Finished Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk last night. I've
never read a novel that I could not put down, until now. This is hands down the
quickest I've ever read a book, which is saying something coming from an
achingly slow reader like me.
Quickie Amazon Summary: Featuring soap made from human fat,
waiters at high-class restaurants who do unmentionable things to soup and an
underground organization dedicated to inflicting a violent anarchy upon the
land, Palahniuk's apocalyptic first novel is clearly not for the faint of
heart. The narrator gets into a love triangle of sorts with Tyler Durden, a
mysterious and gleefully destructive young man with whom the narrator starts a
fight club, a secret society that offers young professionals the chance to beat
one another to a bloody pulp. Mayhem ensues, beginning with the narrator's
condo exploding and culminating with a terrorist attack on the world's tallest
building.
This is,
without a doubt, the most mental book I’ve ever read. It is so unlike anything
I’ve ever picked up before. It is ruled almost entirely on the basis of
creating anarchy in a structured, docile society. Tyler Durden constantly
reminds us of his know-how on all things explosive, from making dynamite and
napalm, to rigging computers to detonate when they’re turned on. He starts a
fight club in a basement, which gradually gains so many members that chapters
sprout up all over the country. They have rules and committees, even homework
assignments that members must complete that include things like destroying a
historical landmark or making a human sacrifice. All of this begs several
questions, like what then, after everything is destroyed and dead? When society
has completely collapsed, what is the end goal?
Tyler
Durden is irritatingly cautious about giving out too much information. He only
says “5th Rule: You have to trust Tyler Durden.”
It is only
when I wondered what his end goal could possibly be that he gave it to me,
which was fascinating and terrifying. As a reader, it was at this point that I
began to feel as if Tyler Durden, and only Tyler Durden, was in control. Such a
strange mix of emotions from that. On another note, the end goal is completely
selfish. But Chuck Palahniuk doesn’t hide that fact.
I posed
another question, which in retrospect is nonsense, but I couldn’t help wonder.
The narrator (whom is never given a name in the entire novel, I found out to my
complete inattentive surprise ¾ way through the novel) suffers from insomnia.
He struggles to cope with it at work, his home life, so on and so forth. But he
says “after Fight Club, you just do not care. Nothing matters to you.” If
someone bumps him on the street, he brushes it off, no problem, because he had
Fight Club. He began to stand up to his boss, tell him off to his face, because
he had Fight Club. The little things didn’t bother him and he didn’t take shit
from anyone, which he amusingly wrapped up every time with “I used to be such a
nice person.”
My question
posed afterward then was, do we as a society rely on the little irritations in
life to avoid complete anarchy? The hate we feel when someone cuts us off in
traffic, or the resentment we feel when someone of authority tells us what to
do. Perhaps we need that, because the alternative could be some Fight
Club/Project Mayhem-esque societal structure that brings humanity back to the
Stone Age. Does the world need to be fixed, as Tyler Durden so convincingly
professes? Is this is way to do it?
On that
note, I couldn’t help but imagine the possible repercussions after the release
of a book such as this. For God’s sake, anyone who is Tyler Durden-like minded
could pick up this novel and see it as more than a work of fiction. They may
see it as a recipe book of sorts, an instruction manual for those seeking to
bring destruction to society and what it values. Could this book promote
anarchy?
This was
pleasingly addressed in the novel’s afterward by the author, and those “repercussions”
were far worse than I could have dreamt as it turns out. But Palahniuk’s
response to all the backlash he’s received is summed up in his own “First Rule
of Fight Club” which is not, in fact, do not talk about Fight Club. He says
instead that “there is nothing a blue-collar nobody in Oregon with a public
school education can imagine that a million-billion people haven't already
done."
One of my
favorite particular moments was from page 154, when the narrator makes what he
calls a human sacrifice. He pulls a gun on a random stranger, and tell him he’ll
kill him tonight. The stranger, sobbing and begging for his life, is asked if
you could do anything in the world, how would you spend your life? After some
prodding the stranger says he wished he had studied to become a veterinarian. The
narrator takes the strangers license, and lets the stranger go, telling him
that he would be checking up on him to make sure he was studying to become a vet.
He knew where the stranger lived from the address on the driver’s license, and
if he wasn’t actively trying to become a vet, he would come back and kill him.
This was extremely powerful to me, because it was taking the concept of epiphanies
after near-death experiences and forcing it on people for their own good. It’s
sickening to think that maybe that’s what we need to stop lollygagging and
really chase our dreams. A gun to our heads.
The entire
novel just took me by surprise. I was caught in this mental web of lunacy that
Palahniuk spun. I’m left wondering how he accomplished this. How can someone so
perfectly encapsulate a mental/physiological disease, someone who’s never
suffered from said disease? What a completely unnerving thought.
After
reading this novel, it’s glaringly apparent that anarchy is more than just a
theme. The book ITSELF is complete anarchy. The narrator, who is the
predominant speaker, never once has quotation marks when he speaks. Only his
alter ego, further advertising Tyler Durden’s control over him. Rather than a
smooth transition between crucial events, the chapters jump from one important
event to the next without hesitation. There is never any discernible point of
view throughout the story, switching between first and third person without
warning.
This book
feels like it was written as a movie, and is one of the most visually appealing
pieces I’ve ever read. If you want to challenge and question everything you’ve
ever felt about your sanity or the current structure of your society, pick up
this book. Isn’t that what reading’s all about?
Rating: 10/10
Quote: “Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer, maybe
self-destruction is the answer.”
Purchase here and donate to a charity of your choice using
Amazon Smile! I choose the Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck!
Next novel: 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith
Lates,
Tyler (not Durden)
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