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Did you faint when reading this iconic short story "Guts"? Apparently most do.

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    #2
    johnny_ultimate
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 29,430 CMod ✭✭✭✭johnny_ultimate


    Nope. Read it on a plane and felt a bit light-headed, but that was probably the oxygen or lack thereof.

    It's certainly nasty, but it almost tries to hard - indeed, isn't that the point? Chuck Palahniuk can be a great satirist, but there are times when he resorts to cheap shock tactics. At least Guts is a moderately entertaining shock.

    It's definitely the best story in the otherwise dreadful Haunted though.


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    #3
    Isard
    Registered Users Posts: 104 ✭✭Isard


    Never fainted when reading, even Marquis de Sade ;) "The Guts" impressed me but somewhat not in this way.
    johnny_ultimate wrote: »
    It's definitely the best story in the otherwise dreadful Haunted though.
    Well and I liked the book. Some other stories were very good, f.e. Sister Vigilante's, Tess Clark's and The Baroness'. I read it a long time ago but still remember these three quite well.


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    #4
    howamidifferent
    Registered Users Posts: 1,819 ✭✭✭howamidifferent


    Didnt find it in anyway "moving" or shocking....


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    #5
    pq0n1ct4ve8zf5
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,070 ✭✭✭✭pq0n1ct4ve8zf5


    Hahahahahaha! What pussies fainted? I pulled a face like. Maybe I've just been on the internet too long :( Also, first printed in Playboy? That must have ruined a few people's romantic evenings in with themselves.

    But I agree, not a great story, pretty cheap shocks. Funny though.


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    #6
    Kinski
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,555 ✭✭✭Kinski


    Perhaps while they were listening to the reading someone leaned over and whispered in their ear, "You know, this talentless fuckwit has about a dozen novels in print...people actually pay to read this trash." Hearing that probably would have caused me to faint.


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    #7
    Toby Take a Bow
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,732 ✭✭✭Toby Take a Bow


    Kinski wrote: »
    Perhaps while they were listening to the reading someone leaned over and whispered in their ear, "You know, this talentless fuckwit has about a dozen novels in print...people actually pay to read this trash." Hearing that probably would have caused me to faint.

    Ha ha. Couldn't have put it better myself. I've always been suspicious of the fainting and vomiting at Palahniuk's public readings, whether they're just bullsh*t or a case of people involved in mass hysteria, I don't know.


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    #8
    stealinhorses
    Registered Users Posts: 774 ✭✭✭stealinhorses


    That wasn't very good at all and certainly didn't make me faint.

    I didn't know people could faint from reading sh*t short stories.


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    #9
    mcgovern
    Registered Users Posts: 4,267 ✭✭✭mcgovern


    Purposefully searched it out a few years ago after hearing how "sick" it was.
    Wasn't that bad at all.


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    #10
    syklops
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,966 ✭✭✭✭syklops


    Read it years ago.

    There is an awful lot of fapping done just before dinnertime isnt there? Now I know why mothers always ask you to wash your hands.


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    #11
    Scealta_saol
    Registered Users Posts: 191 ✭✭Scealta_saol


    oh now I know why people fainted.
    They're id1ots who held their breath too long
    .

    Wasn't that impressed to be honest.


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    #12
    tim_holsters
    Registered Users Posts: 1,466 ✭✭✭tim_holsters


    Guts is the only thing I've read by Palahniuk. It was in the Guardian saturday mag a few years ago I think. I laughed a few times reading it but faint, no.

    It did put me off buying any of his books though.


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    #13
    dr gonzo
    Registered Users Posts: 1,676 ✭✭✭dr gonzo


    I quite liked survivor, was decent.


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    #14
    Excitingsong
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1 ✭Excitingsong


    glad to join this forum and glad to meet you here buy eden gold,I look forward to getting some inspiration and getting to know all of you.


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    #15
    pq0n1ct4ve8zf5
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,070 ✭✭✭✭pq0n1ct4ve8zf5


    dr gonzo wrote: »
    I quite liked survivor, was decent.

    M'eh, started off pretty well, first fifty pages or so had a lot of decent bits. For example the first times he's
    on the phone encouraging people to kill themselves
    are genuinely really creepy. But again it was gimmicky, going straight for the shocking subject matter, lazy OTT attempts at satire that he didn't really (imo) carry off, plus there was the whole page numbers going backwards thing. Towards the end I was glad it was done that way because it let me know at a glance how much longer I was going to have to read it. There was maybe a short story's worth of good writing in that book.

    I really haven't read much of his stuff (apart from Fight Club when I was sixteen, naturally :pac:) but everything of his I do read seems so...familiar, and not in a good way, because he always seems like he's trying to push the envelope and innovate and shock and I'm just left with the vague impression that I've read this before. Maybe this is because he's very influential, but it just makes him seem like he's constantly impersonating himself.


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