Zeitgeist is probably one of the coolest sounding words in the English language (except it’s probably German or something… whatever). In the mid 90s it was one of those words people at parties were bandying about just to prove they were the sort of people who read the sort of books that contained that sort of word. They were also the sort of people you kept away from at parties.
 
When I read Chuck Palahniuk, I think Zeitgeist. Palahniuk’s (and buggered if I know how to pronounce his surname properly, but whenever I say it sounds like I’m trying to clear a chicken bone from my throat) work is all about capturing the spirit of the time. His books are about issues and themes that we see as commonplace but which he opens up for ridicule and a good kicking in the balls. He forces us to look at the ugly side of living in the late 90s, early 21st Century, and he makes us question why we bother getting up in the morning.
 
He also has a thing for pharmaceuticals.
 
Of course, if you seen or read Fight Club – one of the great movie/books of the 90s and the one that us 30s something will be quoting to our children and grand children until were all shriveled up and prune-like in an old age home – you know all this already. Fincher’s adaptation of the book, while differing in some areas, is actually very faithful to the style and tone of Palahniuk’s work. Both the book and the film take a nihilistic approach to self, to weight loss, to violence, to blowing things up. It bottles up all our emotions, the one’s we never tell anyone about (well, that is before the invention of blogging anyway) and spews them out in a conflagration (another cool word) of angst and anger and blood.
 
Invisible Monsters doesn’t have the same epic quality as Fight Club, but it’s still a damn good book.
 
This time Palahniuk turn to the subject of image – both who we are on the outside and the inside. Everyone knows that the fashion industry is full of shit, there’s nothing new there. What Palahniuk does it draw out the satire and the parody and make us realise that beauty and fashion and looking good is all about people escaping from who they really are. And while that sounds a bit obvious, we need to remember that Invisible Monsters was written in the late 90s, when people (the media actually) still considered tiny waists and huge, bazoomba tits were a good thing to strive for. And let’s face it, they still do.
 
Invisible Monsters is about Daisy (not her real name), once fashion model who loses half her face from a gunshot wound. What’s worse is that a flock of seagulls ate what was left of her teeth, gum and jaw before it could be used for plastic surgery purposes. Daisy goes from gorgeous to OH CHRIST SHE’S A MONSTER in the space of a day.
 
While Invisible Monsters is a book about Daisy trying to come to terms with her disfigurement, it’s not in the way you’d expect. This is not a book about Daisy finding the beauty behind her face that now resembles a half eaten cherry pie. It’s made quite clear that Daisy knows there’s no beauty to be found there. The book is more about Daisy coming to terms with who she is as a person – distinct from the gorgeous face she once showed the world. The beauty was just a distraction and with that gone she can now get down to the nitty gritty of who she is actually is.
 
As you’d expect from Palahniuk, the book’s narrative structure is anything but linear. It jumps all over the place as Daisy fills in her life-story, who she is, who are her family and how she got to have her face blown off in the first place. It’s also explains why she’s now on a road trip with a man she’s poisoning with estrogen and other female hormones and the famous Diva Brandy Alexander – a woman who was once a man.
 
The book is riddled with the blackest of black comedy. It’s hard not to cringe and laugh at the same time when we get flashbacks of Daisy visiting her parents for major holiday events. Her parents, still struggling to get over the death of their son Shane, who died of AIDS, talk constantly about gay pride, about being persecuted for being parents with a gay child and an appreciation of the sex acts gay people do – such as felching. It’s brilliant, funny, but disturbing stuff.
 
About 2/3rds of the way through, Invisible Monsters reveals the first of its many twists. And it doesn’t stop there. By the end of the book your brain will be numb from all the reversals, all the revelations and, most importantly, all the truths. Because, above all, that’s what this books is about – Truth (with a capital T). It’s about finding our true self, no matter how ugly, and accepting ourselves for what we are. Yes, we might be an Invisible Monsters – but maybe that’s not all that bad.
 
When you read Palahniuk, you think Zeitgeist. He captures the angst we all felt in the late 90s, angst that we still haven’t been able to shake off. The truths that Palahniuk bare for us to see are not pretty, but at least he’s bothering to tell us how it really is. And he’s also a damn entertaining writer, which makes the bitter pill even easier to swallow.
 
Invisible Monster’s is great stuff. If you can stomach some gore, some disturbing images and some confronting sexual material, then this is the book for you. At 298 pages long it’s a book you’ll devour in a few days, but one whose themes will resonate for months to follow. 
 
Just like a good Zeitgeist should.