I Love You, but Please Don't.

Two years after the film came out, inspiring young boys everywhere to rename their blood-brother broods to "Project Mayhem", I read Fight Club. In my intellectual infancy, the book was like nothing I had every read before (mostly because before I had always been forced to read). As I so pretentiously beamed: it read as my mind worked and thus made sense to me. I then did what every inflated ego would do in this situation and saw the film, expecting little on my investment. To my ultimate surprise, it passed muster.

Now, obviously, the greatness of the film is a manifest of all the pieces: David Fincher, Brad Pitt, Ed Norton, Jim Uhls, and, of course, the Dust Brothers; I do not feel I need to defend of it. Then comes 2008. Then comes Choke. The novel appeared in 2001, the same year I was timidly flipping the pages of Fight Club, and received stunning reviews. In 2005, I read the 293 work and and still amazed that it only took Palahniuk 293 pages to capture every aspect of every character he wanted to capture. I still attribute one of the most defining character moments in any work of art I have ever seen or read is the vision of Victor's mother switching brunette hair dye into a blond box.

I may be missing the point.

Choke was not a bad film. It included everything that needed to be included in the story. It was true to the book, with some revisions. It was humorous. Cathartic. Spiritual. Messy. Yahda Yahda.
See, though, it wasn't the novel.
There is something intrinsic about the novel that was lost in the film.

It's no secret that Chuck's books are going to continue to be adapted. According to imdb.com, Rant, Survivor, and Invisible Monsters are already in development. Go see for yourself, and you'll note that I have left one out.

Haunted.

Haunted is my favorite novel written by Chuck Palahniuk. Featuring 23 stories ranging from insanity to espionage, the novel is wonderfully intercut with the 19 authors' tale of imminent demise. Their pervasive plots to sabotage their "writer's retreat" trap them in a cage of their own making, and we learn that these crafty authors are more experienced in tragedy than we originally realized.

Of course, that's not even the half of it. His longest work, totaling 411 pages paperback, and donning a brilliant glow-in-the-dark cover, is a spine-tingling, vomit-inducing heart attack of prose. Not to sound like a sound-bite or radio plug, this book will fuck you up. And here it sits, begging for at least an "R" rating, in development.

The film has been fast-tracked by Brian Levy's new company, New School Media, and has already acquired a writer/director in Belgium filmmaker Koen Mortier, who's building his resume with films such as Ex Drummer (2007) and A Hard Day's Work (1997). His work has a knack for grunge appeal, augmenting audience perception with intense and frantic camerawork that heightens tension and, sometimes, anxiety. As happy as I am to see that Hollywood will not get the chance to contaminate the adaptation, I still make the plea:

Please Dont!

Before, I mentioned an intrinsic quality that a Palahniuk novel has that cannot translate to the audio-visual realm.

And that's it, Palahniuk is unafraid to offend. His raunchy and raw descriptions, which actually read as well-described observations, are left on the page with no apologies. And that's okay, because it's a novel, and there are different rules. Play on a theme hard enough, and you may get lucky in translation (again, look at Fight Club).

But Haunted is like the "7 words you can't say on television" of novels. And I will plead, just one more time. Please, Please Don't.

I can already see the corn and peanuts.