Adela Smazilova

Achieving Cult Status: Chuck Palahniuk's Early Fiction: Male Identity Crisis, Nihilism and Critique of Consumerism in Postmodern Urban Context Adela Smazilova

In my book I examine cultural mechanisms which led to establishment of a cult status of American writer Chuck Palahniuk in contemporary popular culture. The first part of the book focuses on literary analysis of his two early novels Fight Club and Survivor. The second part of the book diagnoses Palahniuk?s writing style and his main topics so as to reveal how his own novels became texts of popular culture. The third part of the book analyses various interplays between the artist, his readers and culture industry in order to show how Palahniuk?s cult status challenges the position of literature as a genre and as a cultural practice in today?s postmodern urban context.