Fight Club - Book Review

Fight Club (1996) - Chuck Palahniuk

In short: A bitter, cynical and visceral novel following one man's rejection of post-consumer society and his search for a satisfying alternative. The novel is cunningly written with a dark sense of humour, but sometimes tries too hard to be edgy and dangerous. 

The tone occasionally slips into adolescent angst but themes of masculinity, humanity and a postmodern search for enlightenment drag the damaged protagonists into the realm of wisdom.

Quality: 7

Plot: 8

Style: 7

Entertainment: 7

Depth: 7

= 7.2

A little more analysis? Go on then...

In a jaded society where we strive to master our physicality, where instinct, emotion and primal aggression are dismissed as bad habits of the past with no place in our future, Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club is a visceral reminder of how vitally fundamental these things are.

The characters of Fight Club make it clear that, without our animal rage, we are hollow shells of being. If there is a human ideal towards which we aim, then our species is indeed further from achieving it than the very beasts we sneer at with condescending disdain.

Dramatic from the opening scene, the novel's unnamed narrator records his thoughts and experiences with unhinged candour. The reader is quickly sucked in to his chaotic life.

Events are described often with multiple thought processes going on at once. A narrative which could be confusing is in fact effectively unsettling in its portrayal of the narrator's unstable scatter-brained mental state. Palahniuk also shows talent at finding memorable analogy which keeps you attentive and appreciatively uncomfortable, for example the “cave paintings of dirt in the toilet bowl”.

However, the real strength of the book is found in its unflinchingly raw depiction of rebellion in nineties American society.

The “post-consumer” narrator doesn't want to be perfect or complete because for him these concepts are tainted with hypocrisy. The conventional perception of what it is to be whole is a corruption. These ideals have been created in error. Therefore, he rallies against the fickle opiate-haze society, beginning with the realisation that losing all hope is freedom.

The greatest moment of his life is intentionally receiving a chemical burn on the back of his hand. The search for basic, primal being focussed in the present. You have to hit bottom before you can truly live. As his revolutionary counterpart Tyler Durden whispers, “I'm breaking my attachment to physical power and possessions because only through destroying myself can I discover the greater power of my spirit.”

As a social extension of this idea, the protagonists form the brutal yet respectfully systematic fight clubs. Here, men can forget their barren, insincere everyday lives and become heroes momentarily immersed in the perfect essence of physical being. Led by Tyler, these groups evolve into the subversive faction known as Project Mayhem.

Project Mayhem is a mischievous and violent campaign against the established order of society. It aims, through a “prematurely induced dark age”, to “force humanity to go dormant or into remission long enough for the Earth to recover”. Tyler describes perhaps its more immediate goal as being a means of teaching each man in the project that he has the power to control history. This touches on a major theme of the novel, which is of a lost, embittered generation seeking some kind of historical recognition.

At times, this struggle comes across as adolescent disillusion. To quote Tyler:

We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won't. And we're just learning this fact, so don't fuck with us.

However, another Project Mayhem character raises the tone of the discussion to a more grown-up level:

We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives.

Behind the revolutionary jumpiness of Fight Club lurks a softer, spiritual side. The narrator is cynical and furious but, deep down, a sweetheart. His ferocious anti-social fervour is remarkable, but it hides to some extent his deeper desires. Entangled in the storyline is Marla Singer, and with her influence we start to recognise the narrator's simple, vulnerable and quiet desire for love.

He sees the disgusting horrors of which civilisation is capable, but he also sees through them and, eventually, shows a philosophical awareness of humble, honest contentment. The contentment of a person who knows that he does not know and accepts it:

We are not special.

We are not crap or trash, either.

We just are.

We just are, and what happens just happens.

The narrator's most sincere wish is for this corrupt dishonest civilisation – of which he knows he has helped create and in turn been created by – to disappear and leave him and Marla, who he thinks he likes, at peace.

In this way, Fight Club, which is sometimes labelled as nihilistic, could be read as promoting a spiritually content and morally consistent way of life. On the surface, its energy is poured into raging against and plotting the destruction of the system which stands in its way. On a deeper level, it is a story about tender, damaged people looking for peace and companionship.

For all their memorable catchphrases and cunning social mischief, these men are basically saying, “Look at us! We're important too! Now let's go live happily ever after.”