Lullaby

Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk ***** Lullaby is not UpChucks best but it sure is close. It is easily among the best of his work. Better than Choke, Haunted, and Diary. On par with Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, and Survivor. The story is just absurd enough to almost kind of believe and gives insight into why UpChucks work is in a league all it's own. The story of a man who works a a journalist and has a current assignment on the subject of S.I.D.S. or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. As he begins his assignment he realizes a trend across the country, as all of the parents of the children who died had read them a poem from page 27 in a book of poems from around the world; a culling song. An old African chant used to send the dying to the other side. This is all by mistake that the parents harm their children of course but once the poem falls in to the wrong hand it shows that people have a serious issue with tolerance and self-control. As the main character scourers the country in search for every copy of the book he realizes he has undertaken more then he bargained for. Lullaby is a insightful (as is all UpChucks work), a page turner, and one that will have you transfixed on what is coming. Palahniuks signature style shines bright here and makes for one of his best novels.

This is my favorite Chuck Palahniuk book. It's go such a good plot and even better characters. It's just surprise after surprise with this. It's funny, crude, and somewhat meaningful. And the ending!! Oh man!!! I literally will go back just to read the last two chapters because it blew my mind.

Like Chuck's other books, Lullaby has a dark, intriguing premise, a hyper-fast plot, and a savage twist in the tail. It's a great read, a solid story, and Palahniuk fans will love it.But yes, it would be fascinating to see Chuck stretch his style a little, since what's a literary breakthrough in book one is not so much by book five. And all his female characters (with the exception of the protagonist of "Invisible Monsters") are starting to bear a suspicious resemblance to Marla from "Fight Club." Lullaby is terrific, but I'm hoping for even more from Chuck in the future.

Chuck Palahniuk has a knack for capturing the pressures of modern life, and the resulting angst and alienation of the people who inhabit it. To that extent, Lullaby is no different from Choke or Fight Club. This really isn't a twist on the horror story as some of the media reviews have made it out to be. There's the emotionally scarred main protagonist with a dark past secret waiting to be dredged up who surrounds him or herself with a surrogate family. There's the rants against modernity and consumerism and their resulting compulsions. There's the quest on which the main characters embark that culminates in an anarchic free for all. There's the identity switches between characters. And, of course, there's Palahniuk's wisecracks, smart-[aleck] asides, and spare, almost hard-boiled writing style.Palahniuk does all this so well, so uniquely, that his fans are not going to be disappointed with Lullaby.What makes Lullaby different from what has come before, and what makes Lullaby his best novel, is that he seems to tackle his usual themes a bit more thoroughly and directly than he has before. And for the first time, Palahniuk introduces the notion of modern access to information as something to really worry about, rather than accept as something that will liberate society. The device he uses here is an ancient African culling spell. A magical spell that poses as a deadly information virus.If there is anything that is unsatisfying it's the ending, which in typical Palahniuk fashion, resolves the fate in an anarchic free for all of outlandishness. It seems like Palahniuk plots his novels into dead ends, leaving him no way out to end his novels, and he has to resort to, well, what happens in Lullaby.But that doesn't make Lullaby an unsatisfying novel. And, in the strange world that Palahniuk's characters inhabit, which is still identifiably the world we live in today, the way Palahniuk unravels it all seems to make the only sense in light of what's come before in the novel.So far, Palahniuk can do no wrong.

I finished this book about an hour and a half ago, so I haven't had the time to fully absorb it. However, these are my initial impressions:This is a damn funny book. Palahniuk's wit is in full form here, especially in the scene involving the wiccan party.There is some truly disturbing content here. Especially in the usages found for the "culling song" by characters in the book. The John Nash character is among the most disturbed characters in Palahniuk's writing, and definitely the most evil person in this book.Plus, there's a Fight Cub reference in here. Look for it.Not that there aren't some weaknesses. The character of Oyster seems to be little more than a vegan Tyler Durden, and the scene set in Seattle comes directly out of a Tyler Durden fantasy.But overall, the minor weaknesses do not detract from a great overall reading experience. Highly recommended for all Palahniuk fans. Those uninitiated have been warned.