Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Lou's Reviews > Fight Club

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Rate this book
Clear rating

by
3699303
's review

it was amazing
bookshelves: adapted-to-screen


1st rule about Fight Club is read the novel first! Well thats my rule, i watched the movie, when it came out years ago (most the population) and only now discovered the real Fight club.
The narrator is a traveling automobile company employee who suffers from insomnia. On advice from his doctor attends support groups and pretends to be a victim. He gains some emotional release here and feels part of a people and becomes addicted to attending these support groups as an imposter. He's not the only one who's a trickster and important character pops up at the meetings Marla and they both find they have an emptiness to fill and befriend each other.

On a flight he befriended a key character of the story, Durden a soap salesman, they arrange to meet at a bar and the rest is history as they say. They set up a fight club the rules are.
1.You don't talk about fight club.

2.You don't talk about fight club.

3.When someone says stop, or goes limp, the fight is over.

4.Only two guys to a fight.

5.One fight at a time.

6.They fight without shirts or shoes.

7.The fights go on as long as they have to.

8.If this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight.



They are "a generation of men raised by women," being without a male example in their lives to help shape their masculinity. The fight club is not really about physical combat, money, skill or winning but instead a way for participants to experience feeling in a society where they are otherwise numb. The fighting forms a resistance to the impulse to be "cocooned" in society. The fighting between the men stripped away the "fear of pain" and "the reliance on material signifiers of their self-worth", leaving them to experience something valuable.



As the fight club's membership grows Tyler begins to use it to spread his anti-consumerist ideas and recruits fight club's members to participate in increasingly elaborate pranks on corporate America. This was originally the narrator's idea, but Tyler takes control from him. Tyler eventually gathers the most devoted fight club members (referred to as "space monkeys") and forms "Project Mayhem," a cult-like organization that trains itself as an army to bring down modern civilization. This Organization, like fight club, is controlled by a set of rules:



1.You don't ask questions.

2.You don't ask questions.

3.No excuses.

4.No lies.

5.You have to trust Tyler.



The narrator becomes unhappy with Tyler's extremities and a battle for power and control ignites literally. The narrator and Tyler can no longer accommodate the same space one has to give in on power and control!

I can not comment anymore on the story as i don't want to spoil the story any further.

This was a thought provoking read and written in a wacky style.

Think of the Psycho movie and that Jack Nicholson character from One Flew over the cuckoos nest playing Mr Bates and you might have something close to the protagonist in this story.

"But I'm Tyler Durden. I invented fight club. Fight club is mine. I wrote those rules. None of you would be here if it wasn't for me. And I say it stops here!"



"I love everything about Tyler Durden, his courage and his smarts. His nerve. Tyler is funny and charming and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I am not. I'm not Tyler Durden."



"This was the goal of Project Mayhem, Tyler said, the complete and right-away destruction of civilization. What comes next in Project Mayhem, nobody except Tyler knows. The second rule is you don't ask questions."



"It's Project Mayhem that's going to save the world. A cultural ice age. A prematurely induced dark age. Project Mayhem will force humanity to go dormant or into remission long enough for the Earth to recover."




















171 likes ·  âˆ� flag

Sign into Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ to see if any of your friends have read Fight Club.
Sign In »

Reading Progress

May 20, 2010 – Shelved
May 31, 2011 – Started Reading
May 31, 2011 – Shelved as: adapted-to-screen
May 31, 2011 –
page 60
27.52%
June 1, 2011 –
page 180
82.57%
June 2, 2011 –
page 218
100.0%
June 2, 2011 – Finished Reading

Comments Showing 1-31 of 31 (31 new)

dateDown arrow    newest »

message 1: by Regina (new)

Regina Great review. That is interesting that in the book (view spoiler)


message 2: by Amanda (new)

Amanda Kelley I need to read this


message 3: by Lou (new) - rated it 5 stars

Lou Thanks give it a try not a long novel.


message 4: by Rob (new) - rated it 2 stars

Rob I came to the novel second as well and couldn't keep thinking I would have enjoyed it so much more if I hadn't seen the movie first. And I enjoyed the book a lot. I just wished I hadn't know the plot ahead of time.


message 5: by Amanda (new)

Amanda Kelley Check out Invisible Monsters aswell. That was a really good one.


message 6: by Lou (new) - rated it 5 stars

Lou Yes movie stays with you for a while it's hard to remove the images of Norton and Brad when reading.


message 7: by Eric (new)

Eric Hendrixson I would highly recommend Choke and Rant, which are two of his best.


message 8: by [deleted user] (new)

Definitely agree with Eric -- Choke & Rant are two of my all time favorite books!

I liked Fight Club, but (don't hate me!) I thought the movie was better.


message 9: by Eric (new)

Eric Hendrixson Lea, I've been to a couple CP readings and he also believes the film was better. That's the first time I heard an author say that.


message 10: by Lou (new) - rated it 5 stars

Lou Manda i will check out Invisible monsters thanks


message 11: by Lou (new) - rated it 5 stars

Lou thanks Eric will give one of them a try i think it was Choke one was heading to grose out levels.


message 12: by Lou (new) - rated it 5 stars

Lou Eric i was reading earlier today John M Cain was happy that Raymond Chandler changed the story here and there in the screenplay of Double Indemity. I think some insurances firms in those days were sweating him in propagating the fixing up insurance claims.


message 13: by Tammy (new)

Tammy Pygmy is sick, sick but my favorite Chuck read.


message 14: by Lou (new) - rated it 5 stars

Lou i can imagine some twisted books he writes.


message 15: by Eric (new)

Eric Hendrixson Lou, Haunted was the gross-out book. There is an audio file of Guts from Haunted here.

Choke, I think, is his most heartfelt and structurally perfect book. In this case, the movie is not as good as the book.

I can't discuss Pygmy without giving a spoiler, but I think I'd call it a good book until the last chapter.


message 16: by Lou (new) - rated it 5 stars

Lou Choke needs a look into then.


message 17: by Deb (new) - rated it 5 stars

Deb Wakolee I really like this author..he was my first "weird" one! I have all of his books, only read Haunted, Diary and Fight Club(loved the movie too) I will be reading the others!


message 18: by [deleted user] (new)

Eric wrote: "Lou, Haunted was the gross-out book. There is an audio file of Guts from Haunted here.

Choke, I think, is his most heartfelt and structu..."



Really interesting that Palahniuk thinks the movie was better -- I really like that! I thought the way it was reworked made more sense.

I actually bought Haunted just to read "Guts", LOL -- very very disgusting, but compelling, too. Typical Palahniuk!

There's a line in Choke that just killed me -- something about how addicts choose their own death? That just blew me away, and really put him into the ranks of truly great authors for me.

But Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey was like a whole new level of greatness -- probably one of my top five books, and I don't add to that list lightly! I've had the same few favourite books for probably 20 years!


message 19: by Lou (new) - rated it 5 stars

Lou Interesting thanks I'll add it to read.


message 20: by Anthony (new) - added it

Anthony Chavez I went to the bookstore recently and couldn't decide which of Palahniuk's to buy, as I have not read any of his work yet. I went with Choke. Once I finish that one I'm not sure which to go for after. Great review though Lou, as always.


message 21: by Lou (new) - rated it 5 stars

Lou Thanks I have invisible monsters on the shelf of his. I might try that


message 22: by Amanda (new)

Amanda Kelley Like I read, Invisible Monsters is good...I also have Haunted which was okay if you just read the stories. Guts was SICKKKK but I loved it.


Shovelmonkey1 I'm reading this at the moment and am enjoying reading the words and reliving the film in my head. Marla Singer = legend too.


message 24: by Keri (new)

Keri I love your fight clubs pics!


message 25: by Lou (new) - rated it 5 stars

Lou Keri wrote: "I love your fight clubs pics!"

Thanks


Shovelmonkey1 Me too although I always thought the first picture was more "Fight Cubs" than Fight Club!


message 27: by Nat (new) - rated it 5 stars

Nat except in the book, he meets tyler at a nude beach. and tyler builds something out of huge pieces of wood that makes a shadow of a hand on the beach that lasts only one minute.
I like the movie version of their meeting better.
Buuuut
I like the book version of the ending better :p


Mariah Sorry to get all technical but, in the book, the narrator meets Tyler for the first time on a nude beach. In the movie the narrator meets Tyler on a plane.


Mariah oops, just read the last comment by Nat and you just said that


Ianzam I dig both the movie and the book myself.


message 31: by Adriana (new)

Adriana Really? I was told it's better to watch the movie first


back to top