Okay, I'll step in here because I've been slacking (Mary, I, too, am feeling the effects of school, although I'm just finishing up this week). Sorry I haven't been posting; I'll catch up soon.

I thought the books threads came together very cleanly at the end. In fact, the whole book seems really disjointed until the last page, when it all seems to pull together flawlessly.

While I think I figured out some of the twists along the way, others were pretty surprising, like the fact that Evie was a man. Still, and this is my biggest criticism of the book, the twists don't really seem to do much. Chuck sort of lets us know about them and then says what they represent (I'd quote from the book but it's back in my room), but that's it. It was almost too gratuitous.

Also, and this might be a conversation for later, and it's probably already been brought up (I need to go read the other threads!), but I really got a feeling the entire time that the twists were meant to lead us to the conclusion that Shannon and Brandy and Shane are all the same person. The narrator is totally unreliable throughout the entire book, because s/he lies to us the whole time, so why the hell should we believe her at the end? That almost seems naive. Maybe I was just expecting Chuck to go all Fight Club on us, but there are a lot of things that suggest that's the case.

Andy | June 19, 2002 2:08 PM

I sort of agree with Andy. I think the twists tying things up at the end were a little too neat and naive. And the whole unreliable narrator: well on one hand, I could argue that is the narrator is unreliable doesn't that also make the story and the ending also unreliable? Or I could also argue that the unreliable narrator makes the story more believeable. An interesting paradox.

I thought the story was interesting and the combination of the unreliable narrator and the little twists of the story just added to my enjoyment. I rather went into it as a non believer, so I wasn't disappointed by finding that my nonbelief was the only truth.

Suzy | June 19, 2002 3:13 PM

OK, I finally get to vent about my least favorite part of the book. Buckle up. ;-)

I could handle the Shane/Brandy twist; I could even handle the Seth/Manus twist. By the Evie twist, I was fed up, though not surprised. By the final Shannon self-shooting twist, I was truly pissed off, and it actually surprised me, simply because I couldn't believe a writer who had shown such talent (he really got me when Shannon finally wrote "Save me. Please." to Brandy) would take such a cheap shot.

I mean, how far is Shannon's final revelation from "oh, it was all a dream"? It felt like a Star Trek last-ten-minutes ending; it felt like a slap-dash "oh, but it really was the butler" sucker-punch ending, and it really disappointed me.

I've always considered myself to be pretty good at suspending my disbelief, but IM twisted me so much I broke. >:-( I actually said, "oh, come on! you've got to be kidding!" when I read that bit, and I never talk to books.

Yes. Mildly annoyed by the twists.

...Or, on rereading Mary's question, perhaps it was the way they were written that bugs me. Certainly, CP's offhand style is part of the problem in this case, but perhaps a few more subtle clues throughout, or even having gut-shot Brandy say something like,

"Princess, it's perfectly obvious to anyone who's had their face blown up when somebody does it to herself. I have to admit, I'm impressed. Were you planning on telling anybody?"

Grrrrr.

Rich | June 19, 2002 6:06 PM

I see where your frustration comes from, Rich, but that's what I really like about Chuck's writing here. The passage you quote, for example, is about so much more than just those words. It exists on two levels, the second of which serves to tell us what's really going on. And I think that's a huge clue. I'm not sure what exactly it is yet -- I just finished the book last night -- but it's something.

Andy | June 19, 2002 6:56 PM

I know that feeling of being cheated by an author that you had, Rich, and I hate when that happens! But I didn't experience any frustration along those lines myself with this book. In fact, I actually dug the way CP kept pulling fast ones on us -- I figured that was his style, so I just kind of got into it -- as I guess will be obvious from my answers to Mary's questions:

What's your take on all the nothing-is-as-it-seems stuff? I liked it! It engaged my imagination, and kept my attention.

Too many twists? Well, there were a lot...

Just right? ... in the end, though, yeah, I'd say so. I mean, it never got boring, and all those switcheroos -- among other things -- did make the book memorable.

Did you figure any of them out before the truth was revealed? Ha! Me? Nope, not a clue. When I'm reading a whodunit, I'm on the lookout for telltale signs. But with a (literally) fantastic storyline like this one, I'm doing the best I can just to hold on tight, keep my eyes and especially my mind wide open, and enjoy the psychedelic rollercoaster ride.

In particular, how did you feel about Palahniuk's handling of the Seth/Manus deception? I liked the overkill quality of it, coming as it did in the midst of our learning of other surprising developments. It turned up the heat (not to mention the over-the-top factor) that much more, and doing it in such a "Oh, and by the way," matter-of-fact manner was, I thought, fun.

When the narrator reveals Sean's true identity, we aren't given much of an explanation for it other than that she couldn't tell us about it earlier. Could the author have written it in a different way to make the reveal more satisfying/surprising? Well, that character was so incidental to the main characters, in my opinion, that the revelations about him were handled in a way that was satisfying enough. Frankly, I didn't care enough about Seth to have wanted a bigger deal to be made of his backstory/outcome.

As for your idea that Brandy/Shane/Shannon are all the same person, Andy, I wondered aloud (in about 300 extraneous words more than you used to express the same thought, of course) about the same thing in another thread the other day. I'd like to explore that further, too, and Mary suggested that we would when she damn well feels like it -- er, I mean, at some point.

jeff | June 19, 2002 9:48 PM

I disagree to Jeff's assertion that Seth/Manus was incidental. In Palahniuk's previous work through Invisible Monsters, a triumvirate of characters is essential to the denouement. If you saw Fight Club, we have Tyler, Jack, and Marla. In IM, there's Brandy, Shannon, and Seth/Manus. However, in each of those groupings, one of the characters is a wild card. In the case of Fight Club, it's Tyler. In IM, it's Shannon because Evie is really the third leg of our triangle. Seth/Manus is in on the ruse as well as the love/hate object Shannon wants to destroy. If it weren't for kidnapping him, she might never have gotten to her catharsis at the end of the book.

(Can you tell I wrote a paper tonight and have been pulling out all the $10 words in my vocabulary?)

mary | June 20, 2002 1:23 AM

Perhaps I could've chosen a better word than incidental, because Seth's inclusion was certainly calculated and no mere accident, but my opinion is unchanged. I see Seth as more of a literary device than a character. To me, he's there only so that we can learn more about the primary characters, not him.

And to be honest, Mary, when I read your explanation of his being part of a triangle, I heard you saying the same thing. Also, not to be argumentative, because your knowledge of CP's other stuff is instructive, but I'm evaluating Invisible Monsters on its own merits, not as part of the Palahniuk oeuvre (hee! another frou-frou word :).

jeff | June 20, 2002 3:39 AM

Y'all are crackin' me up!

barbara | June 20, 2002 8:09 AM

I must admit that I saw the whole Seth/Manus thing & the Brandy/Shane thing was not that shocking, but I was really surprised by Shannon's revelation at the end. However, I too am evaluating this book as a stand-alone & not based on other books, so take that for what it is.
Frankly, I was a little disappointed that Seth was Manus. I saw it coming (why else would Shannon love him so?) but I wanted it to be someone else, maybe a guy they picked up in a truck stop or something...

tina | June 20, 2002 11:06 PM