Book Review:
Damned by Chuck Palahniuk
In the aftermath of Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted, with the first few books that followed it, I thought I was the only one aware of the downfall of this once very clever author. During the time between Haunted and Pygmy I was confused by Palahniuk's rise to becoming a big name author happening in parallel with the diminishing quality of his writing with each subsequent release. Haunted I thought was a fluke; it did has some potential with the main story, and a few of the shorts were impressive. But with Rant, then Snuff, then Pygmy, I noticed a lack of effort and unique cleverness that made his earlier works so impressivc. His experimentation with prose has always felt to me like an author too afraid to deviate away from trademark style, which for Chuck is his clever and witty first-person narrators, while still trying to make an effort to be cutting edge.
