About this title: Palahniuk depicts Midwestern life through the eyes of Pygmy, a thoroughly indoctrinated little killer who hates America with a passion, in this cunning double-edged satire.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Spoken Word Compact Disc
Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Date Published: 2009-05-05
ISBN-13:9781433277252ISBN:1433277255
Description: NEW. Spoken Word Compact Disc. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781433277252. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday
Date Published: 2009-05-05
ISBN-13:9780385526340ISBN:0385526342
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780385526340. read more
Binding: Audio CD
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781433277252ISBN:1433277255
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Spoken Word MP3-CD
Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Date Published: 2009-05-05
ISBN-13:9781433277269ISBN:1433277263
Description: NEW. Spoken Word MP3-CD. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781433277269. read more
Edition: First edition. First Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780385526340ISBN:0385526342
Description: New in new dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 241 p. Audience: General/trade. First Edition/First Peinting. New book, unopened. Brodart protected, ships in a box. read more
Binding: Spoken Word Cassette
Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Date Published: 2009-05-01
ISBN-13:9781433277221ISBN:1433277220
Description: NEW. Spoken Word Cassette. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781433277221. read more
Edition: First edition. First Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780385526340ISBN:0385526342
Description: New in new dust jacket. Signed by author. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 241 p. Audience: General/trade. SIGNED BY AUTHOR with "Classified Top Secret" stamp on title page. First Edition/First Printing. New book, opened only for signing. Brodart protected. Ships in a box. read more
Binding: Spoken Word Compact Disc
Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Date Published: 2009-05-01
ISBN-13:9781433277238ISBN:1433277239
Description: NEW. Spoken Word Compact Disc. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781433277238. read more
Binding: Audio CD
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781433277238ISBN:1433277239
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Canada, Toronto
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780385666299ISBN:0385666292
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. Signed by Author First Canadian edition. An as new, unread copy. Signed by Chuck Palahniuk on half-title page. 241 pages. ISBN 13: 978-0-385-66629-9. read more
Binding: Preloaded Digital Audio Player
Publisher: Playaway
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781433277306ISBN:1433277301
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Edition: First edition. First Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780385526340ISBN:0385526342
Description: New in new dust jacket. Signed by Chuck Palahniuk on the half title page, NOT signed to anyone. He also stamped multiple times on various pages of the book: "Classified Top Secret" and "Property of Ministry of Truth". First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. Book is brand new and unread. No marks, no inscription, NOT a Book Club Edition, NOT an Ex-Library. Dust jacket is new, NOT price clipped, in a protective mylar cover. This is a beautiful autographed First Editon for collectors. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday, NY
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780385526340ISBN:0385526342
Description: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Signed & Stamped by Author First edition, first prnt. Signed by Palahniuk on the half-title page. Also stamped with red "Classified Top Secret" and with blue "Property of Ministry of Truth" throughout (aprx half a dozen of each). Unread copy in Fine condition in a Fine dustjacket with an archival cover. Actual image of the book; not a stock photo. read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780385526340ISBN:0385526342
Description: New in new dust jacket. Signed by author. SIGNED first printing by Chuck Palahniuk. New and unread. BONUS! inflatable penguin signed and thrown out by Chuck "Pygmy Tour 2009, Chuck Palahniuk xooxxx". Plus 3 diff. sheets of tour stickers. Extremely rare. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 241 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
"This book is definitely a return to form for Chuck Palahniuk after a number of recent novels felt like he was running in place compared to the fire that his early books (like "Fight Club" had).
It tells the story of an individual nicknamed "Pygmy" who is a foreign exchange student from a totalitarian state, matched up with a Christian conservative small family. "Pygmy" has been indoctrinated and trained since birth to execute a large terrorist act in the United States and this placement is the start of his plan.
Why not five stars? The book's language. It's written in a style that's (apparently) based on how a non-native English speaker would write English. However, since the main character spends the entire book submerged in American culture, one would expect at least a small improvement in his skill - at least some growth.
Instead, there is none, and that actually surprised me, since the character seemed to grow throughout the book in various other ways. It just felt *wrong* to me - in fact, in some ways, his language seemd to *regress* throughout the book, which just felt really out of place.
Still, it's an interesting and thought-provoking and challenging and humorous read - the very elements one should expect from a top Palahniuk novel."
"Chuck Palahniuk has a following online; it's even called The Cult. The fandom is well deserved. When a book evokes such emotion in the reader that you might just faint from graphic truth (such as in his novel Haunted), you have got to love it! Upon opening his latest novel, Pygmy, I felt as if I were taking a dip into the sexiest sea of twisted delights. I often had to stop reading mid-page to burst into a flurry of laughter brought on by his text. This man makes me feel alive, and I need more! The book left me questioning what is wrong with human nature, and what are we products of, exactly?
The story takes you through the inner tinkering of Pygmy, a pubescent terrorist foreign exchange student implant living in suburban America. The sexual explicitness throughout the story was humorously uncomfortable, yet strangely stimulating. Palahniuk's satirical prowess is yet again screaming victory in the land of fictitious works.
Pygmy reflects on the various activities of everyday American life as truly absurd actions in a perverse and awkward society. He parades us through big-box stores, the town's "religion propaganda distribution outlet," and ponders scholastic shortcomings, all while conniving his way into various illegal actions to work up to his and his fellow terrorists' "Operation Havoc."
Cacophonic explosions within Pygmy's head lead to many devilish deeds. However, a sugary sweet reinvention occurs, suggesting that even programmed human beings can reconfigure themselves. This serves as a surefire reminder that the mind is a powerful weapon that just might also provide peace, possibly.
Pygmy often draws on quotes that were drilled into himself and his cohorts from an early age that seem to fuel them in every situation. Most often these quotes were of fascist, communist, and all around extreme iconic thinkers. These shocking tidbits of actual recollections of figureheads past greatly impact the novel's outcome. Most of the quotes Palahniuk includes are stunning in their impact, and made me want to fight a little, such as Benito Mussolini's assertion that, "War is to man what maternity is to a woman."
You have to stop and rearrange your thought process every time you pick up the book. This style is a departure from his previous novels-more of a structured, militant mind process of events recounted by the main character. Many times after putting the story down, I would find myself thinking similarly to the character. Each process or action noted, each bizarre human encounter was now a new experience.
My only disappointment with this offering from Palahniuk is that I wasn't disturbed as greatly as I have been whilst reading some of his other novels. Don't get me wrong, more than likely I'll read Pygmy again. It's a country of it's own, a ride into a mindset that is foreign and convoluted. Cheers to a man who seems to be unafraid to push his limits in challenging the public and making people think differently after reading. This is entertainment.
"If your reading level and vocabulary aren't excellent, you don't have a good grasp of 40's-80's Communist history, and your tolerance for extreme sexual weirdness isn't pretty high, don't read this book. All of Palahniuk's books are a little... extreme, but this one has reached a whole new level of weird. As a quick check of the synopsis should tell you, Pygmy is an exchange student from an unnamed Communist country. His story is told in a series of mangled-English dispatches back to his masters. He and a group of other kid supersoldiers have been sent to the Bible belt to engineer the downfall of America through Project Havoc. Pygmy's problem is that, though he spouts Communist dogma (including quotes from Mao and Hitler that should curdle your blood), the essential bipolar humanity of the people around him seeps into his psyche. Within his first couple of days in America, he has attacked (this scene is violent and contains unacceptable sexuality) a bully who has been terrorizing Pygmy's exchange brother. Pygmy regularly performs acts of public bravery, and his views of American cultural traditions are both hilarious and deeply troubling. His visits to WalMart (and his treatment of the elderly female greeter, who sees through him and reacts in kind) are crushingly honest, and also terrifying. Pygmy goes on a trip to WalMart to purchase bomb-making supplies that should make you go and search your kids' closets RIGHT NOW. I have trouble "recommending" Pygmy to anyone. If, like me, you read to give your brain a workout, to feel the pathways in your brain change, to feel and think things to which you do not ordinarily have access, and to take a vacation from yourself, then you might be interested in Pygmy. If you read purely for escape and expect a slight depression in the middle of a story, then a soaring, satisfying finish, choose another book."
"Mmmm, so I kind of think of myself as a Chuck Palahniuk connoisseur since i've read almost every book he's ever written(with the exception of Stranger Than Fiction and Fugitives & Refugees) and Pygmy falls into the middling category. I don't know if he's just getting too smart for me to fully appreciate his work or what, but I didn't feel the same about reading Pygmy. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was hilarious in most parts, but I just felt like it was missing something. There were little holes in the story that bothered me like Pygmy's sudden flashes of actual emotion, like the white rat scenario, and the scenes of violence that everyone just forgot about, like Magda and the Devil Tony. Little things that were just inconsistent. The actual language the book was written in was a good move, because it allowed Chuck P. to access a whole new range of funny, with his foreign phrases like with the living mummy Wal-mart lady. Also, the bam-blams were enjoying to read, my mind said them really fast and created a satisfying sound effect. I also enjoyed his use of quotes this time, instead of little bits of fact trivia. It was a nice change of flavor. I liked and disliked the ending. I thought it was trite, but at the same time, it was kind of...the way it should end. All throughout the story, Pygmy hates on America because of it's materialism, bigotry, etc, etc, yet he can't help but be lured into wanting to be a part of the culture. That's how it is for most Americans(thinking ones in any case). It's a love/hate relationship. Yes, we are totally a terrible fat matericalistic, imperialistic, greedy country, but, man, I like it here all the same. It's seductive, America, and not really because of the freedoms we have here. I'm not sure what it is, but it's like that addictive stuff in fast food. It's sooo bad for you, but you love it, and it can make you really irritable. So, I still lean toward the more aged stories, Choke and Invisible Monsters topping the list, but Pygmy was not bad considering that I didn't really like Snuff. At least this one was funny."
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