Previous Matches
Yet More Quote Porn
Gone Girl
"It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism is itself derivative). We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can't recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn't immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blasé: Seeeen it. I've literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can't anymore. I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script."
Survivor
"There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher. What we can't understand we call nonsense. What we can't read we call gibberish. There is no free will. There are no variables."
"You realize that people take drugs because it's the only real personal adventure left to them in their time-constrained, law-and-order, property-lined world. It's only in drugs or death we'll see anything new, and death is just too controlling."
Survivor
"There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher. What we can't understand we call nonsense. What we can't read we call gibberish. There is no free will. There are no variables."
"You realize that people take drugs because it's the only real personal adventure left to them in their time-constrained, law-and-order, property-lined world. It's only in drugs or death we'll see anything new, and death is just too controlling."
Head-to-Head
Characters: Well, the book that contains poor ol' Amy & Nick Dunne has lost this battle in every round, and Tender Branson and the other Creedish cultists are in no way about to see that change. Both books do an admirable job of creating genuine, flawed people in the real world (more on that in a moment); but at the end of the day, Tender Branson's double-edged sword of cool zeitgeist vs domestic terrorist is enough to provoke thought and moral quandary, while Nick and Amy provoke nothing in me but a blood lust for their literary lives.
Advantage: Survivor.
Setting: Both of these books arguably take place in current times in the real world. Nick Dunne appears on CNN; Tender Branson gets married at the Superbowl. It's essential to the plot: neither would book would become the circus it does without the rigorous involvement of modern day media. Neither book would have such poignant philosophical thought without the modern backdrop—imagine trying to really hold a mirror to modern society from Middle Earth or from Alderaan. Both books have settings that are well-chosen, well set up, and elaborate because of collective unconscious as much as because of the words that are physically on the page. In some ways, they're different stories in the same book.
Advantage: Push.
Plot: Pageburners, both. The deaths of supporting cast while the protagonists shamble hurriedly towards the ends of the books help to give tension. Gone Girl pulls a bright accelerant in not telling the reader that Nick didn't do it, leaving his morning as large a mystery as that of his missing wife. Survivor helps mow its pages by beginning on a plane hurtling towards the Earth, and counting the pages down instead of up. Again: these books work in the same ways for the same reasons, and that makes them difficult to separate.
Advantage: Push.
Ending: Hated Gone Girl. Was perplexed by Survivor. Time and a well-made movie helped to taper my frustration with Gone Girl. An explanation from Palahniuk himself helped to unravel Survivor. Both had their foibles, but upon close inspection, it appears Palahniuk's ending was well-planned and executed from the get-go, while the other was a corner that Flynn had written herself into.
Advantage: Survivor.
Language/Writing: Both writers do a great job of rolling some punchy pessimism into their compelling tales. Both express their characters' thoughts and motives in a way that is logical and relatable. Both might try a little too hard to be edgy sometimes, but both succeed anyway. Both are completely enveloping and alluring once the narrative gets rolling. It's really, really hard to separate them on this point in any quantifiable way.
Advantage: Push.
Philosophy: Gillian Flynn opines about the difficulty of true originality, about feminism, about 21st century relationships and about modern media. Palahniuk answers the thoughts about the media, and adds in thoughts about religion, duty, and the meaning of life. Palahniuk's is a much more introspective societal mirror. Still, Flynn's higher page count helps to contribute to the fact that I honestly thought more while reading Gone Girl than I did Survivor.
Advantage: Gone Girl.
Advantage: Push.
Plot: Pageburners, both. The deaths of supporting cast while the protagonists shamble hurriedly towards the ends of the books help to give tension. Gone Girl pulls a bright accelerant in not telling the reader that Nick didn't do it, leaving his morning as large a mystery as that of his missing wife. Survivor helps mow its pages by beginning on a plane hurtling towards the Earth, and counting the pages down instead of up. Again: these books work in the same ways for the same reasons, and that makes them difficult to separate.
Advantage: Push.
Ending: Hated Gone Girl. Was perplexed by Survivor. Time and a well-made movie helped to taper my frustration with Gone Girl. An explanation from Palahniuk himself helped to unravel Survivor. Both had their foibles, but upon close inspection, it appears Palahniuk's ending was well-planned and executed from the get-go, while the other was a corner that Flynn had written herself into.
Advantage: Survivor.
Language/Writing: Both writers do a great job of rolling some punchy pessimism into their compelling tales. Both express their characters' thoughts and motives in a way that is logical and relatable. Both might try a little too hard to be edgy sometimes, but both succeed anyway. Both are completely enveloping and alluring once the narrative gets rolling. It's really, really hard to separate them on this point in any quantifiable way.
Advantage: Push.
Philosophy: Gillian Flynn opines about the difficulty of true originality, about feminism, about 21st century relationships and about modern media. Palahniuk answers the thoughts about the media, and adds in thoughts about religion, duty, and the meaning of life. Palahniuk's is a much more introspective societal mirror. Still, Flynn's higher page count helps to contribute to the fact that I honestly thought more while reading Gone Girl than I did Survivor.
Advantage: Gone Girl.
Winner Winner Turkey Supper
I was two days writing this blog because I was two days deliberating about which book should win. It's a razor-thin margin, a might-as-well-be coin toss.
Survivor is my choice to move on to the final.
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