Kevin’s Musings

Fight Club is one of my favorite movies from the 90’s, messy, twisted and dark, with a great reveal at the end.  I recently watched it for the second time with my wife, who had never seen it before.  Eleven years later, it was still highly entertaining and knowing the end twist before hand gave me the ability to see the movie in a whole new light.

Feeling inspired, I did some research on the author of the novel Fight Club, and chose to read another book of his, Lullaby.  Chuck Palhniuk is well known for being off the wall, eccentric and complex, Lullaby was no exception.  I was reminded a lot of Neil Gaimen, but with more of a punch to the gut, deeper insights into the world around us, and with a less of a playful tone.  Well, Palhniuk is playful, but more in the disturbing sense, he’s not really very safe.

Lullaby is a tale of a man’s discovery of a culling song which has the power to kill and how this power shapes him and those around him.  The song brings him into a new circle of friends, a mish-mash sort of dysfunctional family, all of whom are vying for control over the magical song.  This struggle in turn brings to light his sordid past, which has made him into a bit of a recluse with a penchant for making model buildings and then destroying them, his way of coping.  That sounds perfectly normal, right?

As with Fight Club, Lullaby’s protagonist is a little deranged, battling his crippling past and the culture around him.  He rants about the addiction that our culture has to noise, be it the television, stereo, or my pet peeve, lawn mowers.  In the summer my neighborhood is one constant, droning, cacophony of lawn mower noise pollution, when I rule the world we’ll have scheduled mowing times, similar to the lawn watering times enforced by the city of Abbotsford.  Alrighty then, enough of my delusions of grandeur.  I think there is something to consider there though,  we can greatly benefit from taking time to be quiet.  Taking time to listen to what others have to say without just mentally preparing what we want to say next, taking time listen to ourselves or God.