Does anyone really really paint anymore: Diary, A Novel
Written: Oct 12 '03 (Updated Oct 12 '03)
Product Rating:
Pros: About time Palahniuk raised his rifle to modern artistic culture.
Cons: Not the best Palahniuk...not enough vitriol, needs more burning coals...
The Bottom Line: Chuck takes on the artistic establishment, cold-blooded islanders, and the karmic cycle. Lacks the over-the-top punch of Choke or Invisible Monsters. Still better than most.
avepythagoras's Full Review: Chuck Palahniuk - Diary
Today's Weather Is Slightly Nostalgic
When I was in college, studying as an undergraduate, I had some odd relationships with art students. Girlfriends, roommates, weekend liaisons: they all had some odd personality trait. One feared change and fast cars. Another couldn't finish a bowl of cereal, it would sit out on the kitchen counter until the rancid milk evaporated and the crispy chunks of wheat formed a solid matte of squishy god-knows-what. One just liked to bite, a little too hard--and drew blood on a few occasions. Even in their eccentricities, I enjoyed my time with most of them. They were a different kind of people.
Art is a tricky business. Inspiration comes hard. Only a very select few will ever become important, the rest will trade their brushes and inspiration for the cold necessity of making a stinky wad of cold cash.
But I do get tired of contemporary art. Gluing burnt plastic Barbie dolls into a grotesque ball of charred Mattel remnants just doesn't move me. Cow semen and elephant excrement just aren't the same as the Sistine Chapel or a chilling Rembrandt portrait. Maybe I just don't get it. What is art if it can't speak to an audience?
But I think its time someone said something...questioned the nature of the artistic establishment...opened our eyes to the possibility that, perhaps, beauty can exist in a world gone completely, utterly, unquestionably insane...
The weather today is annoyed with occasional fits of humor
And so good old Uncle Chuck Palahniuk takes us by the hand, and leads us through his gallery of perverts, sycophants, and other ne'er-do-wells in his bestseller Diary: A Novel.
Misty Marie Wilmot is in a bind. Her husband's recent attempt at suicide put him into a coma. Now a vegetable, planted firmly in the sands of a hospital bed, his body atrophies with every passing day. Misty has little prospects for the future. A waitress with a demanding mother-in-law and a pre-teen child, she finds herself angry, depressed, enraged, soulless, caught in a world beyond her control.
At first it was love. Peter offered a life away from her trailer park world of Tecumseh, Georgia. They planned to move to New York and be artists. But she got pregnant instead and moved with Peter to Waytansea Island. A smallish resort town off the coast of wherever...think Nantucket or some such other island.
A dark secret waits. With each passing day, her life grows more hopeless. Freaky, Cryptic and obscene messages left by her husband on other people's houses leave her stunned. And all anyone can ask, "How's your painting going, Misty?." "Have you started painting again?" In order to make beautiful art, one first must learn how to suffer. And with ample suffering Misty begins to paint again. But she begins to wonder if all this, the suicide, the messages, the headaches, the alcoholism, the generally pathetic life, aren't some grandiose plot, some dark, devilish, insanely evil plot. But exactly what plot, and how does it involve her, a trailer-trash art school dropout from Georgia?
Of course, this is a Palahniuk novel, so rest assured, the plot is pretty damn insane.
Today's Weather is slightly critical with a chance of redemption
The novel unfolds in the form of a diary. Misty writing her frustrations, all the anger and betrayal of a loved one's suicide. Chuck's sensible analysis of suicide, the bitterness of a lonely wife, the anger of living, and the fears of the future are well captured and very true to life. You really feel for Misty, you can sense her shame, the hot anger burning inside her.
Chuck has his fun with contemporary art. Ripping into the intellectual shallowness of 'shock art', of a generation of art students more concerned with irony and cleverness than beauty, form and theme. Which is funny coming from Chuck, the king of the contemporary shock novel. But he makes some astute criticisms. One art student surgically removes the stuffing of a teddy bear and replaces it with excrement. Another stages a puppet show with her mouth, that is until she choked on a tongue camel. Beauty is important. It is a powerful thing. Where once artists sought to paint, sculpt and draw things of beauty, things worthy of respect and reflection, now all we have are meaningless images and cheap novelties. But what is more important: beauty can exist, or at least coexist amidst the rampant nihilism and confusion of the modern age. Beauty, and as a consequence art, may actually have the power to save us.
In order to do art, or at least beautiful art, we must suffer. We must give up. Realize that we are nothing. This harkens back to Fight Club rhetoric, "in losing your life you gain your life." "We are infectious human waste." As Misty Suffers, or is forced to suffer, she finds herself a channel between this world and the universal essence, the beauty, so many artists from Leonardo to Rembrandt have had the power to express. But, something is not right. She fears herself a pawn, a slave to machinations beyond her control. If only she could figure out who, or what, is controlling her.
I didn't like Diary as much as Lullaby, Choke, or Invisible Monsters. This isn't to say Diary is a bad book. The writing was a little better, with each novel Chuck gains more strength, more power and his abilities increase. But I just couldn't get into this novel. The plot moved slowly. His criticisms, while valid, humorous, and caustic, lacked a particular punch. This book wasn't as dangerous as his others. I wasn't ever appalled or offended. But maybe this is a good thing. Perhaps, like Misty, he's realizing that perhaps 'Shock' is nothing more than an overabundance of cleverness and the ability to push all the right buttons. Perhaps Chuck's next novel will turn over a new leaf, something radically new, hopelessly powerful, and equally thought provoking...but still dangerously offensive.
Misty Wilmot has had it. Once a promising young artist, she's now stuck on an island ruined by tourism, drinking too much and working as a waitress in...More at HotBookSale
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