Palahniuk, Chuck: Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey
Writer: Chuck Palahniuk
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 320
Yes, I know, I suck. I finished reading this book a week ago, and every time I tried to post a review, my brain packed its bags and walked out on me. It seems I can't review this book to save my life, but I'm going to try, because I'm almost done with ANOTHER book, which means ANOTHER review, and I'd rather not get too behind.
Palahniuk (pronounced paula-NICK) has been one of my favorite writers for a long time now. I enjoy the hell out of his style, the energy he brings to his prose, and the fact that he relishes in describing the most random, disgusting, and unthinkable situations. But one thing to know about Palahniuk is that once you read enough of him, the power of his prose starts to fade. It's not new anymore. You start recognizing kinds of characters, and the gross-out factor, depending on your stomach, becomes a non-issue. This became apparent to me when I read Haunted, which exposed all of Palahniuk's weaknesses in a harsh light, so I was a little worried about reading Rant, even though my fiance said it knocked him on his ass at the end.
Rant is labeled as an "oral biography," which is a unique structure. The book is about a man named Buster Casey, aka Rant, and is told by everyone and anyone who knew and interacted with him. We never get Rant's own perspective, but we hear from everyone else his stories, his life, and just how weird he really is. And what makes Rant so special? Why, he started a rabies epidemic.
It's an odd little book, full of odd little characters. This tale ventures into the science fiction tradition, dystopia meets horror, but it all fits so nicely together at the end, and that's the beauty of it. It's fantastic, flawed, and completely fucked up, and by the end, I was very pleased to find that Palahniuk had redeemed himself in my eyes, despite the fact I know how his magic works.
I should note that the cut reveals MASSIVE spoilers about the book, such spoilers that will RUIN the book should you read them prior to reading the book. So if you click the cut, don't blame me, okay? This is your fair warning. :)
I have to admit: I figured it out early. The first chapter, as told by the car salesman recounting his meeting with Chester Casey, triggered my suspicion, especially the part where Chester tries to explain how he got a $50 roundtrip plane ticket. I kept reading that part over and over, knowing something didn't quite click. I paid attention to the hand. And I read on.
The format confused me at first. I wondered about the suns and moons beside everyone's names, which I later learned indicated said character was either a Daytimer or a Nightimer, a fantastic bit of dystopic world-building that I love to pieces. I also had difficulty figuring out how the chapters were laid out, but once I got a couple chapters in, I understood the format, what Palahniuk was accomplishing, and ran with it.
I was also suspicious of Green Taylor Simms. Something about his very first snippet bothered the hell out of me, especially when I noted that everyone else speaking in the chapter was in the car, driving through Middleton after Rant's death, and here Simms was talking about Middleton, yet, he wasn't in the car. Red flag #2.
It clicked during the scene where Rant is bitten by the black widow and he passes out in the garden. A description of his hand reminded me of Chester's hand on the plane, and I thought, "Rant faked his own death." Further on in the book, I couldn't help but start wondering about time travel, though the why's and how's of it were beyond me. I was always suspicious of Taylor, but he was the biggest surprise for me, as I never even imagined that he was really Rant 1.0, who went back in time to rape his own great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother to produce Rant 2.0, aka Buster Casey. Talked about your fucked-up twist.
But what fascinated me, aside from putting these various timelines together--oh, my poor brain!--was the fact that Rant 2.0 as a child was exactly what Green Taylor Simms must've been as a child, because those were actions of a seriously disturbed kid. What changed for Rant 2.0 was the fact he was raised by the older version of himself, and Rant 2.0 met what must have been the elderly Green Taylor Simms, who revealed the grand plan and exposed himself for who he really was.
The rabies I'm still trying to piece together. Aside from creating interesting moments of gore and revealing various dystopic aspects about the society these characters live in, I found the rabies to be rather irrelevant, except that rabies killed the boosting devices, and the freedom from said devices allowed people to travel back in time.
Of course, there's plenty of questions: did the original Rant, aka Green Taylor Simms, have rabies and did he subject himself to all the insect and animal bites that Rant 2.0 did? This is a slippery slope, because Rant 2.0 survived and the rabies virus mutated because of his hyped-up genes from Rant 1.0. So how did Green Taylor Simms survive all that?
Some questions derived from the problem of the narrative: the nature of it didn't allow for physical description, so I didn't know, for example, that Echo Lawrence was a girl until halfway through, and that she was seriously disfigured. Nor did I ever have a clear picture of Green Taylor Simms, which added to my bewilderment as I was trying to piece the timelines together. I think that latter was a deliberate manipulation on Palahniuk's part, but overall physical description became a problem for me, because the few descriptions of Rant were SO monstrous (the scars on his arms, the freaking BLACK TEETH) that any other POV should've relished in those details.
There were also threads that never got resolved. Rant 2.0 versus Waxman. I seriously thought there was going to be some kind of show-down between these two, but really, the only purpose Waxman served was to draw a parallel to Rant. Waxman wanted to become a god, and Rant wanted to stop his own god-hood from happening. Also, the conflict between Echo and Tina Something: I expected something would come of their rivalry, but nothing ever did. Odd, especially since it was Tina Something that managed to time travel (I'm forgetting the actually term, forgive me), and that turned into another hole: wouldn't the younger Tina have recognized herself at the train tracks, especially when the older one looks at her and Waxman? And what ever happened to Echo Lawrence anyway? We never learn.
Party Crashing was a fantastic bit of world-building, though it thoroughly confused me at first. I love how it became the method of time travel, and how tragic that it was Charles Casey (aka, most likely Green Taylor Simms) who hit Echo's parents head-on, and how Echo's flight from the backseat killed them before they could time travel could occur.
Oh, there's plenty of holes. Remember, it's flawed. I'm still pondering how a person can travel to a certain point in time, like Rant 2.0 did, in order to stop certain things from happening. I suspect location has something to do with it, but that doesn't give me much detail about the specific TIME one shows up at said location.
Still, this was a fantastic read. I enjoyed the build-up of Rant from the beginning, the disturbing grossness of character, the tall-taleness of it all. And the twist made the book that much sweeter, and I'll forget the obvious parallels to Fight Club and Tyler Durden, because it was so enjoyable.
Rant has earned a spot on my top-three favorites of Palahniuk list, after Survivor and Choke, respectively. It's an easy book to recommend, though part of me still wants those not initiated to Palahniuk's style to start with either Survivor or Choke, and then read the others at your leisure. For my two cents, Fight Club and Haunted are his weakest books, respectively. But Rant definitely stood out for me, and it's a book I could easily read over, just to get all the details I can, and to see how the pieces of this puzzle REALLY fit together.
Next up: The Language of the Night: Essays of Fantasy & Science Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin. Almost done, actually, so stay tuned for yet another review. :)