Funny, Personal, Informative..A Unique View of The Rose City

I was born in Portland and spent my first 27 years there, but I guess I lived something of a sheltered life. Sure, I'd been to Powells Book's (many times), to Darcelle's (once) and had seen the 24-hour Church of Elvis, but in this book, Chuck Palahniuk introduced me to a lot of Portland I never knew. Oh, what I was missing!

In a coversation with writer Katherine Dunn at the beginning of the book, she shares with Palahniuk a theory I've heard others advance--that the city (and this region) attracts more than its share of offbeat folks because of its geographic position at the western end of the continent. People who are dissatisfied or don't feel like they fit in where they are have a tendency to keep moving. By the time they reach Oregon, they've run out of places to go. It makes sense to me, and seems as good an explanation as any for the whacky, wonderful subculture Chuck celebrates in this book. It's a unique blend of travel guide and personal memoir, and while it won't replace the traditional city handbooks, it's a great supplement for anybody wanting to explore the city's heart, soul, and sometimes seamy underside in a little more depth.

Damn good book for Palahniuk Fans

Well i guess the first is to say that this book is non-fiction. Its basically a bizarre travel guide to Chuck's hometown of Portland. The power of chuck is that he can take a place that i have never been to or have seen pictures of and make i feel like have lived there my whole life. Basically he explores all the aspects of Portland that most people wouldn't cover in a travel guide. These topics include: where to get a piece of bum in Portland, the strange museums, the sewers, and haunted places. An while most chapters have some really interesting stories, there are some damn boring ones in the collection. Things that you read and go "i really didn't need to know that," but luckily that only happened 2 or 3 times in the 176 page book. I think the real gems are the "postcards" that separate each chapter. These are autobiographical glimpses into Palahniuk's past and they give you a look at the man who would later write bestsellers like Fight Club, Choke, and Lullaby. Chuck made this book interesting and I'm happy to have read it. Any Palahniuk fans will enjoy this book for at the least the autobiographical postcards. For new Palahniuk fans i suggest this fictional work that i mentioned above and his novel Survivor.

Northwest Passages

Let me start by saying that I didn't pick this book up 'cause I'm a huge Chuck P fan. I liked the film of his book Fight Club, but the only novel of his I've read is Choke, and I found it to be muddled and rather weak. However, I did live in Portland for four years in the early '90s, when I was going to college there, so this seemed like a cool book to check out. Palahniuk's vibe is clearly aimed at the 15-50 quirkster/hipster demographic, and he hits on all cylinders with his portrait of the city nicknamed "Little Beirut" by Ronald Reagan and George Bush the Elder.

The book is broken up into twelve chapters. "Talk the Talk" presents the key bits of PDX slang you'll need to sound like a local (most of which were unknown to me). "Quests" lists fourteen different "adventures" or things to do in and around the city. Samples include visiting the famous self-cleaning house, or spending an afternoon in eviction court. "Chow" is on food, of course, and is probably the most disappointing chapter. "Haunts" lists sixteen places to commune with ghosts and spirits in places like haunted hotels and bathrooms. "Souvenirs" is a throwaway two-page chapter listing five offbeat places to buy stuff. "Unholy Relics" is a list of nine offbeat museums, like the Vacuum Cleaner Museum.

"Getting Off" is the longest chapter, and as one might guess, it's all about the city's sex scene, from strip bars to swinger clubs. Notable is the annual "I-Tit-A-Rod" race, in which the goal is to visit as many strip clubs in twelve hours as possible (no one has come close to making all fifty). A more genteel chapter follows this, highlighting the city's more interesting gardens and parks. "Getting Around" is a relatively tame hodgepodge of transportation related sights, including a decommissioned nuclear submarine. "Animal Acts" is almost entirely about the Portland Zoo, with small sections about the feral cats of Portland Stadium, and a few pug-related items. "The Shanghai Tunnels" is about Portland's legendary tunnel system and the
variety of tours one can take through them.

Palahniuk moved to Portland after graduating high school in 1981, and separating each chapter are "postcards" of his time in the city. These are brief stories and escapades that chart a chronological course of his becoming more and more involved in Portland. Particularly hilarious are his tales of the annual "Santa Rampage" (imagine several hundred Santas battling riot police), and an end of the millennium party at the old Baghdad Theater. As a whole, the book is not one likely to be endorsed by the Portland Visitors Bureau, which is kind of the whole point of it. Like any city, Portland's civic leaders would like to present a shiny, happy facade of bland progress. Fortunately, we now have Palahniuk's valuable unsugarcoated portrait, one which only someone who truly loves the city could have penned.