Pygmy
Written by Chuck Palahniuk
Narrated by Paul Michael Garcia
3/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk’s fourteen novels include the bestselling Snuff; Rant; Haunted; Lullaby; Fight Club, which was made into a film by director David Fincher; Diary; Survivor; Invisible Monsters; and Choke, which was made into a film by director Clark Gregg. He is also the author of the nonfiction profile of Portland, Fugitives and Refugees, and the nonfiction collection Stranger Than Fiction. His story collection Make Something Up was a widely banned bestseller. His graphic novel Fight Club II hit #1 on the New York Times list. He’s also the author of Fight Club III and the coloring books Bait and Legacy, as well as the writing guide Consider This. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.
More audiobooks from Chuck Palahniuk
Fight Club Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People, Places, Things: My Human Landmarks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Invisible Monsters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Snuff Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Damned Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lullaby Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rant: An Oral History of Buster Casey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pygmy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Survivor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Invisible Monsters Remix Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adjustment Day Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Doomed Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Beautiful You Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tell-All Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to Pygmy
Related audiobooks
Failures of Imagination: The Deadliest Threats to Our Homeland--and How to Thwart Them Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Controversialist: Arguments with Everyone, Left Right and Center Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIt Did Happen Here: A History of Art, Culture, and Politics as Amerika Drifted from Depression into Dictatorship, 1929-1939. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFiend: The Shocking True Story Of America's Youngest Serial Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Immigrant Superpower: How Brains, Brawn, and Bravery Make America Stronger Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIt Occurs to Me That I Am America: New Stories and Art Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chasing Shadows: A Special Agent's Lifelong Hunt to Bring a Cold Wa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Indecent Advances: A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice Before Stonewall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys, and Imaginings from a Native Xicanx Writer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReal American: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sovok Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5And the Rest Is History: Tales of Hostages, Arms Dealers, Dirty Tricks, and Spies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Time Bomb: Attica, Sam Melville, and a Son’s Search for Answers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pressure: From FBI Fugitive to Freedom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvil's Root: A Political Thriller Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crisis on the Border: An Eyewitness Account of Illegal Aliens, Violent Crime, and Cartels Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Geopolitics Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation, and Hope are Reshaping the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot's Fight to Save His Faith Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
General Fiction For You
A Court of Mist and Fury Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Court of Thorns and Roses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Omens: A Full Cast Production Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Wings and Ruin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fight Club Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It Ends with Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/511/22/63: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Gods [TV Tie-In]: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Idea of You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Neon Gods Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anansi Boys Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Return of the King Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dead Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Norse Mythology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Darker Shade of Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Practical Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Two Towers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5That Bonesetter Woman: the new feelgood novel from the author of The Smallest Man Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Keeper of Lost Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Pygmy
487 ratings54 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5chuck is probably a normal guy, but his books are very weird. i love them, but they are not for the faint of heart. pygmy is written in the twisted english vernacular of a 13 year old boy sent as an exchange student from 'a totalitarian state,' (russia?) with a plan, along with several other students, to destroy the u.s. a bit hard to read, because of the language, but engaging and unputdownable. if you're looking for offbeat and VERY different, chuck is your man, and pygmy is one of his most unsual
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An exchange student from totalitarian nation accidentally fits in and excels in America. Some sex and lots of violence as you would expect from Palahniuk
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5At the time I attempted to read this I was a pretty big Palahniuk fan. This was trash. Go read Clockwork Orange if you want to experience an author playing with dialects. Stay the heck away from this.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The only good thing I can say about this book: Boy, Chuck Palahniuk sure did commit to the narrator's voice.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I may be in the minority, but I enjoyed the language of this book. I loved the cryptic descriptions of what was going on and found it easy to understand once I had got into the mindset of Pygmy. Yes, there were some very graphic scenes, but this is what once expects from Palahniuk. I feel the book was let down by the plot: it would appear that so much went into the language that Palahniuk had nothing left for planning a good story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An exchange student from totalitarian nation accidentally fits in and excels in America. Some sex and lots of violence as you would expect from Palahniuk
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5An absolute chore to read. The contrived, broken syntax and intentionally convoluted sentence structures destroyed any potential enjoyment that this work had.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5i enjoyed the story, but it was hard to read. i don't think i got used to the style till 3/4 of the way through. regardless it was funny and entertaining, i’d gladly read it again (if only to go over passages i had trouble understanding). Palahniuk’s still one of my favourite authors.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Unreadable.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5i enjoyed the story, but it was hard to read. i don't think i got used to the style till 3/4 of the way through. regardless it was funny and entertaining, i’d gladly read it again (if only to go over passages i had trouble understanding). Palahniuk’s still one of my favourite authors.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Interesting prose and structure; visceral and vicious, disgusting and funny, perhaps too gratuitous. Powerful and thrilling; some scenes too overtly concocted, too playful.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Not Chuck P. at his best. Though it gives an interesting portrayal inside of the mind of a would be terrorist... maybe a third of the way through it becomes formulaic and rather redundant.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I love the satire on Americana and our collective jingoism and xenophobia. However, the dialogue, while initially interesting, became very tedious and the gimmick wore thin early on in the novel.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5As a big Palahniuk fan this was the only book of his that I couldn't even finish despite trying to push myself to do so. I don't know what to say besides it was a mess. I get the general concept and what he was trying to pull off but it was just so poorly executed.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5This book is f***ing awful.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great listen. I've never read a book written like this before and yet it reads as every other of his books. Wrap your head around that contradiction.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5i enjoyed the story, but it was hard to read. i don't think i got used to the style till 3/4 of the way through. regardless it was funny and entertaining, i’d gladly read it again (if only to go over passages i had trouble understanding). Palahniuk’s still one of my favourite authors.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Pygmy is one of those books you don't enjoy but on balance, when it's all over, are glad you read. It feels like a worthy literary experience rather than an intellectually or emotionally satisfying one. The weirdly constructed first person English in which the story is told is initially difficult to decipher, but then strangely hypnotic. It emerges as literally the language of propaganda; not just that into which the eponymous narrator had been indoctrinated in his unnamed, cartoon-totalitarian homeland, but that of the crass, hypocritical middle America in which he finds himself.
The cleverest thing about Pygmy is this use of language; the way it draws you into the mindset of the thoroughly brainwashed, hormonally charged teenage terrorist and then lets you watch from within as he both subverts and is subverted by his new, equally irrational and inhumane environment. It's unfortunate that the plot isn't equal to this narrative voice. In his quest to skewer the pop-psychology cliches of modern American life, Palahniuk piles them on so thick and fast that they blur into meaninglessness. Then he tops it off with an unsatisfying ending that feels as unlikely and contrived as all the cliches that went before. Maybe he was trying to make a point about the pervasiveness of banality, but it just feels like he lost his nerve.
I do think that this is a good read for writers. The technical achievements - and failings - are instructive. Palahniuk reminds us that there are many ways to tell a story. Like it or not, there's a lot to learn from the way he's told this one. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5An interesting experimental novel told from the point of view of an unnamed Asian exchange student (nicknamed Pygmy), visiting from an unnamed totalitarian country and living with a host family in an unnamed Midwestern American state. Pygmy's signature style, and the single most important point every review of this book will mention, is the use of broken English to experience the narrator's fish-out-of-water view of America. The entire book is written this way. I thought it very daring at first, but eventually grew tired of deciphering what was going on and gave up.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Concept good but it really took concentration to understand the ongoing plot. The thoughts of the main character are written in broken and convoluted English so it cannot be read quickly.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I was so disappointed in Pygmy. Because it came from Chuck, I desperately wanted to love it. I just couldn't get through the way it was written. I get why it was written that way, but oh - is it tedious.I actually had to force myself to get through it, and honestly feel like it was a total waste of time. I admire the author for trying something new but I won't be adding this to the piles of books I end up lending friends and family. I don't want anyone else to have to suffer through it.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The anti-hero whose name we never learn, but who is referred to by his American host family and school mates as "Pygmy", arrives in the US on a mission of destruction. The novel is structured as a series of dispatches back to Pygmy's unnamed totalitarian country of origin and are written in an initially humorous yet ultimately tedious pidgin English. Pygmy's language doesn't improve after months in America, but I got more adept at reading it. A taste: "Calibrated tasks assigned to destroy all self-esteem. For official example, purpose lesson titled 'Junior Swing Choir' many potential brilliant youth compelled sing song depicting precipitate remain pummel head of operative me. Complain how both feet too large size for sleeping mattress. Idiot nonsense song. Next sing how past visited arid landscape aboard equine of no title." Satirical jabs at American culture are interlaced with disturbing scenes of violence and sex, making this book definitely off-limits for the squeamish and faint-hearted. I rate this novel, which probably served as source material for the 2010 terror-baby conspiracy, at 5 out of 10 stars.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Put simply, I hated it. In fact, it's probably the first book in several years that saw me trudge through two-thirds of the story, only to give up with a sigh of "who really cares?" I can't recall a book that was built on a more irritating narrative style. What began as a mildly amusing "shtick" became somewhat annoying -- then downright intolerable. Perhaps it's an unfair conclusion, because the only other Palahnuik work I've read is "Choke." But I just don't think this author is my proverbial cup of tea. I was intrigued by the advance spin and the promising story line. But in the end, "Pygmy" was an utter waste of my reading time.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I have opted to stop reading Pygmy maybe 5/6ths of the way through it. What started out as a promising revival of the Palahniuk literary stylings was quickly marred by overwrought broken-English narration which drones on, at best, and, really, some disturbing-for-the-sake-of-disturbing violent pedophilic quasi-liberal-statement porn. Now, I'm not saying that it doesn't have its moments of real promise, but it just keeps dropping down within a moment of spiking. I get it. Please don't think I don't. I've been a fan of Palahniuk's for years and, until he dropped the bomb of "Haunted" on the market (which I bought upon release), I considered him one of the most interesting and certainly most entertaining and provocative contemporary writers. However, even with the up-to-the-last-minute possibility of "Rant" everything he's churned out since "Diary" has seemed relatively lack luster, redundant, and just edging past what I consider to be worthwhile. The best scene in this novel happens quite early on during the Spelling Bee and subsequent United Nations middle school dance. That's IT. I gave it a chance but, after the massive disappointment that was "Tell All" I'm really not holding out any hope for another good scene or, most importantly, a satisfying culmination to an otherwise flashy and unsubstantive work of fiction.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Actually, this is not really a review, because I stopped reading after only a few chapters. The way the book is told definitely takes some getting used to, but just when I started to appreciate it, there was a scene which described a quite violent rape in such a graphic way that I couldn't read on. I can take a bit of violence, but somehow this completely turned me off. Maybe I can be convinced to try this book again, but I won't pick it up again until someone tells me it's really worth it.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5it was pretty good but i did not understand the ending and some of it was hard to follow. wasnt my favorite of chucks but i think its very interesting and i give applause to the writing style!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Well, this was hard for me to do, but I am setting aside this novel. I feel like a traitor, but I just can't continue reading at the moment.Don't get me wrong, the book is mostly brilliant. Anyone who can write a novel like this is a genius and I commend him. I just don't have the time to fully commit to the book right now, and that is what reading thie novel feels like - a commitment.To give a brief overview, the book is written from the perspective of "Pygmy", a teenage terrorist who has come over from an unknown country with his fellow operatives to carry out Operation Havoc, part of which is to impregnate the youth of America with his "operative seed."A few aspects of the book really bother me. For example, a number if crimes are committed by the young terrorists (pygmy rapes a boy in a Walmart bathroom and his peer, Magda, nearly drowns and rips out a pastor's throat during her baptism) and nothing legal ever comes of these two crimes. This is just too unrealistic. There is no way that a congregation will sit and merely watch while a young foreign exchange student tries to murder their pastor. Now I realize this may be a metaphor for our society's numbness to violence etc. but as a story plot goes this is just too unbelievable.Also, it is hard to believe that Pygmy, who is portrayed as a near genius along with his fellow operatives, could have so much knowledge of the English language yet write his dialogue in such broken syntax. And I am torn between my feelings on this. In one way his style of writing properly conveys his disgust with our culture, his programming as a killing machine, and his disconnection from humanity, but on the other hand it does not seem consistant with Pygmy's ability.On the upside, Chuck Palahniuk is in this novel, as with all of his other novels, brilliant and a master of the English language. If you have never read Palahniuk, I would suggest starting with another book; however, do read, or attempt to do so, this novel. I am giving this book 3 stars for the moment. When I do finish the book, which I intend to after the new year, this may change.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5What a strange little book, but then again what should one expect by the writer of the now [movie] classic, “Fight Club”. Written in a manner that I would describe as poor English as Second Language, it takes a while to adjust to this style. Every word has to be read with intention and then phrases “re-translated”. The narrator, Pygmy, trained for terroristic acts since a small child, has been sent, along with other comrades, as exchange students to the U.S. to live with host families. From this base, “Operation Havoc” can commence. However, once infiltrated, Pygmy becomes smitten with the host family “cat” sister and…. There are some disturbing moments in the book, such as forced sodomy along with intermittent quotes by totalitarian leaders of the past that help explain the mindset of these would-be terrorists. Palahniuk also includes some “truth hurts” descriptions about the impact of American consumerist culture. However, one is left with the sense that love, twisted or otherwise, matters still to us humans, Americans or otherwise. What a strange little book….
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5a very interesting book, that will keep you entertained
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Sorry but it's just unreadible. I don't see the point... or maybe I see it too vividly...