Hello, Comrade

Pygmy
Chuck Palahniuk
2009

I actually finished reading the novel two days ago, but I was in some sort of funk (still am) and I simply didn't have the energy to open MacLovin and go online after work.  I kept sleeping. I'm always sleepy, I know, but I was sleeping earlier than usual, which was (I think) attributable to the aforementioned funk.

Anyway, enough with the personal drama.

This is my first foray into Chuck Palahniuk.  I have honestly no idea who he is, save for the "Fight Club" bit, which I did not even watch.  Yeah, I'm a caveman like that. Ooga booga.

So hey, I bought a Palahniuk book the last time I entered a bookstore.  The summary on the back cover seemed interesting, and it was kinda cheap.

Basically, the entire book is written from the point of view of "Pygmy" (technically not his name), a terrorist from some totalitarian state that has the United States of America at the top of its hitlist.  Disguised as an exchange student, Pygmy and a few other agents have infiltrated American society, designed a deadly weapon under the guise of a winning "science project", and undertook an attack that would shock the country.

Unfortunately, Pygmy falls in love. 

Ah love. That bit of rubbery rubbish that sneaks into the cogs of a perfect, totalitarian society. It *spoilers, just in case* foils the terrorist plot and Pygmy gets to stay in the land of the free, home of the brave.

Awesome.

Now then.  I think the book was a fun romp, all in all.  It's written completely in ENGRISH, which is a bitch and a half.  It's incredibly difficult to read. 

The plot itself is interesting, if not original.  Pygmy is a sympathetic character, despite the terrorism, and the constant hard on, and the sodomy.  He's intelligent, charming and somewhat endearing.

Despite that, I can't get over the smugness in Palahniuk's writing.  There's some sort of "wink wink, nudge nudge" quality to his paragraphs, particular when depicting the flaws that Americans possess.  The xenophobia, the obesity, the consumerist mentality -- these are all realistic faults, but Palahniuk seems so glib in depicting them that it all ends up insincere and completely negates whatever point he was trying to make in the first place.

Sort of like Michael Moore bludgeoning your brains with his beliefs.

I'd agree, but you're so over-the-top it seems clownish already.

This doesn't completely turn me off Palahniuk.  I think he's an interesting writer, and I suppose I'll read a few more of his books, provided the summary on the back cover is promising.