StairMaster to Heaven (Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk)

Member Name: MykReeve

Product:	Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk
Date:	28/01/01 (546 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastic black humour, a damning indictment of contemporary life

Disadvantages: If you don't like your humour dark, you'll hate it

I'm a sucker for unusual books, I admit it. Whether it's an unconventional size of volume, or an unusual layout of text on the pages, I'm there. So, when I saw the novel 'Survivor' by Chuck Palahniuk numbered the pages in reverse order, I had to buy it. I wasn't particularly worried about the plot, nor about the author, I just thought it was an interesting gimmick, so I rewarded the publisher with a purchase.

As it turns out, my purchase was a very rewarding one. 'Survivor' is a very well-written, captivating book, with a lot of fascinating ideas, and a healthy (or unhealthy) dash of pre-millennial tension thrown in for good measure. Chuck Palahniuk, for those who don't recognise the name, is the author of 'Fight Club', the novel that inspired David Fincher's 1999 excellent, but sadly-under-attended-at-the-box-office-due-to-woef ully-inappropriate-promotion, film.

THE PLOT

The book is about a character by the unlikely name of Tender Branson. When we first encounter him, at the start of the book, in chapter 47, on page 289, he is the only passenger on a commandeered Boeing 747 en route to Australia, narrating his story to the plane's black box recorder, before the plane runs out of fuel.

We soon learn that Tender was a member of a church community from Nebraska not much different from the Amish, in regard to their distrust of technology and modern technology, who live by a very strict set of rules. In the community, known as the Creedish, every couple produces as many children as possible. The eldest son of every couple, named Adam, and the eldest daughter are allowed to remain in the community, and marry another eldest child. The younger sons, all of whom are named Tender, and all the younger daughters, stay in the community until their 18th birthday, when they are sent out into the world to spread the word about their religion.

All sound fine? Well, it would be, if it we
ren't for the fact that the Creedish are a death cult. When the church leaders announce the time of 'the Deliverance' all Creedish, including the exiled church members, are expected to commit suicide as soon as they hear about the coming of the Deliverance. Tender Branson, like many of the outcast members of the church, first finds out about the Deliverance when some policemen and a caseworker turn up on his doorstep to prevent him committing suicide.

As the numbers of Creedish survivors dwindle, and the page numbers decline, Tender's life takes strange turns. At the beginning of the story Tender narrates to the black box recorder, he has been a survivor for ten years, and is still being visited by his caseworker. He works for a rich couple, cleaning their enormous home, and teaching them how to eat tricky foodstuffs like lobster over the speakerphone while they're at work. In his spare time, he answers phone calls from people seeking Samaritans-style advice, originally due to a misprint in a newspaper that gave his number by mistake. However, when he discovers how much he enjoys it, he begins advertising his service with notices reading "Give Yourself, Your Life, Just One More Chance. Call Me For Help." His 'help' almost exclusively consists of the two words "Kill Yourself."

THE WRITING

I haven't actually read 'Fight Club', though I have seen the film. Both stories involve dysfunctional, disillusioned characters annexed from the society that they occupy. This, apparently, is a common theme in Palahniuk's work, and it's certainly something that he can write well. Both stories feature relatively weak female characters, who are nonetheless instrumental in driving the self-discovery of the main characters – Marla in 'Fight Club' and Fertility in 'Survivor'. Both stories also include passages on aeroplanes which is apparently another bete noire of Palahni
uk's, since an aeroplane (or at least, an aeroplane lavatory) is also set to feature prominently in his next work, 'Choke'.

Also, both stories involve characters with a large amount of knowledge of very specific fields. Tender provides a lot of details about housekeeping and etiquette that he learnt in the Creedish community, such as how to remove various stains and which cutlery to use at dinner. Palahniuk has also done a lot of homework into psychological disorders, not only to make Tender's character more believable, but also because we learn that over Tender's ten year stint with his caseworker, he pretended to have various psychoses listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

The actual writing style is very good, consisting of screamingly funny black comedy from beginning to end, with every opportunity taken to lampoon contemporary social mores. Palahniuk writes extremely well and Tender comes over as a very believable character. As the story progresses, you do begin to sympathise more and more with Tender's predicament, and perhaps more worryingly, after a while you begin to associate with his unique outsider's perspective on modern life. Obviously the text is written in the first person from beginning to end, since it takes the form of Tender's confession to the black box recorder, and is as rambling as a single person's 289-page account of their life might be expected to be.

As for the ending, and no, don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything. We already know from the first few pages of the book where and when the book's going to end, so it's no surprise to that it ends with the Boeing descending at terminal velocity towards Australia. I liked the ending as I read it, and made my own assumptions about what Palahniuk was trying to imply, which I felt pretty satisfied with. However, I have subsequently read Palahniuk's intention for how the ending sh
ould be interpreted. I must confess, I'd not spotted the various details woven into the text suggesting his alternative explanation for what happens, but they are there. If you've got your wits about you, and a very (very) lateral mind, you might figure it out. I didn't.

You can find a discussion of the ending of the book, including Palahniuk's explanation for how he envisioned the ending to be interpreted at: http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/survivor.htm, but don't scroll down and read it before reading the book – you'll only spoil it for yourself. Really.

MOVIE RUMOURS

If it weren't the minimal returns on 'Fight Club' at the box office, Hollywood would no doubt be hammering at Palahniuk's door for the rights to convert 'Survivor' into a movie. In a lot of ways, 'Survivor' lends itself better to a movie, with a truly stunning conclusion that is easy to miss in the novel, but could be expressed superbly on the big screen.

There have been rumours of a movie for several months now, with Nine Inch Nails musician Trent Reznor, expressing enthusiasm to provide a soundtrack, and Gwyneth Paltrow's brother, Jake, being brought in to write the script. The first person to express an interest in directing the movie was Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer behind wholesome run-of-the-mill Hollywood action movies like 'Top Gun' and 'The Rock'. Needless to say, this would have been a disaster for the movie, and Reznor announced that he'd withdraw from the film if Bruckheimer directed. Most likely, Bruckheimer will take his usual role of producer, and bring in someone else to direct. So many rumours abound about the stars likely to be brought in for the film, that it's difficult to keep track of them all. The last I heard was that Tender Branson could well be played by Kevin Spacey, and Tony 'Enemy of the State' Scott might be brought in to direct, but thi
s could well change...

CONCLUSIONS

'Survivor' is a film begging to be made. It's a fascinating satire on organised religion, and Palahniuk takes an extremely vicious swipe at modern society. It's a brilliantly written book, and is extremely compelling – I found myself reading it every odd moment that I had available at work. The comedy in the book is very dark, and so long as yours is too, you'll absolutely love it.

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