Fight Club

It’s time once again for another update in my Year of Living (Actually Reading) Fiction. Kicking off the second-half of my year was Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres and next I took on Chuck Palahniuk’s (now) famous first novel Fight Club. Much has been written about this book and its film adaptation so I’ll skip much discussion about its plot or the crazy twist at the end. First I want to hit on the two major lessons on writing I have garnered from reading this amazing book.

1. Using a story to talk about your generation. This is a major theme of both the book and film versions, and I believe this is the novel’s greatest strength. Palahniuk was making a broad statement about the American male in the 90’s that was not all that flattering, but larger truths bore out his vision, especially in the decade that followed. Project Mayhem, which forms out of Tyler Durden’s original fight clubs, is a strike at a society that he feels is uncaring, cold, and representative of the father both he and the narrator never knew. Combine this with a strike at the elites through various disgusting ways, and you have a look at where we were heading as a nation miles before it hit for real. This is a great model for any writer looking to firmly establish his or her take on their own generation.
2. Use of repetition. This is a skill I have mentioned before, but one that can be essential to a writer. Palahniuk uses this in his own way, using repetitions of statements by both the narrator (“I am Joe’s Smirking Revenge”) and Durden (“You are not your parents”) - the latter of which begins to be repeated by the “space monkeys” of Project Mayhem - in more disturbing ways. This is more due to the style of writing the author employs, in which there aren’t always a lot of words on the page but they flow together through reiteration, pounding their certainties into you as you read them many times. This is a major tool for any writer, as long as you can find your own distinct voice with it.

Overall, I found this book to be a stunning triumph, and has definitely gotten me interested in more of Palahniuk’s work. Having seen David Fincher’s decent film version in my college years (a viewing that challenged my very perceptions of storytelling back in those days), I still wish I had read the book first. I decided to break my general rule of NOT watching the movie of any of the books I read this year and sit through the Brad Pitt/Edward Norton picture again before writing this, and while Fincher does stuff on-screen that makes the novel come alive in unique ways (splicing images of Pitt’s Durden into the middle of scenes), it still pales in comparison to the raw urgency and devastating prose of the work itself.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book, but am not sure I would recommend it to everyone. Just as not everyone would like to romp through a visceral, intense 700-page Stephen King novel (as I would), not everyone might enjoy reading a book about grown-up Gen X-ers creating underground clubs which then turn into a domestic terrorist organization. That being said, any writer worth their salt should be open to books not among their “wheelhouse,” so to speak, so I don’t think I am steering you wrong when I say anyone can get something out of this novel - it is that unique.

Ok, looking ahead I have a few more books to tackle in the first year of this experiment, starting with Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. I will also be doing a some more media and process posts in the next few months, as well as more updates on my pursuit of an agent. Thanks for reading!