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Loading... Fight Club: A Novel (original 1996; edition 2005)by Chuck Palahniuk
Work detailsFight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (1996)
Typical macho, aggressive Palahniuk. Watch the movie instead. Did not finish. ( )The book was better than the movie because you could hear the characters thoughts so it went deeper into the ideas and concepts than the movie. Felt way more pretentious than the film, which I loved. I dunno, it's probably not aimed at me, but I didn't feel like I got anything out of this that I didn't get out of watching the film. I didn't think I'd be the type to like Chuck Palahniuk's work, somehow. But Fight Club is iconic, and I haven't seen the movie, so I thought -- by my dad's reasoning: he knows about the plots of soaps only because he says something you need to know to get on with other people, and possibly also to win pub quizzes, which both he and I do quite well -- that I'd better read it and find out what's going on. I actually enjoyed it a lot. I meant to pick it up for five minutes, read just a little bit, and then get to bed in time. Half an hour later I looked up. Oops. Despite never seeing the movie or reading the book -- despite not even being interested -- I figured everything out very swiftly, and I think it's because Fight Club is one of those things that you come across a lot in popular culture, and you just sort of learn about it by osmosis. Or maybe it was that obvious, I don't know, but I enjoyed the unfolding of it, even if I can't say I like the idea of a real Fight Club... I found it an oddly compulsive read for something I was so sure I wouldn't be interested in. excellent.
A volatile, brilliantly creepy satire filled with esoteric tips for causing destruction, Fight Club marks Chuck Palahniuk's debut as a novelist. Ever wonder how to pollute a plumbing system with red dye, or inject an ATM machine with axle grease or vanilla pudding? Along with instructions for executing such quirky acts of urban terrorism, Fight Club offers diabolically sharp and funny writing. This brilliant bit of nihilism succeeds where so many self-described transgressive novels do not: It's dangerous because it's so compelling. Every generation frightens and unnerves its parents, and Palahniuk's first novel is gen X's most articulate assault yet on baby-boomer sensibilities. This is a dark and disturbing book that dials directly into youthful angst and will likely horrify the parents of teens and twentysomethings. It's also a powerful, and possibly brilliant, first novel. Caustic, outrageous, bleakly funny, violent and always unsettling, Palahniuk's utterly original creation will make even the most jaded reader sit up and take notice.
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0393327345, Paperback)The only person who gets called Ballardesque more often than Chuck Palahniuk is, well... J.G. Ballard. So, does Portland, Oregon's "torchbearer for the nihilistic generation" deserve that kind of treatment? Yes and no. There is a resemblance between Fight Club and works such as Crash and Cocaine Nights in that both see the innocuous mundanities of everyday life as nothing more than the severely loosened cap on a seething underworld cauldron of unchecked impulse and social atrocity. Welcome to the present-day U.S. of A. As Ballard's characters get their jollies from staging automobile accidents, Palahniuk's yuppies unwind from a day at the office by organizing bloodsport rings and selling soap to fund anarchist overthrows. Let's just say that neither of these guys are going to be called in to do a Full House script rewrite any time soon.But while the ingredients are the same, Ballard and Palahniuk bake at completely different temperatures. Unlike his British counterpart, who tends to cast his American protagonists in a chilly light, holding them close enough to dissect but far enough away to eliminate any possibility of kinship, Palahniuk isn't happy unless he's first-person front and center, completely entangled in the whole sordid mess. An intensely psychological novel that never runs the risk of becoming clinical, Fight Club is about both the dangers of loyalty and the dreaded weight of leadership, the desire to band together and the compulsion to head for the hills. In short, it's about the pride and horror of being an American, rendered in lethally swift prose. Fight Club's protagonist might occasionally become foggy about who he truly is (you'll see what I mean), but one thing is for certain: you're not likely to forget the book's author. Never mind Ballardesque. Palahniukian here we come! --Bob Michaels (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:29:21 -0500) The rise of a terrorist organization, led by a waiter who enjoys spitting in people's soup. He starts a fighting club, where men bash each other, and the club quickly gains in popularity. It becomes the springboard for a movement devoted to destruction for destruction's sake.… (more) (summary from another edition) |
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