ON THE SCENCE: Story Time

That made for a promising start to writer Chuck Palahniuk's Saturday night talk, the concluding event of the Vegas Valley Book Festival. After all, Palahniuk is almost as well-known for his raucous readings as he is for his scabrous writing (Fight Club, Choke, Invisible Monsters). Everyone packing the large second-story room in UNLV's student union knew the legend: Dozens of people have fainted during readings of "Guts," a story that culminates with the narrator chewing through his own small intestine. To ward off complaints about the foulness presumably to follow, Palahniuk tried bribing the audience—handing out many tiny liquor bottles, tossing them into the crowd or running around shoving them into outstretched hands. Since there were plenty of minors in the audience, and Palahniuk didn't appear to be checking IDs, I idly wondered how the event's official sponsor—The Las Vegas Review-Journal—felt about the possibility it was underwriting teen tippling.

"If you are not 21 years of age," Palahniuk admonished, "you are in violation of Nevada state law!" Problem solved! Jagger-thin and dressed in a white work shirt and black trousers, Palahniuk was energetic, frequently bounding into the audience; he was a scream, his anecdotes and ad-libs unerringly funny; he came laden with props, including fake bloody limbs and a superhero outfit he briefly wore; he was occasionally thoughtful, touting the need for "limnoid experiences," which he described as moments that lift you out of your daily humdrum, making fresh perspectives possible.

But he remained frustratingly ... normalish. I've heard him read "Guts," and while the story itself is so outlandishly over the top that it eventually descends into meaningless cringe-making, his performance of it is rocking and cathartic. He is a powerful reader of his work.

So it's too bad he didn't read any of his work. Sure, he told us about the guy who feared he'd given his beloved dog HIV because the little pug ate the Kleenexes he masturbated into; about the 7-year-old Brownie who discovered the joys of a vibrating heating pad, only to be beaten and called a "whore" by her mother. But those were other people's stories, tales of limnoid experiences people have blurted to Palahniuk over the years. And they were amusing and poignant, but, finally, they lacked the sort of shaping intelligence that could have alchemized them into something like literature—made the hearing of them, as opposed to the living of them, into limnoid experiences.

"I tell these stories because books are the only form of media where we can have this ongoing consent—where you can, at any time, close the book," he said, tying all this to the festival. "If books don't tell these stories, then these poignant, valid stories will never get told."

You had to applaud that sentiment, at least. Well, no, you didn't. As the room gave Palahniuk a standing O, a handful of kids gathered outside, on the steps of the student union, holding signs that read "Hack" and "The Movie Was Better." If only more book critics were that committed.

Later, I Googled "limnoid experiences." Zero hits.