Hey it’s Marvolo and welcome back to my
channel.
Today I’m going to be reviewing a novel
I just read, Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk.
I don't really know if that is how you pronounce
his name.
Anyway.
This was the first novel I had read by him,
and since then I have been looking into more
of his other work more.
I read Damned by him.
And, yeah.
He's a very interesting author, for sure.He
also happens to live here in my home state
of Oregon, though he lives up in Portland.
So that's kind of cool.
I'm going to go ahead and say this right now,
this novel isn’t for the feint of heart,
or for anyone easily offended, or, uh, triggered.
It goes to some pretty dark, fucked up places
from the very beginning.
I’ll try to keep this first part spoiler
free, but I don't know how well I'm going
to be able to do that.
But I'm going to try to just give an overview
for now, and then I’ll try to give you a
warning before any spoilers.
Just in case, you know, you’re interested
in this strange and fucked up book.
I just want you to be warned about what you’re
getting into.
I enjoyed it, but I'm strange and fucked up.
So our main character is a secret operative,
and he is one of 12.
They are all about 13 years old, and are on
a mission to execute Operation Havoc.
They enter the United States under a guise
of being foreign exchange students, but they
plan to infiltrate American society in order
to create a weapon of mass destruction, and
commit an act of terror.
So yeah, this book is about a 13 year old
terrorist.
Yeah, I mean obviously its going to be controversial.
The actual name of our main character is never
mentioned, and the country that he is from
isn't either, although while you're reading
this book, you start imagining what country
they might be from, and I don't know.
In the account of his experiences, in his
dispatches, he refers to himself as Operative
67, but his host family ends up giving him
the name Pygmy.
You know, the title.
This novel is written in very broken English.
It’s a little bit difficult to get used
to, but I guess it's supposed to imitate the
level of understanding of someone who is not
a native English speaker.
It's not difficult to read once you have adjusted
to it, but I know that just based on the sentence
structure, the way it's written, that will
turn a lot of people off to this book, regardless
of the actual content and how fucked up it
is.
So in my last book review, I mentioned A Clockwork
Orange, and they have some similarities in
the way that the sentences are structured
in a non-traditional way.
I don’t think that the linguistic choices
here in Pygmy are quite as genius as the ones
used in A Clockwork Orange.
They're just different levels of literature,
you know.
But the language used was appropriate for
the novel, and I think Chuck did do a very
good job with it.
I just prefer sentences to be structured in
a familiar way, I'm a fan of proper grammar,
though I do realize that artistic choices
are made often in literature.
Okay, I’m going to go ahead and get into
some spoilers now, because, yeah this book
has a lot of really fun stuff for me to talk
about now.
Pygmy is also similar to A Clockwork Orange
in another way.
They both had this warning about being triggered,
and violence and crime.
Yes, they both have that.
Violence.
Crime.
Sexual Assault.
Rape.
Murder.
Oh and add terrorism in for Pygmy.
That wasn't really in A Clockwork Orange,
so...It seems to be this author's style to
use shock value, and really grotesque humor
and imagery, and just trying to offend people
as much as possible, and hit them in their
weak spots.
I don't know, that really seems like something
that he is trying to do with the work that
I've read by him at least.
I find it funny, but for people who are easily
offended, or grossed out, or triggered, yeah
it...his work is probably not at all going
to be for you.
I don’t think there's anything necessarily
wrong with that, but I think there needs to
be more meaning to the story, and it shouldn't
just be for shock value, you know.
I mean, do what you want, but I like there
to be some overarching theme or idea in the
end.
Not like, oh wow this was a bunch of fucking
nonsense.
And woop.
For no reason.
You know, I mean, yeah.
If there's going to be a lot of fuckery, there
needs to be some big grand revelation.
And blow my mind a little bit too.
I like intellectual stimulation with my gore
and fuckery.
So let's get into right off the bat.
Right off the bat, this book just, bam, it's
like woah, okay, that's...this is what I'm
reading right now.
Okay.
Pygmy rapes a boy in a Walmart bathroom during
the second Chapter, so right away, you're
getting right into it.
It really does set the tone for the rest of
the novel.
He goes back and forth from memories during
his training period, and his experiences in
America.
And oh, their plan, their Operation Havoc
partially includes raping a bunch of girls
and getting them pregnant.
The female operatives getting impregnated
by Americans.
Yeah, that's one of their first...their first
plans.
Pygmy originally plans to rape his host sister.
But instead, he ends up having feelings for
her, and growing to be curious about her,
and yeah.
And along the journey of this story, everyone
starts seeing Pygmy as a hero.
They start liking him.
The boy that he rapes falls in love with him.
And after being denied, goes on a shooting
rampage, and then Pygmy kicks him in the head
and kills him.
Basically.
And then he's a hero.
Throughout this novel, you get a lot of commentary
on American society, from the viewpoint of,
well, a terrorist.
So a very different viewpoint than I would
have ever considered before.
I don't really imagine what a terrorist would
think of the United States too often.
Maybe I should be considering that.
Maybe it's a more important perspective than
people give credit to it.
But I don't know.
It was very satirical, mocking primarily suburban
American culture.
Like, you know, housewife, Desperate Housewives-y
culture, you know.
There were a lot of opportunities he could
have had to really go on attacks on the United
States, on our government, and to make some
really harsh statements that would have offended
people.
I'm kind of surprised he didn't go there that
much.
But personally, relieved in a sense too.
It was definitely a fun book to read, and
it made me think from different perspectives
than I usually would.
But I'm not really sure what I got out of
this novel.
I don't really know that I got much of anything
out of this novel itself.
All that I've got really, is thinking about
the current political climate.
And threats of terrorism, and ISIS, and so
many things that people are already afraid
of, and how this book isn't used, but could
very well be used as like a fear mongering
technique to fight against people who want
to bring refugees into the United States.
They could be like, uh, look, 13 year old
are going to rape our kids and commit acts
of terror.
As ridiculous as some aspects of this novel
are though, I wonder how plausible some of
them could be.
But I don’t want to get into that stereotypical
American fear of terrorism, because you know,
I'm American, and I have it.
And a lot of people of different countries,
they just feel differently, it seems.
I don't know.
But yeah.
Yeah, not trying to get too political, but
I just thought I’d bring it up, because
it's something that came to mind after reading
this book.
So I think this is all I have to say about
Pygmy.
If you’ve read it, let me know down in the
comments what you thought of it, anything
that I might have missed.
And if you haven't read it, but think it sounds
interesting and are going to check it out,
let me know that as well.
I’malways looking for new books to read,
although I do have a really long to-read list.
I'm always adding to it, so if you do have
any suggestions for me, please leave them
down in the comments below.
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