Not Forever, But For Now by Chuck Palahniuk. Published September 5th by Simon & Schuster. 256 pages.
I think Chuck Palahniuk has settled into a voice. With his 20th novel, Not Forever, But For Now, I’m sure that a craving for stylistic variety, to the point of finding monotone to devastating effect where there’s consistency, is a feature or property of modernity. Palahniuk is facile, even lapidary, in his phrasing, along the lines of, say, DeLillo (and ‘opposed to’ the sentence-level aesthetic of Morrison or McCarthy). Similarly, cartoons for grown-ups on television have a way of condensing complicated situations and feelings into funny one-liners and images. Some might still argue that he’s not quite in control of the material and that makes his books increasingly unreadable as pleasure or that he can’t quite make the words on the page do the work he wants them to do, hence possibly his own endless revisitations. I think that Palahniuk literature serves a polemic purpose. He’s one of the most daring contemporary writers in depicting cultural fringes. He hasn’t lost his heart or passion, he’s evolved his craft to create something which looks at different viewpoints and finds the common illusions and deceptions which come when desire conflicts with ideology. Palahniuk’s satirical intent is so clear, it can be seen from orbit.
Not Forever, But For Now is an absurdist horror satire about a family of professional killers responsible for many atrocious events in recorded human history. This story is dark and gritty and best described as a fever dream. It follows a pair of murderous and sexually-depraved man-child brothers Otto and Cecil. They watch nature films to inspire them to be predators rather than prey, bump off nannies, tutors, governesses and all of the household employees in general AND have it off with everyone/everything else. The brothers engage in many bizarre adventures throughout the novel, which finally land them both in prison. There Otto sets his apocalyptic vision into motion. However, Cecil has a more humane proposal in mind.
Not Forever, But For Now is another example of social construct on a maximum scale. I think one reads it expecting one thing, but finds something else – something far weirder and far more disquieting, perhaps. Societies evolve slowly over time from human nature if there are no safeguards built into the system that prevent sustained anarchy for the sake of anarchy. Riots are short bursts of explosive rebellion but organized revolution requires ideology. People will not follow just because they are given a place to belong, the security of rules and required not to ask questions. You might as well be trying to fit human nature itself into neat little diagrams. Human nature is not a line. It’s a smorgasbord of pick and mix ideas. Although, admittedly, some are more likely to pick savory over sweet. There are A LOT of both here.
Art should make its audience uncomfortable. If you’re turned off in the first half, or even three quarters of the way through Not Forever, But For Now, you just have to hold out for the ending. It is worth it. When you read Palahniuk, the story stays with you.