Fight Club

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An unnamed narrator is held at gunpoint on one of the upper floors of the city’s tallest skyscraper which is about to explode soon. Counting down the last few minutes of his life, he recalls the first time he met Tyler Durden. On a flight. At the beach. At the first Fight Club that they establish after he moves into his apartment when his own flat is blown to smithereens. Before this, he frequented cancer support groups as an escapist outlet for his insomnia. There he met Marla Singer, who was doing the same thing. Soon enough he sees more of her against his own will when she ends up on Tyler’s bed. As Fight Club gains prominence, Tyler hops on an opportunity to begin organizing an army for Project Mayhem, a social movement aiming to disrupt public order and unshackle men all around the country from the chains of corporate slavery. When Tyler’s plans go a bit too far, the narrator wants out, but discovers something about their bond that will change the way he sees his life and himself forever.

Is Fight Club still an enjoyable read if you have watched the film and already know the big twist? Well, there is just no unlearning a twist once it is revealed, regardless which medium. When this happens, I immediately shift to frustrated novelist mode and analyze the storytelling techniques the author employs. What are the red herrings he drops around to mislead his readers? Tackling the book this way, I can say that, yes, it is still an interesting read. To add to that, Palahniuk’s writing style is quite distinct, like an unconventional free-flowing stream of consciousness approach that just traps you in the moment through a flurry of words.

There is just something irreverent and unapologetic about the subplots in this novel. The entire thing about attending cancer support groups as some form of therapy for quarter life crisis that isn’t cancer, for instance, seems awkward and plain wrong. When you think about it, though, it also seems like a good idea, given how the main argument is that people should wake up and live their lives instead of being drones fully obedient to the whims of their masters/exploiters. Since this is almost always achieved by facing the concept of death head-on, the exercise despite being morally ambiguous ends up being actually quite effective.

What I really liked about the novel, though, is how it feels like anarchy confined in the pages of a book. Fight Club is simmering with existentialist undertones that just force you to stop and ponder about life in general as well as how everyone, including yourself, is living it. It feels as though Palahniuk simply verbalized, on your behalf, all those disruptive thoughts about society that you have been keeping a tight lid on because they are just too anti-everything that we have been taught and expected to be and/or do in our daily waking lives. If we go deeper down this rabbit hole, you ought to find a lot of symbolisms leading to many epiphanies.

The ending is a bit of a copout, what with consequences avoided in lieu of an insanity plea. In any case, it still manages to send a strong message about mental health awareness and how deeming the issue as taboo with discussions avoided like the plague can have a snowball effect on society as a whole as we bear witness to a multitude of people who resemble ticking time bombs about to explode. Fight Club was written in the 90’s, so we can argue that this subtle message is way ahead of its time. At least it is progress, in a way, when you see how such issues are discussed nowadays with less stigma and more genuine concern for those involved.

Reading the afterword is also enlightening in a way. Palahniuk mentions an annual festival in Peru where an entire village of men and women just duke it out before going to church together after beating the crap out of one another, for a fresh start. He also mentions that his idea regarding fight clubs is not original at all, considering there must already be some of them existing in some parts of the world. In the end, it doesn't really matter. The message here is as simple as human beings regularly needing an outlet to vent and diffuse pent up emotions. If fight clubs are one of those avenues, then so be it.