Cannibal

by Chuck Palahniuk

His talent made him popular with a certain kind of girl.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, Humor, Novels, Adult Fiction, Dark

Unknown Binding

First published May 1, 2013

About the author

Written in stolen moments under truck chassis and on park benches to a soundtrack of The Downward Spiral and Pablo Honey, Fight Club came into existence. The adaptation of Fight Club was a flop at the box office, but achieved cult status on DVD. The film’s popularity drove sales of the novel. Chuck put out two novels in 1999, Survivor and Invisible Monsters. Choke, published in 2001, became Chuck’s first New York Times bestseller. Chuck’s work has always been infused with personal experience, and his next novel, Lullaby, was no exception. Chuck credits writing Lullaby with helping him cope with the tragic death of his father. Diary and the non-fiction guide to Portland, Fugitives and Refugees, were released in 2003. While on the road in support of Diary, Chuck began reading a short story entitled 'Guts,' which would eventually become part of the novel Haunted.

In the years that followed, he continued to write, publishing the bestselling Rant, Snuff, Pygmy, Tell-All, a 'remix' of Invisible Monsters, Damned, and most recently, Doomed.

Chuck also enjoys giving back to his fans, and teaching the art of storytelling has been an important part of that. In 2004, Chuck began submitting essays to ChuckPalahniuk.net on the craft of writing. These were 'How To' pieces, straight out of Chuck's personal bag of tricks, based on the tenants of minimalism he learned from Tom Spanbauer. Every month, a “Homework Assignment” would accompany the lesson, so Workshop members could apply what they had learned. (all 36 of these essays can currently be found on The Cult's sister-site, LitReactor.com).

Then, in 2009, Chuck increased his involvement by committing to read and review a selection of fan-written stories each month. The best stories are currently set to be published in Burnt Tongues, a forthcoming anthology, with an introduction written by Chuck himself.

His next novel, Beautiful You, is due out in October 2014.

Reviews

[Lorena Rabelo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I may be a sick soul beyond salvation for liking this kind of shit. Honestly, this one is a whole new level of disturbing. When it came to the point in the story I realized just what that thing was about, I started laughing in denial, shaking my head and refusing to believe he meant what I thought he meant. But of course he did - that's Palahniuk we're talking about.

And wow. Just wow. I like it when an author manages to surprise me, and Chuck never fails to do just that. With honors.

I also need to say this was quite a difficult read for me. No, not for the obvious reasons, meaning the plot, but for the writing itself. I don't know if all of you native English speakers have this so wide a range of, let's say, pet names for genitalia, but most of them were new to me, and besides the self-explanatory ones (such as ham wallet) I had to constantly check their meaning in urbandictionary.com. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the vocabulary improvement here, but it broke my reading flow too much for me to get the whole picture and understand everything right in the first read. But then, this is a personal problem, nothing is actually wrong with the story. I'm definitely reading it again, and I recommend it to anyone with a taste for the perverse.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We'll take drug addiction and we'll take JPEGs of the world instead of the world, MP3s instead of music, and we'll trade real life for sitting at a keyboard. We'll spot you happiness and we'll spot you humanity, and we'll sacrifice mercy just so long as you keep Cannibal at bay."

Goddamn. Among all the Chuck Palahniuk short stories I've read so far; Zombie (which I really liked!), Romance and Guts, this had got to be my favourite. The idea was over the top disgusting, and a point had come in the story which it went out of control. It almost outdid Guts. Then suddenly, before I could even know it, Chuck haad already dropped the bomb; a wreaking havoc causing every other thing to be also dragged down. I didnt know what to make out of it. All I knew was one thing; it had me supressing this festering urge to throw up right there and then like any other Chuck Palahniuk books I've read before had caused me. This man is a genius, there was no doubt to it. Thats a fact that comes with crystal, absolute clarity.

The ending left me with my mouth full on agape, while struggling to craft a string of f bombs and oh my gods. I also didnt know what to make out of it.

In the end, was the story great? Hell fucking no. Let me tell you this; the story was an absolute, stinking crock of shit. But what was great about his works are the authenticity and originality, and it wills you to critically think since believe me, he wasnt going to spoonfeed you the whole story unlike most of the contemporary books right now. Youll need to use your critical thinking in order to see the story beyond the shit story, and that's exactly what I always look for in reading a book. I dont want to be spoonfed, if anything, I want someone to rearrange the whole kitchen and hide all the spoons from me so I can spend my time finding it before I can devour what's in my plate. That was what I always wanted, and my main man Palahniuk never disappoints.

I wish I could go to his Adult Bedtime Stories tour someday.

[Venus Maneater · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh NO it's.....

Yeah he managed to gross me out good. Nah my poor, only slightly jaded mind firmly stepped on the road to menstruation, but Chuck made it way way way worse.

The rhythm of his writing makes reading his work feel like watching 90s MTV. The early nineties. The good nineties and the good MTV. Watching MTV and gossiping about that nasty boy who is used to do nasty shit by nasty girls and everyone knows but him.

[Althea Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm, well, this one succeeds in being disgusting, but I wasn't convinced on a logical level. High school angst about sex is taken to a new level.

[Catalina Jiménez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is fantastic. I know it make some people want to throw up, but I just enjoy so much of Chuck's narrative (plus the fact that I have lost almost all sensibility for human beings) that it is impossible for me to feel disgusted. All I can read in this story is an awesome and irreverent idea after an awesome and irreverent idea. I simply love Chuck because he has the guts to play with everything that society takes too seriously, and he laughs at society's concepts of good, evil, proper and improper.

Analyzing a little bit, something that I find very interesting is the fact that - being able to separate your conscience from society's conservative standards - it is possible to defend Cannibal from being called "evil". As far as what I understood (please correct me if I'm wrong, I am not a native English speaker and I may have mistaken something) Cannibal does not know what he's truly doing. He thinks he's just the best sucker of the whole school but, does he truly know what he has done? as far as what I understand, he doesn't. Thus, he's not acting like an evil soul, but just a dumb kid. And this is something that I find amazing: the fact that Chuck is able to create an innocent character (but apparently disgusting) in the middle of such a grotesque scenario, who actually performs grotesque actions without knowing them.

I simply adore Chuck's irreverence. To finish: this is a mind-blowing (literally) story, and everybody should read it and love it.

[Timmy]

j'arrive vraiment pas à savoir si je suis passé 100% à côté de l'histoire ou si je suis juste complètement désensibilisé à ce genre de trucs maintenant (et ce serait totalement de la faute de cet auteur *cough* serpent de piscine *cough*)

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is, hands down, the most disturbing story I have ever read. If you're a fan of Palahniuk and thought "Guts" was the most gruesome idea ever, you're in for a surprise. My reaction to this story went how I imagine most did: covering my mouth, muttering a handful obscenities, and hoping my gag reflex was in check. For that reason alone, I loved it. Palahniuk has always gone against the norm of today's authors; he strives for that shock factor, and while some people believe he tries too hard, he certainly obtained it with this story. One of my favorite aspects of Palahniuk's writing is that he constantly has you thinking. I was so distracted by the vulgar terminology and of Cannibal himself that it took me a few minutes of thinking about the story to realize what exactly had happened.

I think people will either love or hate this story depending on how well their stomachs can handle it.

[justjulijack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my god

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, a while back I remember Chuck saying that he'd soon be reading/releasing a few short stories that would "Make 'Guts' look tame". This is one of those, and as absurd as that sounded to me at the time, he might just be right. I really can't discuss this in much detail without spoiling the story, but I'd rank this among my favorite short stories he's written. It's grotesque to a point that makes you once again think, "What kind of sick bastard comes up with this shit?". Many people criticize Chuck's recent novels as diminishing in quality (and it's a fair point). Pretty much all my favorite Palahniuk novels are his earlier work, but I don't think anyone can argue the same with his short stories. His last two short stories: 'Romance' and 'Cannibal' might be my two favorites yet, and I've read most of them. If you can get your hands on the May '13 issue of Playboy, this story alone is well worth the price.

[Damien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Monotonous sentence structure aside (even for Chuck, it was a bit much), this is arguably Palahniuk at his gruesome best. A horrific plot that embattles naivety unknowingly performing the unthinkable against the malicious and vindictive conspiring to do the same, only fifteen years later. Cannibal is perverse and pornographic, but not in the ways you'd expect.

[Camilo Colorado · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled across this story by Mr. Palahniuk on a link from his website. Very glad I did. Although it deals with a disturbing story, his brilliance comes through and we are left with a perfect words telling an imperfect story. Read this story!

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can read the short story here. (It's a playboy link but safe for work.)

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short story so I feel like I'm cheating by adding it but hey... I read it.
Not as shocking as I was expecting but good read none the less.

[Tabatha_Reads_Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am seriously sick and twisted, but I loved the story! Chuck always has a way of taking those shitty pieces of society and turning them into something pretty comedic and grotesque. Bravo again!

[Mathias Hellsing · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this;



;)

[Marissa Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disgusting and gruesome. EXACTLY what I expected. I am not disappointed at all!!!

[hana · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 wtf

[Ushnav Shroff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dis-tasteful.

[Kaeli Overman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading and had to stop eating the cookie I had before I was done. Would recommend reading. Not while eating lol

[Rory Bleaker · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, my first contact with Palahniuk was 'Guts'. I was younger and I must admit I liked it. In fact, I still like it. Guts is funny, witty, remarkable not only because of the shocking value but because of the moral the story passes.
The matter is that Gust made a lot of people faint and throw up, and Palahniuk can´t hold himself sometimes.
Palahniuk is not perfect, I admit. I´m a fan, a lot of his books are on my shelf as favorites, but recently things are getting worse and worse. He repeats himself. The "Old Chinese Saying" thing about saving a life is said in Fight Club and repeated in Choke.
The one stranger that changes your life and turns out to be closer than you think is from both Fight Club and Invisible Monsters.
And so on...
Now Palahniuk is rocking this short story to the playboy. What I think weird is that playboy itself appears several times on the story. It´s like they were just so proud of it that they wanted to show the world how powerful they can be to the young minds, but that´s not the point here.

Just Palahniuk saying that he wanted to write a story to make Guts look lame is pathetic. It´s ridiculous.
Guts was written based on the report made by a man when Palahniuk himself was attending to sex addicted groups in order to write his 'Choke'. Now we know that he attended to a groups (Fight Club) where he met the super-thin stranger (Haunted). There´s a padron there.

Either way, Cannibal as a short story is not good. I must say it. It is just a short tale showing that people don´t want Cannibal around them, because of his fucked up skills. At the same time the girls who enjoy him so much decide to kill him off because their reputations may go shattered. While reading Cannibal I had to go to urban dictionary (I´m not originally an english speaker, you might see by some errors on this review) to find out what the new euphemism meant.

Ham Wallet - Vagina

And there were several. The problem is that this short are in fact three different tales. One of Cannibal watching TV, one of Cannibal being kicked around by the teams on the school and one of the girls dealing with the Cannibal Situation. It was just plain dumb.
For real, I can´t even think of how reasonless it was.

So the innocent Cannibal is too dangerous to exist. End of story.

Guts is about this kid who... You know what he does. And the consequences of it. Two cases (the candle one) of masturbation backfiring. But at the end, the kids are not even sad or mad about it. They hurted themselves and embarrased their families, but they knew they couldn´t help it. They were just teenager stupid males with masturbation fantasies, just like me when I read it.

I created a link with Guts. I wasn´t grossed or shocked by it. Not trying to play the badass, I just wasn´t. It was mesmerizing. I was hipnotized by the story while I read it. It was an amazing narrative. But Cannibal is just confuse, paiful to the mind and pretentious.

Guts was shocking with no intention of being shocking. It was the reproduction of a real life happening that somehow needed to be written down. Haunted itself has idiotic Palahniuk-like happenings (such as a woman who dies trying to avoid her cop co-workers of having sex with anatomically correct dolls - What the fuck, Palahniuk?)

Chuck Palahniuk is Quentin Tarantino of Books. You either love him or hate him. You know there will be blood (in Palahniuk´s case other substances) and that it´s not for everyone. And such as Tarantino, he is getting weaker with the time. (I mean, a new Tarantino might not be as cool as an old one, but is much better than the average movies).

I don´t see why I shouldn´t like a book nobody liked, and that´s why I liked Pygmy. I had to reasons not to like it. The story was interesting to me. Either way, I am forced to admit that his newest efforts are getting lamer and lamer.
*Cough* *Cough* Doomed

From the times where Palahniuk was a struggling author who wrote disturbing things trying to find a way into the literature world, passing through the time where he became a best-seller and to the times where he is just trying to shock people for fun, we must admit that no incoming writer would choose to live such carreer... Or would them?

The shocking value is rule and we don´t want it out. But at the same time it´s getting ridiculous. The great premise of Pygmy ended up being all centered to the shocking scene and Doomed was just a gross out-fest.

I hope Palahniuk change this sad reality, but I know this is not going to happen so soon.

And don´t even come to me with the sample below trying to prove that my review was a disapropriate retribution.

"We'll take drug addiction and we'll take JPEGs of the world instead of the world, MP3s instead of music, and we'll trade real life for sitting at a keyboard. We'll spot you happiness and we'll spot you humanity, and we'll sacrifice mercy just so long as you keep Cannibal at bay."

[Courier E · Rating 2 out of 5]

3/10

[brooke 🌞 · Rating 3 out of 5]

had the usual chuck style of writing which i adore, but the story itself wasn’t as disturbing as guts imo and i don’t know if i’m just stupid but i had a much harder time understanding it. overall it was still good and very gross but not his best work

[Tess van Brummelen · Rating 3 out of 5]

"(..) where she approached Cannibal, because he was still only in seventh grade and because she knew he’d never say no because he was so stoned on puberty.

She’s all, “You like my hair, don’t you?” Her head rolls to swing her hair like a spaghetti cape, and she goes, “This is the longest my hair’s ever been.”

The way she says this sounds dirty, because everything sounds dirty when it comes out of a sexy girl’s mouth."

"and because he’s looking at her panties so hard she says to shut his eyes. Because Cannibal only pretends not to peek he sees her kneel on the padded rail at the edge of the waterbed, and he can see why it’s called a ham wallet. After that he can’t see jack because she slings one leg over his face and squats down until the room is nothing but fish taco blotting out everything except the underwater sound of Marcia Sanders’s voice telling him what to do next. Cannibal finds himself sunk head-deep in waterbed with sloppy waterbed mattress squeezed up around his ears, hearing the lap of ocean waves. His body rocking from head to toe, hearing his heartbeat, hearing somebody’s heartbeat. Because -Marcia Sanders, out of nowhere her voice tells him, “Suck, already, you stupid dummy,” Cannibal sucks.

Because she says, “Let’s get this over with,” he sucks like giving her insides a big hickey.

(..)

Cannibal is wearing Marcia Sanders like a gas mask, sucking on her like she’s a snakebite, with her thighs so ear-muffed tight to the sides of his head he can’t hear why she’s screaming. Because on the -Playboy channel, screaming is what you strive for. Cannibal’s freaked out because a blue waffle on cable only smells like whatever your mom’s cooking upstairs. Because a ham wallet on television never fights back, Cannibal sucks the way a tornado on the Weather Channel will bust one window and turn your entire house inside out."

"because Cannibal’s strutting around, too smart for his own good but too dumb to know he’s total evil. Because now when Cannibal belches, it’s your poor choice he’s tasting. And when Cannibal farts that’s the smell of your parents’ dead grandbaby."

"Because if you believe in evolution the world is just everybody prancing down a -yellow-brick road in Technicolor singing, “Because, because, because, because, because.…” When the real truth is in the Old Testament, where the seven tribes wander around, lost, always saying, “Begat, begat, begat, begat, begat.…”
Because the upside is that maybe Cannibal will go to heaven since except for his mouth he’s still a virgin."

[Justine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just wrote an entire review and the field cleared. Unfortunately, I don't remember all that I wrote but I will try to provide a more simplified version below.

This is the lowest rating I have ever given to a Palahniuk story. Although I love Chuck's literature, both novels and short-stories (Phoenix still resonated in my mind), I did not enjoy this one.

I am usually unphased by grotesque imagery or whatnot (Well ... not entirely. It did take me a little while, and some mental 'you-can-do-it' coaching to get through the beginning of Haunted), I thought that this story went a little too far. When reading this story, I felt that Chuck was too willing to shock readers, and even make some gag or faint, that he jeopardized the writing in order to awe. Although the disgusting descriptions and visuals were somewhat necessary to the story, I felt, as a whole, that the story was weak because of this - because it seemed to be based on the achieving a disgusted audiences' reaction and not on the fulfillment of the story itself.

Some of Chuck's "real" writing did show at points, but not throughout the story evenly. As much as I, what I will call, neutrally disliked the story, there was one beautiful line I took from it:

"We'll spot you happiness and we'll spot you humanity, and we'll sacrifice mercy ..."

That one snippet, to me, was the redeeming line of the story. But still, not one of my favorites.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Chuck Palahniuk. I know, SHOCKER. However, this is the first short story I've read from Chuck and it was...okay.

I don't know what I was expecting...maybe a little less shock value and a little more plot? Either way I felt sort of disappointed.

That's not to say I won't read Chuck again. He's an extremely talented author. I'd just like to warn those who are venturing into Palahniuk territory for the first time to read something else of his first because this definitely isn't his best.

Personal opinion: Start with Haunted. Amazing.

[Philip of Macedon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a bad story, not a good story, but the very small amount of Palahniuk I've read suffers from the same things: bad modern prose, having been seemingly written for those with short attention spans, and having a weak gimmicky treatment of the only things that make the stories interesting. It all comes off like an extended 90's MTV short without any point, and with more hackneyed pseudophilosophy than talent. Maybe I should try his novels instead of his short stories. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

[Yara Hatem · Rating 5 out of 5]

How the hell am I supposed to write a review about what I just read!! All I have to say is that it had me shocked to my core,which is the case with everything Chuck Palahniuk writes, but I usually enjoy and LOVE, the sickness of his words, this time am just.. shocked. This one was a whole new level of disturbing.

This man is something. Like half way through it when you start getting what he is talking about, and you are like "Nahh, no way. He can't really mean that, can he?", but then you finish the story and it's like, "Oh god! He does".

[Betita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can anyone (who has read the story) please, please explain to me the concluding part of the story? I just can't fully grasp what Chuck's point is in this part. I pretty much understood what was going on for most parts because of the narration. (Spoiler-->) But I don't understand, in the last parts, how Cannibal became someone nobody wanted to stand beside with. Someone please help me, I'm doing an analytic paper on this.

[Rania M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the most disgusting thing I have ever read. It's "bloody" perfect. It took me a couple of minutes to believe what I understood to have happened.. but I guess now I know what to expect from Chuck Palahniuk's bibliography.

[Anna]

....why do I keep doing this to myself. Seriously...
Amusing euphemisms tho