Trotterman's Full Review: Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club: A Novel
This review comes to all of you humbly dedicated to one Donlee Brussel, a reviewer who has taught me so much in the ways of civilized society.
"Fight Club" is the debut novel from Chuck Palahniuk that takes everything your run-o-the-mill American capitalist pig holds dear and hits it with a good roundhouse uppercut to the jaw. If you're lucky you won't have to plug the holes in your cheek to have your morning cup of java.
Our main character is the nameless narrator who comes to represent the disenchanted everyman. He has a job he loathes in which he is forced to fly coast to coast, north to south and east to west. He begins to lost all place and identity. "You wake up at O' Hare. You wake up at LaGuardia. You wake up at Logan."
The idea of not naming the narrator is Palahniuk's first real tool in getting his message across. Not only does the character's remaining nameless play heavily into later plot elements, it puts forth the idea that one should not be obsessed with identity. The narrator does not give his name as a means of hiding who he really is. The message that develops is that one's name really isn't who or what one is all about. For purposes of identification, many people have assigned a nickname to the character. However, in doing this they have already missed a major point to the book.
Our main character feels a pain for which he can find no relief or sympathy. He can't sleep. Time begins running together. He doesn't know where or when he is at any given time. That's kind of a scary thought. Then one day he is delivered. He discovers that by being witness to the pain of others, he is able to lose his own pain and finally get the blessed sleep he has desired for some time. The best and surest way to find this pain is to attend the support groups of various terminally ill people. His first meeting is for men with testicular cancer. He finds himself pulled into the warm embrace of Bob. Bob is a former bodybuilder who took too many steroids. The resulting cancer and treatment has left him with no testicles and b*tch t*ts. A pretty somber thought, but somehow our nameless everyman is able to release his pain and sleeps better than he has ever slept before. Soon he is spending every evening at one support group meeting or another.
All is going well for our hero until he notices a woman showing
up at all the same meetings he is. He knows that she is faking, just as she knows that he has no real disease. He feels that her attending the meetings will take away what he gets from them. He can no longer close his chakras. Marla is taking away what he needs more than anything. HE has come to depend upon the meetings as his only means of release, which cannot be achieved with Marla there. Marla is looking for the same thing. He former job working in a funeral home does not give her the insight into pain that these meetings can. She refuses to stop coming and for a time won't even agree on a fair split. Finally Marla relents and the narrator is given testicular cancer all to himself.
While on a business trip, the narrator decides that he can no longer live the airport life he has become accustomed to. The midair crash he hopes for never comes, so he decides to get some rest at the local nude beach. Here he makes another strange friend, the mysterious Tyler Durden. Tyler makes his living selling designer soaps (The primary ingredient however is far from designer). Tyler understands what the narrator is feeling. Together they discover a new way to get rid of the pain. Tyler is something of a philosopher. Man should not be defined by his belongings. You are not your bank account. You are not your couch or your apartment. Think of Renton's speech at the end of "Trainspotting" and go for the exact opposite. Choose life, but don't bother with the rest of it.
Our narrator finds out what this kind of thinking is all about when his entire apartment and everything in it goes up in flames. Tyler agrees to take him in if he can do one favor. "I want you to hit me as hard as you can."
Fight club begins in a parking lot. Tyler and Jack beat each other senseless after a few drinks. Before long Fight Club is a phenomenon, existing in the basements of bars across the country. Men of all class, race and age meet and release frustration by beating the tar out of each other. From the time these men enter the ring until the time they leave they are not their jobs or their cars. The narrator has found the real release he sought all along.
Palahniuk's writing is really a breath of fresh air into the world of fiction which has recently been marked by cookie cutter legal thrillers and whatever Oprah might have most recently recommended. His faced paced and at times scattered writing evokes memories of the frenetic film style of "Natural Born Killers" and is emblematic of the MTV generation whose attention span can be compared to that of a gnat. The narrator is the new kind of American hero. He has the perfect job, the perfect clothes and the perfect home. Then one day he throws it all away at the behest of the new prophet, Tyler Durden. Under the leadership of Tyler, the narrator can finally be at peace with himself.
Tyler however, has much bigger plans for Fight Club, he soon begins Project Mayhem. Project Mayhem is a well planned series of vandalism and terrorism that will shake the foundation of materialistic America to the ground. It isn't long before Durden's disciples are carrying out his orders everywhere. Destroying landmarks, applying dis-establishment themed bumper stickers to cars and doing some pretty negative stuff to restaurant food are just a few of the chores of the men of Project Mayhem.
The narrator, the Robin Hood waiter for the masses, knows this has to stop. But once Tyler disappears it becomes apparent that the only way to stop Tyler Durden is to find Tyler Durden. The only way to find Tyler Durden is to know who Tyler really is.
Ah, yes that is the big mystery. Who is Tyler Durden? Just like the movies forced us to ask who is Keyser Soze. (Imagine an umlaut in Soze, my keyboard is not in tune with the German language.) Palahniuk shows a real talent for foreshadowing as he is able to give readers clues as to the answer of this little mystery long before he comes out and pulls the mask off ala Scooby Doo. Palahniuk's coyness with Tyler's identity is maddening when one realizes they had the answer all along.
Palahniuk's anti-establishment opus takes a series of twists and turns as our narrator races against time to find Tyler before the climax of Project Mayhem. Rest assured the climax is more than wiping one's backside with priceless works of art or urinating in the perfume bottles of the Rich and Famous. It is the topper to a novel that takes America's obsession with material possessions and identity and kicks it in the southern hemisphere.
Palahniuk has created a masterpiece of contemporary fiction that will only gain popularity as the years go by. I've been told that there is even a film version, that while a very good adaptation of the book, does differ in several key areas. I'll be sure to be on the lookout for that one.
Fans of Fight Club should also read Palahniuk's second novel Survivor. It is much darker than Fight Club, but it is an equally intense read. Bret Easton Ellis would also interest Palahniuk fans. Not just "American Psycho", but "Glamorama" and "Less than Zero" as well. "American Psycho" in particular is a kindred spirit of "Fight Club." The two novels not only share an intensity unmatched by most novels, they each take their own route in poking a few holes in the American idea of consumerism. The writings of J.G. Ballard might have provided the most inspiration for "Fight Club" and are definitely worth a read. Also try Sinclair Lewis's "Babbitt" for a 20's satire on the idea of being defined not be who you are but by what you have.
Copyright 2000 Jeffrey Trotter, esquire (I promise.)
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