I am wary to read Palahniuk books after having read Choke a long, long time ago. The trouble is, I loved some of his stuff. Haunted and Fight Club are some of my favourite books when I started reading, especially in uni. But that maybe the issue here, when at that time I was a young undergrad who was looking for the next unique style. I thought Palahniuk was unique, ballsy and witty. But after reading Choke, the act of kind of wore off fast, and I don’t know if I would put Haunted and Fight Club in the same pedestal if I re-read it as a 34 year old.
Maybe I’m too old now for books being a bit too fancy for what it is. Maybe there is substance here. Actually, I am sure of it. Invisible Monsters can be seen as a meditation of beauty’s artifice. The message here, or the question it asks is relevant in this age of Instagram influencers where anybody and everybody is a fucking model — does your vanity make you happy?
In the case of the narrator (whose name we only find much later), being a model and being pretty becomes a burden as she became addicted to the appreciation of her beauty. She loves it, but grew tired of it to the point that she shot herself and as a result, mutilated her face. Her new mask, her veil becomes her entire being — that she is able to make up any story she wants to the identity of her veil. We see similar parallels with the other characters here.
Gender in some way, becomes the same veil that the narrator wore after her disfigurement. All the other main characters here are not happy with their sex, and opted to switch. Brandy Alexander, who turned out be the dead, gay brother, managed to undergo a sex change just like Evie Cottrell, who started out as Evan Cottrell. Manus, the bisexual fiancée slowly slides into womanhood after gradually being fed female hormones, but he does not question the changes taking place in him (and on him) and rather accepts it. Gender is a veil that can be at best, arbitrary.
Palahniuk also uses physical things as symbolism of the beauty and its artifice. The houses that the entourage of the narrator, Brandy Alexander and Manus visit are largely empty of their owners, having no personality except for the exquisite furnitures that they hold. In fact, we know more from the houses and their owners from the pills and medication that they find and steal — laxatives, valiums, tranquilisers.
The problem I have with the book is largely the style of how it’s written. I think my university self would appreciate what Palahniuk tries to do and think it genius, but I feel differently now to the jump cut which starts off always as “Jump to..” or “Give me *something”. Flash. Give me *something else*. Flash.” As the narrator is a model, she is trained to adapt her appearance to the situation. Whether she feels anything invested emotionally to the situation is a different question altogether. It is a clever plot style, but much overused.
You can say that the non-linear storyline gives it a pulp fiction feel to it, but it does seem a cheaper imitation, and maybe an even cheaper imitation of Fight Club but as terrible a copy as its cousin Choke: Brandy Alexander asked the narrator to hit her (which she did) and the Rhea sisters care for Brandy Alexander because they need to care about her, to give their existence meaning. All these books speak of the angst of the millenial and gen Y angst, that cannot be satisfied and which needs some sort of outlet. In the case of Fight Club it is being the shit out of each other, in Choke it is meaningless sex and taking advantage of people’s kindness, in Invisible Monsters, it’s self-mutilation. It is a generation that needs to constantly renew its identity for the better or worse, but largely for worse.
