Free Downloads Survivor: A Novel
“A wild amphetamine ride through the vagaries of fame and the nature of belief.”―San Francisco Chronicle Tender Branson―last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult―is dictating his life story into Flight 2039’s recorder. He is all alone in the airplane, which will crash shortly into the vast Australian outback. But before it does, he will unfold the tale of his journey from an obedient Creedish child to an ultra-buffed, steroid- and collagen-packed media messiah. Unpredictable and unforgettable, Survivor is Chuck Palahniuk at his deadpan peak: a mesmerizing, unnerving, and hilarious satire on the wages of fame and the bedrock lunacy of the modern world.
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (April 5, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 039333807X
ISBN-13: 978-0393338072
Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (635 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #26,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #28 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Humor & Satire > Dark Humor #43 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Self-Help & Psychology #84 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Satire
Chuck Palaniuk (say it ten times fast) has recently stormed onto the popular literary field, thanks to David Fincher's amazing adaptation of his underground novel, FIGHT CLUB. Hopefully, if he keeps writing books this good, he can give up being a mechanic forever.SURVIVOR begins on its final page, and shoots backwards towards page 1, always reminding you of its approaching demise. Along with the novel, the narrator is apporaching his own demise, as he pilots a commandeered airplane waiting for it to crash and explode. In order to preserve his life story, he is speaking into the black-box on-flight recorder, hoping to wipe himself out and attain immortality at the same time.What is his problem? Well, he is the last survivor of a suicide cult, a former indentured servant in the "real world". He also narrates of his tranistion from nobody to media messiah back to nobody. In it, Palahniuk takes on a wild ride through a satire of modern society in all its little nuances. Everything from Lobster eating to TV networks gets raked over the coals in this incediary novel.ALthough the book, like FIGHT CLUB begins to self-destruct about three quarters of the way through, the story is so compelling in its banal gruesomeness that you can't help but read it. Palahniuk is a magician who will keep you hypnotized, glued to each page until the final end of both his protagonist and the book.Oh, and did I mention that the book is also riotously funny? It is. So in other words, one of the best books I've read in awhile.
"Fight Club" may get all the press, notice, and attention, but in many ways Survivor is its literary equal, and maybe even a better book. Once again, Palahniuk manages to pluck a few choice elements from the boiling stew of our mass culture - apocalyptic cults, the grotesquely rich, disasters in the air (along with just enough random-but-relevant facts that leave you wondering how the heck he KNEW that) - and weave them together into a compelling adrenaline ride of a novel that also happens to be thoroughly entertaining. I HATE reviews that end up being spoilers, so I won't say any more, other than to mention that it has all the twists, turns, and extraordinary events that one would expect from a novel by Chuck Palahniuk.Is it similar to Fight Club in some respects? Yeah.Is it a literary masterpiece, destined to become a classic? Probably not.But is it an excellent book to spend a few light evenings with? You bet your life it is.
Testing, testing. One, two, three.Testing, testing. One, two, three.Maybe this is working. I don't know. If you can even see this, I don't know. But if you can see this, read. And if you're reading, then what you've found is a review of the story of everything that went wrong.It doesn't take a page.And there you are at 39,000 feet. Above the clouds and in the cockpit of a Boeing 747-400 with no passengers.And no pilot.Final evacuation call for Chuck Palahniuk's novel, Survivor.And don't ask if it has anything to do with the television show.It'll just make you look stupid.Imagine being raised for slave labor just because you were three minutes and thirty seconds too late. Imagine everyone you know and love offing themselves in a mass cult suicide. Imagine becoming a mass media produced messiah just because no one could prove otherwise.Imagine Tender Branson, your new pilot.He doesn't know how to fly a plane.He'll tell you himself.Go Ahead.Ask him.He's just dying to get a few things off of his chest.This book is totally backwards. Seriously, you'll see what I mean. With a lot of similar humor and style to his first novel Fight Club, Palahniuk's Survivor is a great read for newcomers and devout fans alike. Pick up this book and you won't want to put it down. But it'll be the most time you'll ever spend reading to get to the bottom of page one.I promise.
After seeing the movie Fight Club, I became very interested in Chuck Palahniuk's work. So I went to the bookstore looking for some of his other novels. You know the saying "don't judge a book by its cover"? Well I do judge books by their covers. The covers of books now are just so... corny. I could tell Survivor was going to be a good book from its unique cover. It is very plan, almost completely silver, but it has style. The novel is centered on the thought to be only survivor of a Creedish Death Cult, Tender Branson. In the first chapter, chapter 47, it is explained that Tender Branson is alone on a high jacked commercial airplane and he is going to crash it into the Australian Outback. But before that happens he is going to tell his life story to the "indestructible black box of Flight 2039". As the chapters work their way down to 1, there is a very dark apocalyptic story of Tender's rise to stardom from a housemaid for a strange yuppie couple. In his work experience with this yuppie couple, Tender learns helpful facts like how to get bloodstains off of wallpaper. Also how to hide stab holes in tuxedos. No book is complete without a love interest, and Fertility Hollis adds that and much more. Tender falls for the very interesting character Fertility, who happens to be the sister of a man Tender killed (in a round about way). The plot takes many twists and turns that keep you very interested, for instance Tender's twin brother might be trying to kill him so that all of the Cult would be in their rightful place, dead. "'What's the difference between a Creedish and a corpse?' Just a matter of hours." It is a very unpredictable, enticing, hilarious novel that is so real, it might make you consider suicide. I loved this very unique novel and would recommend it to everyone, except people who have considered suicide, because it might just push them over the edge.
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