Not his best, but certainly a good book.

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	• Lullaby Chuck Palahniuk Thorndike Press, 2003 - 412 pages average customer review:based on 265 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Lullaby

Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk *****

Lullaby is not UpChucks best but it sure is close. It is easily among the best of his work. Better than Choke, Haunted, and Diary. On par with Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, and Survivor. The story is just absurd enough to almost kind of believe and gives insight into why UpChucks work is in a league all it's own.

The story of a man who works a a journalist and has a current assignment on the subject of S.I.D.S. or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. As he begins his assignment he realizes a trend across the country, as all of the parents of the children who died had read them a poem from page 27 in a book of poems from around the world; a culling song. An old African chant used to send the dying to the other side. This is all by mistake that the parents harm their children of course but once the poem falls in to the wrong hand it shows that people have a serious issue with tolerance and self-control. As the main character scourers the country in search for every copy of the book he realizes he has undertaken more then he bargained for.

Lullaby is a insightful (as is all UpChucks work), a page turner, and one that will have you transfixed on what is coming. Palahniuks signature style shines bright here and makes for one of his best novels.

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Thought provoking but cringe inducing

Any novel that is this thought-provoking deserves at least 3 stars, even if it isn't all that satisfying to read (at times, unpleasant to read).

I'm a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut, who also writes satirical fiction, but where Vonnegut is a humanitarian who finds humour in life, too much of Lullaby is mean-spirited. You have to admire Palahniuk for tackling such controversial subject matter, but at the same time, it's hard to find the humour in Lullaby.

The greatest strength of this type of novel is that its author has something to say.

Every other living thing on the planet evolves to adapt to its environment; but we've reached a point in evolution where we adapt our environment to suit us. There are few natural population controls and we've spread to virtually every corner of the world, disrupting and manipulating eco-systems. We are a cross between `a bull in a china shop', and those two rabbits in the pet store that are left alone until the store is overflowing with bunnies.

The culling poem, as I interpreted it, was a means to stop our destructive evolutionary path.

It turns out that the actual catalyst for the novel was the murder of the author's father. When Palahniuk wrote Lullaby he was wrestling with his own views on capital punishment when his father's killer was on trial.

Shows you what I know.

Whether or not this novel is about capital punishment, human evolution, the soul sucking influence of the media and pop culture, religion, noise pollution, or all of the above, this is a novel that will get you thinking.

Unfortunately, the novel itself is not very entertaining to read. A lot of readers will find some of the subject matter extremely disturbing (I like morbid humour, but I found myself cringing in places). The novel actually gets a little monotonous at times as our `anti-heroes' hit the road on a futile quest to find all of the library books in the US that contain the deadly lullaby.

The biggest barrier to enjoying Lullaby is the fact that every character in it is so unlikeable. Sometimes this can work (to a degree). I enjoyed Survivor despite the fact that the central characters demonstrate a similar `depraved indifference' to human life. The difference here is the subject matter.

Let's face it. Dead babies and necrophilia just aren't funny.

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A killer lullaby and a vegan road-trip

When I first heard the premise behind "Lullaby", I thought it sounded rather flimsy: there exists a lullaby that causes anyone who hears it to drop dead as soon as they fall asleep, and it is, thus, the cause of all SIDS deaths. I could work out how a book with such a concept could begin, but I couldn't figure out anything beyond that. This is why Chuck Palahniuk is such a great author. He did, and he came up with such a convincing and exciting story that it kept me wondering what was going to happen next right to the end.

Here is a more detailed synopsis of the plot, for those with the same doubts as I had: after being assigned to write a series of human interest articles on SIDS deaths, journalist Carl Streator discovers that the one linking factor behind all of these deaths is a particular lullaby in a book of children's poetry. Then, along with a real estate agent who specializes in selling haunted houses, the real estate agent's Wiccan secretary, and the secretary's Wiccan boyfriend, Streator embarks on a road trip across America to locate every copy of the poetry book, and the original magic book from which they believe the lullaby came from, and destroy every one of them.

Yes, the premise of this novel is far fetched (and that's just the parts of the book that I've told you - wait until you get read the end) and yet, every character within the novel's reality behaves in a thoroughly believable way. This is one of the most original books that I have read, and as a result, it is virtually impossible to guess the next twist of the plot.

This if Palahniuk's fourth novel, and the first of his trilogy of "horror" novels, along with "Diary" and "Haunted". I have now read all of Palahniuk's novels, with the exception of his latest book, "Snuff", and I would consider "Lullaby" to be among his best. I used to be able to rank all of the Palahniuk novels, but the more of his books I read, the more I realize that he has written so many good books, that I find it impossible to pick just one favourite, and even a bad Palahniuk novel is better than most of the novels that are being published at the moment.

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Not his best, but certainly a good book.

I found that a lot of the criticism heaped upon this story by several of the other reviewers is partly misguided. Although, when compared to his other books, this one does lack a lot of the shocking imagery, it still manages to provide an entertaining narrative in the same theme and tone of those other works. And that is what I think gives his stories value: not the disturbing imagery, but the creative look at common themes many people have seen with regards to our culture.

This story deals with power and control. Who really has it? Does it even exist? How should we exercise it? And, ultimately, do the answers to those questions even matter? While yes, this story is more conventional and straightforward than Palahniuk's previous work, I do not think "Lullaby" is disappointing in the least. I enjoyed it thoroughly and look forward to reading "Diary".

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Of note about Lullaby

There's a lot I could say about "Lullaby," but some of these reviews have covered it. I would just like to note a couple of things:

-The writing style is very lyrical. The author returns to the same phrases again and again, often in different contexts than the first time he used them. It's a creative way to give the story a sense of theme, of being tied together, and it's also a creative way of twisting some seemingly benign sayings.

-The book is rich in real (and often morbidly fascinating) facts, which usually feel like a natural part of the story, rather than seeming strung together. The main character is a journalist and the author researches like a journalist. By taking certain elements of a journalist's behavior and using them to write the book, he makes the main character compelling.

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reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

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