Whichever loose end you tug at it remains tangled with the rest of the words, and the meaning must only have been clear at the moment of dictation. Strangely, this doesn’t matter. It’s so immensely beautiful, clarity might only have killed me.
It is an unpredictable, intoxication mish-mash of visions, reveries and occasional mundane autobiography. A metaphor can suddenly, as if through play or distractedness, become the main path of the story. Henry turns a street corner and steps into a dream. It’s narcoleptic narrative. It is brim-filled with sex. The notorious beggar and professional sex-addict, roams the streets of New York and spreads America out on top of dirty bed sheets. He tells her lies and shows her the truth.

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Memorable quotes:
“For the first time I was talking to a man who got behind the meaning of words and went to the very essence of things.”
“I say I am thinking of her, but the truth is I am dying a stellar death. I am lying there like a sick star waiting for the light to go out.”
“What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse.”
“This is all a figurative way of speaking about what is unmentionable.”