A LITTLE RANT

“We won’t never be as young as we is tonight.”
— Rant Casey

Hello again out there. I’m reading Rant by Chuck Palahniuk, and I gotta say…this guy is really something else. Going to stick with my original impulse/insight on this (the seed of which was planted after reading Palahniuk’s Lullabye) and throw out the opinion that Chuck (I feel as if I want to know him.) is the heir apparent to the late, great Kurt Vonnegut. May he rest in peace.

Spare me the outrage, fellow Vonnegut-ophiles. This is not to say that there ever could or should be a fit successor to the man who gave us Slaughterhouse Five – or “Schlacthaus Funf “as I was forced to refer to it in Frau Rubicek’s German 3 class way back when in high school.

But I do get that same sense of giggling outrage creeping along my spine when I read about Rant Casey’s less than savory take on garbage cleanup, his unique Easter experiences, an account of his mother’s cooking, and his send up of The Tooth Fairy (to name but a few). And you’ll never feel the same way about rabies (or time travel), again. Mr. P challenges our world view like Mr. V. did. He pulls truth out of the outrageous, sparks the question “What the F*%k?”at least once every chapter, he makes us laugh and he makes us contemplate the at-least-occasional absurdity of our own lives.

I love this guy. Give him a chance…and if you did give him a chance but ended up throwing down the book in disgust and/or bewilderment, give him another chance.

He grows on you.

Hi Ho.