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December 07, 2004
Palahniuk’s new plague
It isn’t often that authors write so gruesomely that their readers are known to pass out during public readings or even in the comfort of their own homes.
There is only one author whose text is so vivid and excruciating that people are warned about before they pick up one of his books to read. That man is Chuck Palahniuk.
I have just been able to get a hold of a copy of one of his latest novels, Lullaby, through the Macalester library.
We all know that tuition sucks the money right out of students’ pockets and that actually buying books is
saved for the start of each semester, not for fun.
After months of textbook assignments, I was eager to read this book.
Palahniuk writes in such a manner that it can be somewhat difficult to immerse yourself in the novel right away, but once you do, you realize that it is impossible to get out of it.
Lullaby is a novel about Carl Streator, a city journalist for a daily paper.
His latest assignment is a five-week spread on “crib death” and the causes and prevention of it.
His editor has him profile a new couple each week whose infant has recently died during sleep.
While investigating this story, Carl stumbles upon a book, Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, at each place of death.
What is even more puzzling to him is that each book at each house is open to the same page, 27.
Several years before this story takes place, Carl’s own infant and wife were found dead with no apparent cause. In his own house was Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, open to page 27 that evening.
It soon becomes apparent to Carl that page 27 is the cause of death.
By reading this poem aloud to a child, hoping for a deep slumber, the child dies. It is not any old poem; it is a “culling song” from Africa.
A culling song is intended to put people to sleep, yet if one is passionate enough and truly means what they are saying, then it will put the person in such a state of deep sleep that they will die.
Carl becomes obsessed with this idea, and he begins to wonder how long it will take before the general public learns the truth behind this simple children’s book.
If the world learns about the culling song, it will surely be used in inappropriate ways, exactly what he is doing himself.
In turn, Carl begins to do a lot of research on whose children have died without apparent cause.
Each time he finds a new person, he tracks them down to steal the book from them, always open to page 27, and tears out the page and flushes it down the toilet.
While doing his research, he discovers a woman named Helen Hoover-Boyle whose child and husband also died.
He presses her for more information on why her family died, and discovers that she, too, read them the poem on page 27.
Together, Carl and Helen, along with one of Helen’s coworkers, troop across the United States to obtain all copies of this book.
The catch is that Carl wants to destroy the book forever to save the world, and Helen desires to find the source of the novel and discover more spells to gain power and money.
The two travel for days on end with the never-ending fight between corruption and restoration.
Carl works hard to save as many as he can and keep his power in check, while Helen kills more to make more money.
Lullaby is written in such a descriptive and blunt manner that the graphic parts of the story will surely throw any reader off guard.
I highly recommend not reading chapter 25 in particular while consuming any type of food or beverage, as it will make you sick.
Posted by msveum at December 7, 2004 01:06 PM