Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Lullaby
Book Review: Bleak Bleaker Bleakest...Did I Mention It's Funny?
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been listening to this on audiocassette, and I suppose I'm experiencing what it must be like to be manic depressive. One moment I am laughing, the next I am overwhelmed by despair. One keeps turning into the other. An amazing book, the first of his I've read. omfgBook Review: Book in search of screenwriter
Summary: 3 Stars
Chuck Palahniuk seems to be uncomfortable as a human. If we were to take some of the sentiments of his characters to be his own, we might well assume he would like to see us all blasted into space on a chunk of rock, or put to death by an African poem, as in Lullaby.This book tells the story of a journalist whose current assignment involves writing a series of "soft news" articles on crib death, only to discover the eerie thread tying all of the deaths together: the bedtime reading af a certain "culling song" from a book of childrens rhymes and stories. Once our journalist and narrator sets out to find the origins of the song, he meets a set of deliberately and inorganically odd characters -- most of whom bear more than a passing resemblance to characters from that other Palahniuk novel, Fight Club.
The problem with this book is not the story, even though Palahniuk does seem to enjoy making the same point with slightly varying language multiple times on the same page. Rather it's the writing, which never manages to really conjure up any concrete images of places or things or really flesh out characters the way the author obviously thinks it does. These characters are often just collections of nasty habits or odd bodily traits, and the only feeling any reader might be able to muster about them is indifference. Palahniuk's world is one in which everyone is vaguely menacing, and where no one is to be trusted. This conceit leaves little room for originality, as it's already been done with deft hand by Vonnegut and Camus. However, as bleak a world as it might be, no one ever seems affected. It isn't cool and aloof so much as it is shorthanded and badly in need of a friendly editor or a screenwriter to flesh out the details and make some images happen, rather than these pseudo-gritty glib generalities that pass for settings and character traits.
All in all this very short read was worth the effort. I think Palahniuk is obviously going places, and in his defense Survivor, which I am now reading, is shaping up to be quite good. I still know that I will probably forget all about having read this book weeks from now, whereas entire chunks of Cat's Cradle will be burned into my brain forever. Perhaps an unfair comparison, but one which Palahniuk not only invites but may someday rise to.
Book Review: Brimming with absurd details and weird anecdotes
Summary: 4 Stars
Lullaby is 260-page novel published in 2002, written by Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club. This is, for Palahniuk, a normal book, which makes it, compared to the usual, an absolutely crazy, freaked-out book.
The protagonist's name is Carl Streator, a journalist working on an article about SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). He has lost his wife and child twenty years ago and is a dysfunctional man who afflicts pain to himself to forget, to suffer, for his investigations reveal an unlikely connection between the cases of SIDS and the death of his family: every deceased died in sleep, none of them shows any sign of a cause of death, and apparently, each of them had been read the same poem from the same book just the evening before they died.
Streator finally finds a copy and tests the poem on his editor, who promptly passes away and thus makes Streator a murderer. Following that, Streator decides to find all copies of said book and destroy them, because he fears the downfall of civilisation if the poem is made popular and would get into the cogs of mass media. His vision is a world in which language and all artificial, man-made sound are shunned, a new Dark Age, in which communication breaks down, in which men become eremites in the fear of coming into contact with the poem through mere dialogue or background static. Streator, who abhors the noise of his city and his neighbours, subsequently accidentally becomes a serial murderer, for always when somebody pisses him off the poem flits through his mind, which is by now able to kill just by being thought.
Soon Streator meets Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate broker making money by selling haunted houses, and whose family died the same way Streator's did. Streator, Boyle, her secretary, and the latter's boyfriend leave the city to destroy the remaining books, scattered in public libraries all over America.
Palahniuk utilizes, as he does in his other books, very original means to tell his story. Lullaby abounds with freaky ideas, most of which criticize society relentlessly: there are the most obscure consequences of capitalism, the strange little stories and anecdotes of the absurd areas, which appear fictitious, but are, if you want to believe Palahniuk himself, meticulously researched. Furthermore, Lullaby brims with details, which are Streator's job to notice: the names of dishes, furniture, couples of serial murderers, which are strung together until they lose their sense & coherence. Through constant repetition and variation of snippets of sentences, Palahniuk creates his own melody, which is notable throughout the whole book. Who never saw that style before will be baffled at least.
Regarding the content, Palahniuk weaves criticism against today's society, capitalism, ecological destruction, and blind obedience to mass media, into all elements of the storyline (if that criticism isn't the real story itself), so that the reader notices, while reading, in what a sick world Carl Streator, and maybe the reader himself, is living. Thus, Lullaby leaves behind a stale taste, which is, by all means, intentional. To him who is, by this description, rather attracted than repelled, I whole-heartedly recommend Lullaby. Even without storyline, just for its absurd ideas, this book is already worth reading.
Book Review: By the balls
Summary: 5 Stars
This book grabbed me by the balls until I was done. I normally take a few months to get through a book, like Choke, but this was about a week. I would have only liked more main characters to die.Book Review: Captivating
Summary: 4 Stars
In very much the classic Chuck Palahniuk style, Lullaby focuses on many human frailties. Carl Streaton, an investigative reporter, is assigned to write a five-part series on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. During his investigation, he discovers a poem that grants a power many people have often wished for: the ability to kill with a thought. The idea of corruption that comes with power has been documented thoroughly and is well known, but Palahniuk presents it in a truly creative and entertaining way. While Palahniuk's style may be hard to get used to, the book gets difficult to put down once the plot picks up. In addition to being a captivating read, Lullaby is also a deceptively short read for being 260 pages. Great for a long trip or a few nights of leisure reading, Lullaby only heightens my respect for a brilliant writer.