In the mid-’90s Chuck Palahniuk was shot to fame with the release of his first novel, “Fight Club. With the aid of the movie adaptation, his fan base began to grow. “Fight Club” labeled Palahniuk as a social satirist, celebrating the outcasts of today’s society and picking apart the average man. He keeps that theme alive in his new book, “Pygmy.” “Pygmy,” follows the story of Agent Number 67, an operative from an unnamed totalitarian state that seems to be a combination of North Korea and Nazi Germany. The agent is disguised as an exchange student sent to live with a typical Midwestern family. His mission is to learn as much as possible about the American culture while preparing for an unexplained massive act of terrorism, also known as “Operation Havoc”, with the help of many other operatives. He is nicknamed “Pygmy” by his host family, who welcome him with an oversized “Jesus” shirt and an American flag. It seems that Pygmy’s government is successful in developing their agents into mindless drones only meant to carry out the mission at hand. It doesn’t seem that they have prepared the operatives for how their actions affect all around them, such as when Pygmy rapes a bully in a department store bathroom. Pygmy seems to develop self-awareness throughout his stay in America. Eventually, he begins to feel basic human emotions, an improvement from where he began at the beginning of the novel. At one point he even becomes a national hero by saving his classmates from a school shooting, which skews Pygmy’s perception of his motives even more. Will he be able to complete his mission, or will he allow his new feelings to overcome his training?
The first difficulty the reader encounters in the book is the unique style through which Palahniuk chose to tell the story. Each chapter is a different dispatch from Pygmy to his government and with his lack of knowledge on the English language the writing usually contains awkward lists of adjectives and nouns, misused words, and inverted grammar like this: “In Magda hands already knotted finger ready Cobra One-Strike No-Blood, bam-slam, inflict cat sister instant dead. More fast most eye able look.”
Although it is impressive that Palahniuk was able to be so thorough with his form of broken English, he never lightens up and it becomes irritating. Eventually, the reader is able to catch on to the pattern and is able to follow the story a little easier. Palahniuk’s attacks on the educational system, religion, and the over-medication of Americans seem lazy and not as funny as they should be. All of the supporting characters are underdeveloped. The youth in “Pygmy” are textbook problem children and the adults are almost nonexistent. Although Pygmy may be quite the character, always talking about how easily he could kill somebody with assorted martial arts maneuvers, like “Striking Cobra Quick Kill,” or “Barracuda Deadly Eye Gouge,” in the end he is amazingly unconvincing as an Adolf Hitler quoting terrorist.
If one hasn’t read a Palahniuk novel before, it’s recommend to start with something else, preferably a piece from his earlier days. Somewhere hidden between all the narration quirks, bad jokes, and underdeveloped characters is a story. “Pygmy” is available on Amazon.com for $16.47.