“traffic in the half-baked nihilism of a stoned high school student who has just discovered Nietzsche and Nine Inch Nails” – Laura Miller on Palahniuk
Puppy: I think that’s not accurate. “Half-baked” and “stoned” imply use of drugs, ostensibly to amplify creativity, and I see none of that in Palahniuk’s ‘Fight Club’. They also imply that the writer in question is not fully in control/command of their writings, which is doing a dis-service to every half-baked work ever made, by a high school student, college student, professional writer, or anyone with half a brain that is literate. Invoking Nietzsche and NIN, besides bringing up two vastly different talent levels, degrades the at-least-well-meaning nature of those who are fascinated by them and write inferior works in an attempt to live up to them. Palahniuk is different. Here is a grown man, clean and sober, intentionally writing high-school level chaotically uneven I-guess-you-could-call-them-“philosophical” rants about vastly different subjects and somehow attempting to link them, and he is working at the HEIGHT of his talent level. Sad, really.
“Until you can create something that captivates people, I’d invite you to just shut up.
It’s easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It’s a lot more difficult to perform one.” – Chuck Palahniuk
Puppy: Let’s analyze this.
“Until you can create something that captivates people”.
Puppy: The use of the word “Until” states that IF the conditions FOLLOWING the word are reached, THEN the person quoted is in fact giving their approval for the action being criticized to be TAKEN, in fact with their blessing since no other caveats are made.
So, IF “you” = anyone that wants to blast Palahniuk’s “creations”, and I think it does, since he expands to a broad scope later in the quote…
It follows that if anyone in the world “can create something that captivates people”, they thereby have Chuck Palahniuk’s blessing to trash Chuck Palahniuk’s work, if they so choose.
Semantically speaking, anyone “can” create something that captivates people…just because they haven’t DONE it doesn’t mean they CAN’T…but let’s assume he made a semantic mistake intentionally or was just really peeved.
something = anything
people = more than 1 person
Therefore…
IF anyone creates anything that captivates more than one person, THEN they can trash his work, by his own admission.
So, Justin Bieber has every right to criticize ‘Fight Club’.
And everyone that put a video on YouTube that got 2 or more “Likes”.
MOVING ON…
“I’d invite you to just shut up” – Well isn’t that grown-up of him. NYAH NYAH!
“It’s easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It’s a lot more difficult to perform one.”
So Chuck you’re saying her criticism has destroyed your works?
I think “act” is the definitive word here, as Chuck’s “performance” on ‘Fight Club’ is pandering to the mindset mentioned by the critic. Nothing more. That some other people buy into such transparent horsesh1t is a testimony to the fall of the novel as a means of great expression.
“It is easier to destroy than to create”.
Also, 1+1 = 2
Sad.
-Puppy >.< Yip!