Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Pygmy

Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2013

okay, before i give the real review a warning to those who may be new to palahniuk. the man writes strange tales constructed in a very minimalist and time loose style. almost all of his books discard a single direction timeline narrative and this book is the same, so be prepared for a story that moves back and forth along the timeline frequently.

the review: first off i loved this book. no i mean loved it! i laughed hard, snorting and turning red in the face with the pleasure of it. here the protagonist (pygmy himself) relates his adventure in artificially constructed pidgin english, managing to both slaughter and enrich the language at the same time as he tells his past and present in disjointed reports to his superiors (not a spoiler there, that story telling premise is evident from the first chapter)

the negatives ( for some anyway): if one has a closed mind or is over PC you might get in a tizzy over some of the language describing and relating to the main character and his associates. to me it was more a skewering of stereotypes. turning blind assumptions about "primitive" cultures on their ear and laughing at them.

secondarily since the story is told in first person, the first person using fractured english it takes a chapter or two to get into the flow of the narrative. i dont consider this a bad thing. to the contrary it forces the reader to look at the world contained in these pages in a new and unique way, but some readers will find it cumbersome.

summation: if you already like palahniuk, then you will love this one. if you have never read him before this might not be a jumping on spot for him as an author, but it stands as one of the most unique pieces of the art of prose i have ever read (and to date ive devoured something around 3k books)

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D. McAvoy

Not My Favorite Palahniuk Novel, but Still Worth a Read

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2010

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So overall, I think this is one of Palahniuk's weaker novels as a whole. But there were some things that I did like about it that made it much more than bearable to get through.

First, I though the voice used in the novel, which was the "Engrish" voice of a foreign child, worked well in the context of the novel. It created funny interpretations and some funny misunderstandings throughout the novel. It was also interesting to hear the protagonist describe particular events or objects in a very objective matter, and figuring out what he was talking about created an interesting moment of reflection. This even more effective when reflected with the addition of the heavily scientific terminology that the protagonist used in the novel.

The story itself was probably the major weakness of the novel. It felt a little disconnected and I never really felt it take its stride. It was by no means absent, but it never really felt full. A lot individual events in the novel were very entertaining and well written, especially towards the end. But there was decent amount of downtime between these moments, and for such a sort novel as it is, it was a bit dry. Palahniuk's description of some of the events in the novel are just downright brutal. This should not come to much of surprise, and I for one think it works well for him, but some may consider it overboard and might lose interest at this point. So, if you have found other Palahniuk novels to be a bit to gruesome, that is also present here too.

Finally, the novel is really confusing to get a hold of at first, and even up until the end still kinda keeps the reader a bit off their mark. Sometimes this winds up working well for the story, but in this case it just felt like it made it a bit more convoluted then it needed to be at times. Sure, there were many moments of "aha" at the end when things started to come together, but it was a bit frustrating at times to get to those.

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BJ

Most top priority...

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2009

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Pygmy" isn't for everyone!

Chuck's new book is different, much, much different. As you have already read on every other review, its written in broken English, the way a foreign exchange student with very little knowledge of the English language might speak. It does'nt take long to get used to, if your a big fan of Palahniuk, don't let it scare you off, it's not that bad.

I love Chuck's books, I haven't read them all, but "Pygmy" is ten times funnier and better than "Snuff", but not as good as "Fight Club" or "Haunted"!

"Pygmy" has alot of laughs, a little rape, a little terrorism, love, school violence and a whole lot of death.

Pygmy is quite the main character, the names he calls his host family throughout the book are great- Cow father, Chicken mother, Cat sister & Pig Dog brother. His karate moves are sharp, their names are sharper -"lashing lynx", "monkey mash", "punching panda", "striking cobra quick kill", "barracuda deadly eye gouge" and my favorite the "cobra one strike no blood" and so, so many more.

Within the first three chapters, Pygmy himself teaches a school bully or as he calls him (clear yellow bully) a "hard" lesson after he abuses Pig Dog Brother at Walmart!

Another very funny, shocking good, not great read from Palahniuk. I think he took a big chance with this book and it paid off, it is definitely original! Chuck is a great writer and as always I now await the arrival of his next book....

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Lang M. Ho

Chuck has done better

Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2009

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This is not a book for just anyone. I have really enjoyed several of CP's other books and I may dare say that he is, at present, my favorite author. However, this book far from my favorite.

First off, I felt this book had a very slow start. There were several times that I had almost stopped reading it. The only thing that kept we going was the fact that I always enjoyed the end of CP's books more than the beginning because of the bizarre twists. Both Choke and Lullaby had me on the fence mid-book but had won me over by the end.

The language and sentence structure is very bizarre at first, but felt pretty natural after only a few chapters, so don't let that discourage anyone first picking up the book.

CP really hits on just about everything in American culture that you possibly can, but I felt his focus was far too much on the sexual side of American culture--perhaps rightfully so--and after a while it felt tired and worn.

All in all I'm giving this book three stars. I will say that by the end I was enjoying the novel, but it took more effort than I would have liked to that far. It is definitely not a book for someone who isn't familiar with CP's sense of humor and I don't see this book of CP's getting made into a movie.

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JV

Another Classic.

Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2009

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Like all good Palahniuk novels, "Pygmy" is at its best when it stops to make you realize how ridiculous some of Western Civilization's trends and traditions can be. Palahniuk, though our diminutive pro-antagonist Pygmy never lets you forget that the world you are accessing is through the eyes of someone seeing things for the first time.

This novel is a triumph because of its fresh approach. Meticulous attention has been paid to crafting the syntax used which (once you get past it initially) actually adds to the overall story. I can't think of another novel in which the style itself was so important to delivering the message.

I'm giving it four out of five because of the ending. It wasn't as satisfying as the rest of the novel, but maybe that's just because I didn't want it to end.

If you like dark, intelligent satire then this is the novel for you. Just don't expect to pick it up in between reality television shows and expect to be entertained. This book can and should make you think.

I'm looking forward to #11, Mr. Palahniuk.

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kyle burke

Great read

Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2017

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I love this book so far!! Im in the 13th chapter and i gotta say im getting pretty fluent in Carl speak or pigeon talk, whatever you want to call it. Its extremely difficult to comprehend most of it at first, but as the chapters blew by I found myself understanding it better and able to read right through like a breeze. Very cleverly written. My favorite author by far!!!

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Tomasz Samczynski

I love this book by Palahniuk

Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2016

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I love this book by Palahniuk.

This is a great satire of the way we live and how an outsider may view it; that outsider being a foreign secret agent.
Not everything here that is funny is spelled out for you like it was in Fight Club or Choke.
This book is not for everyone; I've given this to people and they hated it; either the crude sexual stuff or the point of view or whatever else.
I nonetheless found it entertaining.

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Christopher A. Willett

Read a chapter before buying.

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2012

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As a pretty strong fan of Palahniuk's writing, I didn't hesitate to purchase a handful of them a while back on my Kindle. This was one of around four books by him that I purchased and I really wish I had tried a demo of the first chapter or had looked at the book in the store. Palahniuk is one for style in his books. They are all creative in a way that you might not think books would be creative. Structure and story are usually ridiculous and interesting, but this book has a flaw right off the bat. It is painful to read.

Palahniuk has written this entire book in the perspective of some weird, foreign alien character. The character is from outside of the US and obviously does not speak English well or at all if you ask me. I like what is being said, but I had a headache by the end of the first chapter. Sometimes you will have to read a paragraph twice just to figure out what he is talking about. Where Palahniuk usually throws normal structure out of his books, he throws out grammar and simple names for objects in this book. The best way to see this is to read a few pages by yourself. I hurried to the end of the first chapter, hoping that the language was only a prologue thing he was doing, but no. It goes on the entire book from what I can see. I read as much as I can, but it is too hard to deal with the struggle for the story.

These things said. I like what is happening in the story, and I wish I could see where it goes, but I don't think I can bring myself to read any more of the book.

Try a demo chapter of the book, or read a bit at a book store. DO NOT buy this without knowing what you are doing.

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