I came to Palahniuk, like many others, through his cult classic 'Fight Club'. My cynical teenage heart warmed upon reading of his nihilism and the anarchy he wove in his books. His language was crass, clipped, casual and angry. I expected much the same from my second experience with Palahniuk and boy was I wrong.
Diary is written in a way that's almost lyrical, poetic, the devastatingly beautiful musings of a drunk and delusional mad-woman. I had to fight the urge to grab a note book and write down every second sentence
The narrator, Misty Wilmot is, as I've come to realize is common place amongst Palahniuk's protagonists, thoroughly unreliable. We're led to believe she's drunk and delusional and clearly has no idea of the bigger picture she's part of. She spends most of the book at the mercy of her apparently all knowing daughter and mother-in-law. Neither she nor the reader have any idea where the story is going as a result of her being in the power of people who have very specific plans for her. The result is a narrator who is heartbreakingly helpless and terribly angry. She both narrates the present, her present to her comatose husband in the form of a diary (as the title suggests) that follows her train of thought on its most anfractuous track, as well as provides context by reliving what she calls her "other life" with her husband, Peter in art school.
Another common theme in Palahniuk's books is surrealism and paranormal activity. There's always something bigger going on that's far stranger and other worldly than you would ever begin to guess. The book starts out simple, we're following the life of our one narrator. Around halfway through is when you realize that the littlest details that seem out of place, are out of place for a reason. The strangest clues pepper the book and you finally accept, that something really weird is going on. I'm usually really let down when I find that what I thought was a standard fiction book uses the "paranormal happenings" technique to explain whatever weird mysteries the author went about creating. It feels like the easy way out. Like the writer couldn't find anything that fit the rules of the world he/she created so they changed them up at the end to hastily put in a climax. When Palahniuk does it, somehow it works. I was skeptical when I was nearing the end of Fight Club and I was skeptical upon nearing the end of Diary, but I must say, I wasn't disappointed. I know a Modern Horror book has done its job when I'm left with a sick, eerie feeling in the pit of my stomach for days.
One of the main themes of the book is that 'everything is a diary'. It discusses how everything we do, everything we say, make or even don't say, 'shows our hand', gives us away. Its an expression of the sheer vitality of human nature. Each and every one of us is bursting with substance. So much so that it oozes out in everything we do, our handwriting, the way we walk, talk and bleed. Palahniuk sharpens his thematic lens and focuses on artists and self portraits. He talks about how everything an artist does is a self portrait, a diary. He uses Plato's allegory of shadows on the cave wall to explain that we see the world not as it is, but as we are. There's something to think about.
As an artist, I must also add that I thoroughly enjoyed the bits of trivia that peppered the book. Things Misty had learned in art school. Its always nice to close a book and know you have some useless knowledge to spout at the next 12 people you see.
To conclude, Palahniuk hasn't disappointed me yet, and I pray for that the hold true for the future. Diary is an exquisite book that'll creep you out and get your mind working. I haven't read anything quite like it.
