Customer Reviews

Snuff

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am a big fan of Chuck. I think his non fiction is outstanding (see Stranger Than Fiction) and the majority of his fiction is breakthrough and astounding. Chuck is a pendulum though and while many of his books will be classics in a generation or so, this is not one of them. This book is a poorly executed, shocking idea that, in the end, seems to exist for no other reason than for the press and attention that is inherent when a popular writer takes on a sensitive subject. It could have been more insightful. It could have been more probing. It could have been more.

I honestly find myself at a loss for words having just completed Snuff.

From someone so brilliant to have written the likes of Survivor and Fight Club, comes.. well, this.

This book reads like a Wikipedia article collection, written by thirteen year old boys still searching for the perfect way to describe someone who masturbates. The incessant factoids about porn, Marilyn Monroe, condoms, the gay community, and cyanide could possibly the the most boring, ineffectual and downright idiotic thing I've read in my entire life.

The description is enticing, but this book downright fails to deliver. Chuck insists on creating as many stupid porn titles as he possibly can, sounding like a rehersal for a Saturday Night Live skit before airing, minus any of the humour. The first couple gain a small chuckle, the rest leave you shaking your head. If I had to read one more name for someone who masturbates, I would have thrown the book across the room - had the hardcover novella deceptively marketed as a full novel not cost an arm and a leg.

The plot is unremarkable in every way, the characters utterly unlikeable and unrelatable. Words are repeated, and I feel sorry for whoever edited this 'work' - they're likely out of a job, from all the akward sentences.

You could see the ending of this novel - minus a small 'twist' in the form of the reality in which the two characters will now have to live - coming from a mile away, though they drag it out through disjointed style that forces you to pick it all apart.

If I have anything positive at all to say about this work - the cover is intriguing. Brings back the Linda Lovelace train of thought.

Here's to hoping Palahniuk delivers something worth reading sooner than later.

A darkly comic tale about porn and its stars. One of Palahniuk`s best to date.

To enjoy snuff you have to be a fan of movies. Knowing the movie industry at least superficially you get the feeling that the point of snuff is to point out that all actors do horrible things to themselves, that the only difference between Star and Porn Star is the amount of on screen nudity.