Book Review: “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk

There’s one word that surpasses the rest when I try to articulate my opinion of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club: brilliant. Seriously, it’s the best contemporary satire I’ve ever read. It makes you think, really think, about how different our culture could be.

Fight Club is told from the perspective of an unnamed insomniac. He speaks through thoughts. He’s lost, wanting nothing more than to escape mediocrity. He did what his father and society told him to do; he went to college, found a high paying job, a fancy apartment and car, the ideal furnishings – Swedish furnishings – and still has nothing. The narrator’s doorman explains his predicament best, “A lot of young people don’t know what they really want… Young people, they think they want the whole world… If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t want,” (p. 46).

Obviously, feeling this way is stressful, and our narrator finds relief in a somewhat odd place—cancer support groups. Here is where he meets Marla. Eventually, the two take a liking to each other.

Enter Tyler Durden, an erratic, white knight who brings purpose to both the narrator’s and Marla’s lives. Together, our narrator and Tyler start Fight Club, a secret group where men use combat as a means of therapy. Through this club, and Tyler’s other audacious actions, our narrator finds what he’s been looking for—freedom. He becomes empowered and gains purpose, until Tyler starts taking things too far and our narrator can’t stop him from reeking total mayhem.

This book is like a puzzle, where juxtaposing themes are the pieces. It is part satire, comedy, action, horror and gothic romance. Given the mix of literary genres, Palahniuk takes the reader on an emotive journey—I giggled, felt uncomfortable, was shocked and filled with cheer. The author’s ability to meld so many ideas so seamlessly together is boggling.

The popularity of the film adaptation makes it impossible to not compare the book and film. I saw the movie first and loved it, but they’re dissimilar in many ways and the same in others—neither is fully dependent on the other. It’s like they’re two differing stories and the characters in the on-screen adaptation also vary from the original source. It’s curious; I like them both for opposing reasons.

I love the way the novel plays with this question: what would happen if working class people stopped taking crap and started taking action, not in a organized way, but in a ruthless, anarchic way? So much would change. Not only that, but society would crumble. As we find out though, all acts of rebellion reach a limit.

It’s understandable why the book caused such a phenomena. It shows the power of the common man, and how one person can start a revolution. Hearing how the characters stood up against a cause made me want to fight a case of injustice… it’s extremely empowering and motivating.  It makes me want to stare my best friend in the eye and start a fire… “I want you to hit me as hard as you can.”

 

 

 

 

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. Norton & Company, Ltd., 1996.

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