"Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison," declares the whip-tongued thirteen-year-old narrator of Damned, Chuck Palahniuk's subversive new work of fiction. The daughter of a narcissistic film star and a billionaire, Madison is abandoned at her Swiss boarding school over Christmas, while her parents are off touting their new projects and adopting more orphans. She dies over the holiday of a marijuana overdoseâ??and the next thing she knows, she's in Hell. Madison shares her cell with a motley crew of young sinners that is almost too good to be true: a cheerleader, a jock, a nerd, and a punk rocker, united by fate to form the six-feet-under version of everyone's favorite detention movie. Madison and her pals trek across the Dandruff Desert and climb the treacherous Mountain of Toenail Clippings to confront Satan in his citadel. All the popcorn balls and wax lips that serve as the currency of Hell won't buy them off.
This is the afterlife as only Chuck Palahniuk could imagine it: a twisted inferno where The English Patient plays on endless repeat, roaming demons devour sinners limb by limb, and the damned interrupt your dinner from their sweltering call center to hard-sell you Hell. He makes eternal torment, well, simply divine.… (plus d'informations)
If you were to take Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, mix it with The Breakfast Club, and maybe sprinkle it with some Judy Blume you might be able to piece together the elements of this book. IT is filled with typical Palahniuk satire and wit. It has the absurdity in full force. And the shock value is high.
Admittedly, this is not my favorite Palahniuk book, and probably the lowest rating I have given any of his books... But this review, as is with the book, is to be continued. Maybe it just isn't finished with me yet.
Yes, this book is full of content warnings and trigger warnings and all things that go bump in the night. But that is standard fare with any Palahniuk. ( )
I've read several of your books and enjoyed them all but this one. In my humble opinion, it seems this book is too concerned with being "funny". Sorry. ( )
I liked it. Thought it lost it a little bit towards the end. Coming on like a Judy Blume character who read altogether too much Bret Easton Ellis, the protagonist is likeable and the narrative moves along nicely. I liked it more than anything Palahniuk has put out in a while. ... ( )
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison.
Citations
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
Trust me, the being-dead part is much easier than the dying part. If you can watch much television, then being dead will be a cinch. Actually, watching television and surfing the Internet are really excellent practice for being dead.
No, it's not fair, but what makes earth feel like Hell is our expectation that it should feel like Heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You'll find out for yourself soon enough. It won't help the situation for you to get all upset.
Probably I woke up because someone was screaming in Hell, someone is always screaming. Anyone who's ever flown London to Sydney, seated next to or anywhere in the proximity of a fussy baby, you'll no doubt fall right into the swing of things in Hell. What with the strangers and crowding and seemingly endless hours of waiting for nothing to happen, for you Hell will feel like one long, nostalgic hit of deja vu. Especially if your in-flight movie was The English Patient. In Hell, whenever the demons announce they're going to treat everyone to a big-name Hollywood movie, don't get too excited because it's always The English Patient or, unfortunately, The Piano.
Another detail to remember about Hell ... whenever you ask why anyone is damned for all eternity, she'll tell you "jaywalking" or "carrying a black purse with brown shoes" or some such pretty nonsense. In Hell you'd be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. The same goes for earth.
Don't get me wrong. Hell isn't so dreadful, not compared to Ecology Camp, and especially not compared to junior high school. Call me jaded, but not much compares to having your legs waxed or getting your navel piercing done at a mall kiosk.
After all the herbal high colonics I've endured, not to mention the electrolysis, the tortures of Hell hold little terror. It never fails to impress me how so many of the huddled masses and wretched refuse can flee the political oppression and torture of a foreign government, then arrive in America ready and eager to inflict largely the same tortures on the ruling classes here. As my mom sees it, her dry, flaky skin is some immigrant's vocational opportunity. Plus, hurting her offers immigrants a nifty cathartic therapy for venting their rage. Her chapped lips and split ends constitute someone's rungs up the socioeconomic ladder to escape poverty. Sliding into middle age complete with cellulite and scaly elbows, my mother has become an economic engine, generating millions of dollars which will be wired to feed families and purchase cholera medicine in Ecuador. Should she ever decide to "let herself go," no doubt tens of thousands would perish.
The demonic bureaucracy, they might pretend to shuffle some papers in an officious manner, then promise to review your file, but their attitude is: Well, you're in Hell, so you must've done something. In that way, Hell is awfully passive-agressive. As is earth. As is my mother.
The potentially needy mobs of newly dead, those anxious souls I've enrolled in dying and relocating to Hell, I've delegated those folks to various other reclamation projects. Really, I could pass as no less than the FDR of the afterlife, what with all the dams I've decreed be built across rivers of scalding blood.
And yes, I've vanquished demons. I've desposed tyrants and taken command of their conquering armies. I'm thirteen years old, and I've shepherded thousands of dying people into the next life with relatively little upset. I never finished junior high school, but I'm overhauling the entire nature of Hell, on schedule and under budget. I deftly toss off words such as absentia and multivalent and convey, but I'm caught completly off guard by the sound of my parents' tears.
Derniers mots
Informations provenant du Partage des connaissances anglais.Modifiez pour passer à votre langue.
Now, if you'll excuse me, it's late, and I'm in a terrible hurry to go kick some satanic ass. To be continued ...
"Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison," declares the whip-tongued thirteen-year-old narrator of Damned, Chuck Palahniuk's subversive new work of fiction. The daughter of a narcissistic film star and a billionaire, Madison is abandoned at her Swiss boarding school over Christmas, while her parents are off touting their new projects and adopting more orphans. She dies over the holiday of a marijuana overdoseâ??and the next thing she knows, she's in Hell. Madison shares her cell with a motley crew of young sinners that is almost too good to be true: a cheerleader, a jock, a nerd, and a punk rocker, united by fate to form the six-feet-under version of everyone's favorite detention movie. Madison and her pals trek across the Dandruff Desert and climb the treacherous Mountain of Toenail Clippings to confront Satan in his citadel. All the popcorn balls and wax lips that serve as the currency of Hell won't buy them off.
This is the afterlife as only Chuck Palahniuk could imagine it: a twisted inferno where The English Patient plays on endless repeat, roaming demons devour sinners limb by limb, and the damned interrupt your dinner from their sweltering call center to hard-sell you Hell. He makes eternal torment, well, simply divine.
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6
If you were to take Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, mix it with The Breakfast Club, and maybe sprinkle it with some Judy Blume you might be able to piece together the elements of this book. IT is filled with typical Palahniuk satire and wit. It has the absurdity in full force. And the shock value is high.
Admittedly, this is not my favorite Palahniuk book, and probably the lowest rating I have given any of his books... But this review, as is with the book, is to be continued. Maybe it just isn't finished with me yet.
Yes, this book is full of content warnings and trigger warnings and all things that go bump in the night. But that is standard fare with any Palahniuk. (