There is a hard kind of modesty in this statement from Chuck Palahniuk.
There is a recognition that the astonishing sales success (and even greater cultural penetration) of his novel Fight Club may stem partly from the fact that there was then (and is now) so little fiction like it.
You can see this part of his interview with Joe Rogan (JRE #1158) here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCuSDH-YEKI
Here is the quote with a bit of context:
“There are so few social model novels or stories for men. For women… every season there’s a new Joy Luck Club, a new How To Make an American quilt… all these different models in which women can come together and talk about their lives. If you’re a man you’ve got either Fight Club or the Dead Poet’s Society and that is really it. So we don’t have a lot of narratives that depict to men a role or a kind of script in which to come together and talk about their shit.”
Inherent in this statement is a kind of challenge to emerging writers: to find a way to tell these stories that have not been told, to envision and set out contemporary narratives of masculinity to inspire and enlighten emerging generations of men.
Part of Palahniuk's contribution (through what is often styled as his "transgressive fiction") has been to dredge up and thus liberate come of the dark and repressed aspects of human nature.
His courage to do this has freed other people to admit these shadow parts of themselves, to move through such revelation towards an increased psychic wholeness.
My own project points in a somewhat different direction.
I am moved to tell stories that exemplify the best in people, the best in men especially. So my character Winstanley Jones (Lightbringer) is imbued with outrageous, sometimes terrifying bravery, and the commitment to always act in the help and protection of other people no matter what the risk to himself.
The merit of my character Jesse James (From the Chronicles of Lupa) is somewhat more subtle. He is brave and capable but he is mostly just very decent, bringing with him a "softer sense of justice" than is typically recognised as masculine, a deep sensibility towards moderation and clemency that instructs him for his entire life.
This project to create model characters and narratives is not very different from the project that I call New Scripture: an attempt to modernise and re-vivify the central heroic narratives of scripture whilst liberating them from their deranged underpinnings.
To represent the heroism and sacrifice demonstrated by the Christ Figure without sullying the story with original sin, the derangement of the distant Father who says: I need to kill you in the most horrible way imaginable, son, after all those two kids did eat that apple!"
P. Julian
23 August 2018
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