Cheap Fight Club (Book) (Chuck Palahniuk) Price

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Customer Reviews of Fight Club

Brilliantly-wrought
With _Fight Club_, Palahniuk has given us a truly brilliant novel. His writing is edgy, but not abrasive, and the story is dark, but somehow not depressing. I read the book before seeing the movie, and didn't see the film for some time, as I was afraid it wouldn't do the book justice - I was pleasantly surprised, though, and really recommend the movie to anyone who enjoyed the novel (and vice-versa.)

On its face, the ideas in this story aren't hugely original - schizophrenia, underground fights, et cetera - but Palahniuk has woven everything into a finished product that is amazingly creative. I can honestly say that I didn't figure out who or how Tyler Durden was until very near the end of the book, and then I had to grin about how cleverly Palahniuk crafted this character.

There are portions of the book which are very funny, those which are seriously angry, and those which reach out and grab the reader by the short hairs due to their sheer realism. Then there are the really strange bits, such as the main character's addiction to fatal disease support groups - which gets only weirder as we meet Marla, who is *also* addicted to them; who'd have thought there were two such people in the world? (Answer, Chuck Palahniuk, of course.)

Yes indeedy, this novel has it all - explosions, fighting, soap-making, Ikea porn, mustard-collecting, and possibly the downfall of many major credit card corporations. A very entertaining, bizarrely-twisted world.

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It's on top of the Bible and Nietzche on my bookshelf.
You haven't read a book like this. And you really, really need to. Blame the millenium for the rash of New Age Thought books out of late (Celestine Prophecy, Ishmael, etc.), all promising to explain to you in narrative exactly why your life isn't turning out the way you thought it would. Fight Club isn't at risk of being lumped in with that lot, mainly because so many people who read this are going to misunderstand it.(hence movie reviews dismissing it as pointless homoerotic violence.) The medium is the message here, and to that end Chuck reinvents the concept of prose narrative. The storyline is less a narrative than it is a mural; a series of images and vignettes layered one on top of another to reveal the meanings "under and behind and inside" the mind-crushing mundanity of this, the American Nightmare. Each event, each dialogue, each bone-crunching scene is focused like a magnifying glass in the sun, like tallows in boiling fat, until pure meaning comes out. This prose isn't flowery, it's visceral. The ideas, consequently, hit you like a foot to the gut when you've never been in a fight. It changes the way you see things. It affects your with ideas you hadn't thought of, and wish you had.

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Where is my mind?
This is a rare thing. Whats rare? Well, this is the first instance In which I have encountered a work of literature that can be most enjoyed AFTER watching the movie. Maybe Ballards "Crash" falls into this category as well. It is definately a dual experience. Both book and movie are capable of standing alone, but a real Chuck fan will enjoy both. They have some different dynamics, but the core remains the same in both, and that core screams, "Let me never be complete!"