There is an danger, very close to you, breathing down your neck at all times. It could go off at any second, and destroy your very essence.
It’s your brain.
This beautiful, wonderful, curious miracle that’s floating in the salty fluid of your head could turn on you at any moment.
Anyways, books. I promise I will get back to the brain thing. Think of the above nonsense as a teaser trailer, to trick you into reading the following book reviews in order to find out what I’m talking about.
My books this month: I read several by Chuck Palahniuk: Haunted, Tell-All, Diary, Fight Club, Invisible Monsters; then several book by various authors: The Taqwacores-Michael Muhammed Knight, Pretties-Scott Westerfeld, Eon-Alison Goodman, Dark Secrets- by Elizabeth Chandler. Don’t worry, I won’t talk about ALL of them.
First book up on the chopping block: Haunted, by Chuck Palahniuk.
Let me start off by saying that nothing (NOTHING) he ever writes will ever be nearly as good as ‘Fight Club’. That book is BRILLIANT. I have read it bajillions (literally) of times. The language, the voice, everything is perfect. It also helps if you read up on Merton’s Strain Theory and the Men’s Movement of the 90s. That being said….
‘Haunted’ was a blend between a novel and a short story collection. Each character in the book had at least one ‘short story’ about their past, and a larger, overarching plot united them all. It was fantastic.
NOT a book that would be enjoyed by all, however. It was extremely graphic, extremely gritty, and VERY disturbing.
Palahniuk is often considered a ‘shock’ novelist by critics. This is part of what I love about him. If you took Kurt Vonnegut’s darkly humorous critique of society, mixed in a little of a David Lynch-like strangeness and absurdity, and heaped on a whole crap-ton of disturbing sauce (by the makers of Sriracha Rooster sauce), you would have something in the vein Palahniuk.
This stuff makes anything better. Even bad literature.
I really think he should write a zombie novel; it would be AMAZING. All the Chuck Palahniuk books I read this month were fantastic.
‘Diary’ was probably my favorite of the lot, though. I HIGHLY recommend it; it seems almost like a companion novel to ‘Fight Club’, what with its social commentary and crazy twists.
Anyways, back to how your brain can really screw you over.
There are some really strange mental disorders out there. REALLY strange. Like the way the child of two siblings is strange. Or a dog in a fedora that also rolls his own cigarettes after burning down an orphanage. Or bologna. Some of these could just pop into your life one day and screw everything up in a big way. Kind of like a kid you didn’t know about (KIDDING! a little….).
Why am I so obsessed with weird mental diseases? I kinda have one myself. I hallucinate at night. BIG time. It’s a really extreme form of night terrors that involve audio and visual hallucinations. It doesn’t happen every night, but it happens often enough to shake things up. It’s kind of like LSD flashbacks, but without the fun Woodstock memories, and much less tie-dye.
Less like this:
More like this:
One night I saw an alligator on my dresser. Another time, I was sleeping at someone’s house and scared them to death when they woke up to find me talking to someone. They thought I was talking to them, but I told them to be quiet and said, “I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to HIM” (and I pointed toward the foot of the bed). I have seen maggots crawling all over a bloody ceiling. I have seen giant spiders and large crabs in my bed. Last night, I saw a tall shadow man walking out of the room.
These trips are SUPER realistic to me in the moment. It’s loads of fun. Really. (Pour over the sarcasm sauce, also made by Sriracha). This weirdness is found most often in children. Most people grow out of it, but I was one of the lucky ones to have it into adulthood.
Eh, it’s not SO bad.
Next book: Taqwacores by Michael Muhammed Knight.
This book was one big heartbreak and disappointment. It had so much PROMISE. But in the end, all of the excitement it promised turned out to be nothing but an anticlimactic let-down (THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!).
Why was it so bad? It was poorly written, for a start. The references to punk culture were all together too forced and contrived. Kind of like the kid who spends hours artfully shredding his brand new jeans and placing safety pins on his clothes, but he doesn’t know Johnny Rotten from Johnny Appleseed.
The narrator too was like a floating voice with no character or movement. Then, it REFUSED to take a philosophical standpoint. There was very little cohesion. It switched around, never committing, and then eventually began to peter out. To top it all of, the ending DESTROYED the entire potential message. It angered me. I was angered.
What promised to be a fascinating look at counter-culture, spirituality, and the zeitgeist of youth turned out to be an epic FAIL.
I mean, I’m glad I read it, because it had some interesting thinking points and observations. But overall, it was of the bad.
So, if you think my night terrors are bad, check out this next amazing disease. Ever see Dr. Strangelove? Remember his hilarious hand? That shit is real!!!!!!!
It’s actually called “Alien Hand Syndrome”. It is when your hand is not being consciously controlled by you, but instead takes actions of its own. Not just simple stuff, either; it can even undo your dress shirt, or use tools. Maybe even murder Seth Green.
Another insane one is Alice in Wonderland syndrome. It’s not QUITE as fu as it sounds, due to a distinct lack of rabbits in waistcoats, but it’s pretty interesting nonetheless. This fascinating little malady creates the illusion that all your surroundings are ridiculously small, or in the reverse case, gigantic. Like when Alice eats the cookies, or drinks the cordial.
But again, no Cheshire Cat, so I must suggest that this disease is worked on further. With just a few minor adjustments it could be the vacation of a lifetime. We’re halfway to a mad tea party, ladies and gents…
Next book:
Tell-All, by Chuck Palahniuk.
This book is all Hollywood glam, scandal, and name dropping, with a whole bunch of crazy. It’s completely different in it’s feel than the other books, like Pygmy was, but this one flowed much more smoothly and had its shares if hilarious twists and turns. And all of his books have really interesting bits of knowledge and trivia; I fact checked several of the most interesting ones, and they turned out to be true. He’s like the Dan Brown of twisted knowledge: he takes real facts and ideas and shoves them into a really skewed story that couldn’t possibly be true. I like the mood of this book. The language and name dropping is overwhelming at first, but you get swept into the momentum soon enough.
Ready for a real crazy one? Try on the Capgras Delusion for size. This little number has you thinking that a family member or loved one has been replaced by a malevolent imposter. So, every time you see your husband, you believe that the ‘real’ husband is missing, and the man currently in front of you is an evil lying bastard. This stuff is scary. I’ve seen case-studies with this.
I’m pretty sure my dog has been replaced with an imposter…..I’m getting suspicious lately…..
By far the craziest in my opinion is prosopagnosia. This is slightly more well known than the others due to the book “The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”. Sufferers of prosopagnosia are unable to recognize certain faces or objects. Instead, their brain sends them a completely random image. Like a hat. Or a giraffe. So, maybe your dad looks like a goldfish to you once in a while. Say you see your wife as a panda. Maybe you think that’s sexy. I don’t know what your into. No judgement here.
Well, ok, maybe judgement. REALLY?
Yuck.
Cute, but far from sexy.
