Oral Biographies

As I've said many times before, I'm reading Rant by Chuck Palahniuk and I just can't get over how good it is. 

It's an oral biography of this guy who did absolutely insane things and got away with them. However, he ends his life on television in a fiery blaze. He was also responsible for spreading a silent urban plague of rabies through his saliva. He actually does get pretty frisky with many ladies, as I've read thus far.

Speaking of thus far, I'm not even halfway done with this book yet, and so much shit has happened that I'm slightly afraid but anxiously awaiting to find out what happened to Buster "Rant" Casey towards the end of his existence. These characters are crazy, and I still don't know what the suns and moons next to the people's names are supposed to represent. I think it might have something to do with the "eclipse" period of the rabies virus that Rant spreads through his various hook-ups with women, I'm assuming.

Weird stuff. Oh, and I can't wait for his next book, Snuff, to hit the shelves, which is set to be May 20, 2008. WOO!

Attn: L :He's going to be in Atlanta over the summer, in June I think, and I REALLY REALLY want to go and see if I can get something autographed, hint hint (road trip?). Talk to him. I don't know. Snuff does sound like another mind-fuck-Palahniuk kind of story. Every novel produced by Palahniuk is just something of beauty. Even though some of the stories are quite vulgar and ugly, he makes them interesting with his intense way of telling his audience exactly how to do certain things that normal people would never dare to "try-at-home." To this day, I can't choose a favorite novel written by him. 

Next year, he'll be coming out with yet another gripping novel. This one, called Pygmy, has apparently already been written, or at least a first draft. Posted from the forums on chuckpalahniuk.net

Palahniuk says:

"I've just finished the first draft of a novel called "Pygmy," a dark comedy about terrorism and racism. The lead character is a 13-year-old foreign exchange student sent to live with a suburban, white, middle-class family. Oh, and they're Christians. The visit is for six months, and he's one of a dozen similar kids, all shipped to America to live with typical families.

The secret truth is that Pygmy is a terrorist, trained since infancy in martial arts, chemistry and radical hatred of the United States. He has six months to build a prize-winning project for the National Science Fair. If he succeeds, he and his project will go to Washington, D.C. for the finals competition -- where the project will explode, killing millions.

So far, Gerry Howard says it's the best book I've done. Fingers crossed for luck."

So I'm pretty much very excited about this one. It's going to be pretty amazing. But it's not like he doesn't do anything that sucks. 

To get onto the topic of oral biographies, I think it takes a lot of talent to actually make it work. I think if I tried to write an oral biography of someone right now, I think it would turn out really shitty. I need to start writing again. Writing things other than my wannabe GossipGirl/It Girl novel-project-thing. I didn't like how it was coming, so now I have to think of something new. Something more original. 

I just need to broaden my horizons, considering I've only been reading the Gossip Girl books and It Girl books recently. You write what you know, right? So I guess that it's also about what you've been reading too. I mean, writers read, don't they? Reading was what got me into writing in the first place, so shouldn't that also have an affect on a writer's style? Which is why I picked up Rant and some Hemingway books from the library. I think I need to do some more shopping on the library's internet database, or card catalog. 

I need suggestions for new reads. It makes me sad that I may be losing my intelligence every time I read a Gossip Girl or It Girl book. It kind of drives me crazy. Thinking I might fall into that mindset. 

There are other influences that could affect my mindset as well. For example, watching Veronica Mars makes me want to be kind of like her. Watching Grey's Anatomy makes me want to work at a hospital, even though I'm slightly afraid of them. Watching Lost makes me wish I were on the mystifying island too. And Heroes makes me wish I had a special ability like flying or cellular regeneration. Would I be evil- like Kristen Bell's character? Or would I be good like little Claire, the cheerleader. Ugh, television makes me crazy, maybe. 

p&l (for now, who knows how many more posts I'll post just this evening)

rachel