Instead of a typical review, here are some answers to questions
readers of my blog asked about my reading of Snuff.
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Q)) How was Point-of-View handled? Was there a single POV character
or did it alternate among two or more. Was it always clear whose
eyes and mind were filtering? What was the central or organizing
theme? How does the title relate to the story? Was it fitting?
A)) Snuff has three main characters and each chapter switches
between perspectives. The flow is not all that clear and sometimes
it became confusing as to what was happening. The language was
basic with no discernable traits for individual characters. Cliche
is an adequate way to describe the entire novel as it was
predictable from the start.
I honestly have no idea what the basic theme of Snuff is. Some
ideas I can throw out would be: removing the glamour from the porn
industry, showing that life comes full circle whether you're
looking or not, or maybe the idea that things change no matter how
much control you think you have - "What do you do when your entire
identity is destroyed in an instant? How do you cope when your
whole life story turns out to be wrong?"
As to the title of the novel you just need to read the first
chapter to understand the relevance - "Six hundred dudes. One porn
queen. A world record for the ages. A must-have movie for every
discerning collector of things erotic. Didn't one of us on purpose
set out to make a snuff movie." Fitting yes, original no.
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Q)) As for Snuff, again, have you read Palahniuk's other works? If
so, how does it stack up? I've heard descriptions of it here and
there in various reviews, and I'm just wondering if it's hard to
stomach?I will try it either way, probably, but it does sound
pretty um....uncomfortable...from what I've heard. But, as I said
with Oates...I generally respect an author very much for taking me
out of my comfort zone.
A)) Snuff ... hmm first let me say I am a huge, huge fan of
Palahniuk. He takes the most ordinary people and circumstances and
distorts them like a funhouse mirror. I've never been let down with
his fiction or non-fiction, but honestly Snuff was terrible. The
idea is that a porn star is going to break the gang-bang world
record by sleeping with 600 men, but the story is told from the
views of 3 of these men who have other plans. I had expected some
crazy plot twists, but none came, the ones that were included ended
up being totally predictable. There may be alot of uncomfortable
descriptions in the book, but overall they seemed to be trying so
hard to offend that they ended up boring me to tears. Most of
Palahniuk's works have something to say, but I missed the message
here. For a better Palahniuk try Lullaby, Choke or Invisible
Monsters.
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Q)) I skipped Snuff because I haven't heard anything good about it
so far. Was it disappointing? Have you read other Palahniuk novels?
Which one is your favourite, if so?
A)) As stated above, sadly Snuff was a disappointment to me. I have
managed to read all of Palahniuk's works (fiction and non-fiction).
Choosing a favourite from them is hard because I feel that beneath
the shocking parts and the unusual characters there was something
valuable from each. But I can say that Lullaby and Invisible
Monsters would be the top of my list - Lullaby is about a mission
to destroy a child's nursery rhyme that inexplicably causes SIDs -
Invisible Monsters is the story of a supermodel turned into a
"monster" by an accident.