2010, Book 2: Fight Club

I'm normally the type of person who reads the book before watching the movie. I actually have a tendency to be kind of obsessive about making sure I read the book first. However, I have owned the movie Fight Club for years now and for some reason the book Fight Club barely made it's way into my home about a year ago. I finished reading Beautiful Boy and needed something to read while I waited for Tweak (the companion book) to come in the mail. So, I picked up Fight Club, since I figured I need to read 100 books this year and it was moderately slim.

I have read two other novels by Chuck Palahniuk and although his novels are not insanely long, his writing style generally still makes them a little bit more intense to read. Maybe, in this case, it was due to how many times I have watched the film version of this novel but I found Fight Club to be immensely easy reading and as a result, I finished it in less than 24 hours. I was shocked at both how quickly I finished it and by how true the movie was to the book.

Fight Club is really a very good read, even for someone who has not seen the movie. Story is about a man who is very unhappy with his life. He has trouble sleeping and he feels very empty. In order to feel more complete, he attends support group meetings every night of the week. He is not ill with anything, so he lies and says that he is so that he can feel accepted in the support groups. This is working for him until he realizes that there is another faker attending groups. Just knowing that she knows he is faking makes it impossible for him to get the satisfaction that he needs from the groups. It is around this time that he meets Tyler Durden.

Shortly after meeting Tyler, his apartment explodes and he ends up moving in with Tyler. Then, the two men decide to start fight club. They meet in a basement. Anyone can come. "The first rule of fight club is that you do not talk about fight club." These clubs become very popular. New ones form and the people in it all look to Tyler and the narrator as heroes for bringing them fight club. However, Tyler has bigger ideas and eventually starts using fight club to enact them. The narrator must decide whether or not he wants to be a part of it and he also must figure out, if he doesn't, how he is going to cut ties with Tyler.

Anyone who has ever read Palahniuk knows that he likes to always add a twist at the end of his novels and that he is very good at it. Fight Club is no different and if the reader has never seen the movie, they will find themselves very shocked at the way that things unfold. I also do not believe that Palahniuk's work is for everyone. He is very dark, has a tendency to be abstract, and can be a little bit hard to read. However, I think that most people would enjoy Fight Club as long as they aren't the type of people who require a happy ending in every story and a straight through, easy to follow storyline. It was definitely a book that I enjoyed reading and would read again.