Four hours of explosive reading. WOW. DAMN. SHEESH. I've watched the movie and only now got the chance into explore deeper to the fascinating character(s) in this novel. Truly diabolical, vivid and gutsy. I applaud you, Mr. Palahniuk. Awesome debut. Will certainly read Choke etc one day. ( )

OVERALL 4/5
A psychological thriller, with blatant critique on consumerism and wasteful spending, as well as the meaning of being a man in a "generation of men raised by women". The narrator is unintentionally funny in the deadpan way, and while the story skips between events and timelines, it is all the more like you are living inside his insomnia-plagued head. The twist at about two-thirds of the way in was very well played, and ties together a lot of the quirks and seemingly innocently repeated lines since the beginning. There were blatant statements of misogyny though, but depending on the reader it could be taken offensively or as just another facet of the characters' deeply disturbing psyches.

read full review: http://angeltyuan.blogspot.com/2009/1... ( )

Inventive and well written with many superb ideas. This is not exactly my cup of tea but I can appreciate the crift and creativity. ( )

A classic. One of the few books where the movie may actually be better. ( )

A novel that will make you think (and possibly make you nauseous). Ultimately, I reject almost every conclusion Fight Club draws about the world we live in. But you cannot dismiss them out of hand. ( )

This book is hard hitting packed with ideas, showing you reality in a very matrix kind of way but realistic enough for a person living in a modern society to realise that we dont really live all we do is exist. Break free dont consider any boundries do what you please. A very anarchist point of view. I loved it ;) ( )

Such a page-turner! Although my suspense was spoiled by a dear friend before I saw the movie which was way before I read the book...the book, the story, the concept was so gripping, I just had to get through to the end, just for the sheer pleasure of watching Brad Pitt being Tyler Durden and reading Chuck Palahniuk's words! Hypnotic! ( )

I was pleasantly surprised by this novel; as someone who hated the Brad Pitt/Edward Norton movie, I didn't expect to enjoy it. But enjoy it I did! It's well paced, and what doesn't come off well onscreen is executed quite nicely in the text. I don't agree with the idea that men aren't "men" anymore because of civilization/commercial values, but it's presented in an interesting way, and definitely worth thinking about. ( )

I really tried to like this book. My brother-in-law insisted that it was very funny. I found the characters & the descriptions of Fight Club off-putting. Don't know if it's a male/female thing, but this female didn't find this book appealing at all. ( )

Se non avete mai dubitato, neanche per un istante, che questo sia il migliore dei mondi possibili, se non vi siete mai chiesti, nemmeno una volta, se nella vita che state vivendo, nella società che avete intorno, nel mondo in cui siete capitati vostro malgrado non sia tutto da rifare, allora potete anche smettere di leggere, questo libro non è destinato a voi. E non è destinato ai sostenitori del politically correct e agli oltranzisti del perbenismo, del moralismo, e del puritanesimo. Se siete tra coloro che hanno bene chiaro ciò che è giusto e ciò che non lo è, che sanno come si sta al mondo e come si dovrebbe governare il paese, pur non essendo tassisti o barbieri, allora state alla larga.

Se invece coltivate il dubbio, se almeno una volta vi siete detti basta o avete passato una notte insonne pensando a come-sarebbe-se, se avete sentito pungere dentro la voglia di dare un taglio alla stanca ripetitività dei vostri giorni, vi siete sentiti soffocare da un gioco in cui le regole non sono le vostre, allora la vostra medicina, anzi la droga di cui dovreste farvi, si chiama Fight Club.
No, non quel Fight Club in cui Brad Pitt è più figo e palestrato che mai (e se lo avete mai visto in lingua originale saprete senz’altro che ha anche una voce che è la fine del mondo. Certa gente nasce proprio con un gran culo. Ma questa è un'altra storia). Sto parlando del libro di Chuck Palahniuk, camionista dell’ Oregon.

La storia inizia sul ciglio del tetto di un grattacielo -c’è sempre silenzio quassù e il vento è sempre freddo- che sta per saltare in aria -tra 9 minuti-, con il protagonista che non riesce a parlare per via della pistola che il suo amico Tyler Durden -il vecchio detto secondo cui si uccide sempre chi si ama, guarda, funziona in tutti e due i sensi- gli tiene premuta in bocca -con un pistola in bocca e la canna tra i denti si riesce a parlare solo a vocali-.

La voce narrante del protagonista ci racconta, con ampi e movimentati flash-back, come si sia cacciato in questo pasticcio. Ex bravo ragazzo, ex impiegato modello a caccia della formula perfetta per ottimizzare i profitti, ex collezionista di ricercati pezzi d’arredamento ma affetto da insonnia permanente, assiduo frequentatore di gruppi di sostegno per malati terminali -Dato un lasso di tempo abbastanza lungo, per tutti la percentuale di sopravvivenza precipita a zero- e perennemente in viaggio di lavoro, la sua vita viene stravolta quando incontra Tyler Durden, personaggio enigmatico, ambiguo, selvaggio e dannato quanto bello, coraggioso, pieno di vita e di idee, ribelle per scelta e leader per vocazione.
Con la sua filosofia di vita estrema e di rivolta anti-sociale esasperata, Durden lo trascina a combattimenti clandestini notturni -se questa è la vostra prima sera al Fight Club, dovete combattere- nei sotterranei di bar della periferia dove la vita comincia, finalmente, a sembrargli avere un senso.

Con gli occhi pesti, la faccia ammaccata, ecchimosi e contusioni in abbondanza, il nostro protagonista senza nome comincia a reagire a ciò che della sua vita non sopportava più, sempre più spavaldo e sempre più aggrappato all’ amico Tyler, che stabilisce regole e non tollera defezioni, attendendo il sabato notte per poter combattere nei Club che si diffondono in ogni città.
Tyler ha dei piani. Tyler diventa un’icona. Tyler spiega che la tua vita sta finendo un minuto alla volta, che le cose che possiedi alla fine ti possiedono e che solo quando perdi tutto sei libero di diventare qualsiasi cosa. Ma a Tyler non basta essere un combattente del week-end e dal nocciolo duro del Fight Club crea un gruppo paramilitare di anarco-disobbedienti per sovvertire l’ordine sociale. In ogni città dove c’è un Fight Club. Finchè il protagonista non si rende conto che la cosa sta per sfuggire loro di mano e cerca di fermarlo. Ne scopre la misteriosa identità rimanendone sconvolto, non meno del lettore, e si ritrova con la pistola in bocca a cercare di parlare usando solo le vocali (il protagonista, non il lettore, tranquilli).

Se avete visto il film, fino a qui ci siete. Poi il finale. Sarebbe un bel finale. Poi volti pagina. Ce n’è un altro. E poi non è ancora finita, voltare pagina e continuare a leggere.

Il ritmo veloce e adrenalinico che catapulta il lettore in giri in macchina mozzafiato per le strade della città, in viaggi senza sosta attraverso gli aeroporti più importanti del mondo e in combattimenti corpo a corpo nei bar più malfamati, diventa ossessivo e cantilenante nel descrivere gli stati d’animo dell’io narrante quando è lontano dall’ amico-mentore.

Scritto con uno stile scorrevole e veloce, il romanzo è punteggiato da un umorismo a volte nero e a volte demenziale ma sempre fulminante, condito di dialoghi brucianti e naturalmente dalla pseudo-filosofia del misterioso Durden e dalle sue enciclopediche conoscenze “alternative” (che vanno dalla produzione domestica di esplosivi, spiegato per bene in ogni dettaglio e variante, all’uso degli acidi nell’ industria cosmetica).

La storia, cruda e violenta in alcune scene e tenera e disarmante in altre, in realtà ben poche, cattura il lettore nell’atmosfera di mistero in cui è ammantata e lo trascina, insieme al protagonista, in una escalation di violenza, in verità più minacciata e celebrata che reale, interpretata come catarsi, liberazione, salvifica rottura degli schemi così come era stato il viaggio per i profeti della Beat Generation.
E così, magari solo per un attimo, anche il lettore finisce con il credere al seducente e perverso sogno di Tyler.

"Siamo consumatori. Sottoprodotti di uno stile di vita. Omicidio, crimine, povertà, queste cose non ci preoccupano. Quello che ci preoccupa sono le celebrità da rotocalco, televisioni con 500 canali, avere il nome di un tizio sulla biancheria intima. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra. Siamo I figli di mezzo della storia. Non abbiamo vissuto una Grande Guerra. Nemmeno la Grande Depressione. La nostra Grande Guerra è una guerra spirituale … la nostra grande depressione è la nostra vita. Siamo stati educati dalla televisione a credere che un giorno saremmo stati milionari, dei del cinema, rock star. E invece non è vero. Noi stiamo lentamente apprendendo questo fatto, gente. E siamo molto, molto incazzati."

Accidenti, mi viene in mente solo ora che raccontandovi tutto ho contravvenuto alla prima regola del Fight Club, ossessivamente ripetuta prima di ogni incontro ed ovunque nel libro: “Non si parla del Fight Club”

Non oso pensare a ciò che mi aspetta quando il signor Tyler Durden lo saprà.

Salvatore Gagliarde

PS: Lo so che nel leggere la faccenda della pistola in bocca che permette di parlare solo a vocali vi siete ficcati un dito in bocca e avete provato. Siete prevedibili. Volete venire ad un incontro, Sabato sera? ( )

Never seen the movie, but the book was pretty good, a little confusing, but good. ( )

I was never interested in reading this book or watching the movie, but it was required reading for one of my classes. I have to say I was blown away by the sheer brilliance of Palahniuk's colloquial writing. I went into this book thinking it was only going to be about men and being manly and testosterone, but seriously, it is more than that. it starts off at the end, and the narrator reflects back on the recent events of his life. I should point out, "the end" that I am referring to involves the narrator having a gun put to his head by Tyler Durden, whom we soon learn is the narrator's friend (no, the narrator has no name, so I must refer to him as such). Also, they're on top of a building about to explode with homemade bombs, all at Tyler's request. This all starts when the narrator goes to a doctor to get rid of his insomnia. The doctor won't prescribe meds, and tells the narrator that it could be worse because he could be a cancer victim or suffer from brain parasites. The narrator starts attending support groups for such people at the doctor's request, and the narrator discovers seeing those dying people and talking with them cures his insomnia. That is, until Marla shows up. Marla starts attending all of these different support groups like the narrator, although she doesn't have any symptoms, she only goes to them to make herself feel better about her own life. They have a brief confrontation, but the narrator finds his insomnia returned. He then meets Tyler after his apartment explodes. The narrator moves in with Tyler having nowhere else to stay. Then they start fight club, a weekly meeting of men who just beat each other up to reinsert their manhood. They need this relief of aggression, they claim, because women have turned them into the feminine, materialistic, soulless beings they are (I have my own feminist opinions on that notion, but that is more of an angry rant than a review, not that I don't have valid points to make). Fight club was never meant to be just fight club, however. Tyler soon grows fight club into project mayhem, a large organization dedicated to breaking down society and living a life free from boundaries and possessions. As I said, the narrator ends up on the roof of a building about to explode with Tyler pointing a gun at him. I will not spoil the surprise ending, but I will say you have to read this book. I have not done it or its author justice. ( )

I don't think I ever planned to actually read Fight Club. I definitely never intended to watch the film. It just didn't seem to be something I'd enjoy, as I tend to get bored with super-macho things that take themselves seriously. Besides which, I have an aversion to reading about drug experiences and certain kinds of violence in novels that dates back to childhood, and I always assumed that Fight Club would be too problematic for me to read.

I finally attempted this book at the recommendation of a coworker. Palahniuk is her favorite author, and when I said that I'd never read anything of his but had thought about it, she promptly returned the next day with Fight Club and told me that I had to read it. So, I did. It's a bit of a hit, and the movie was certainly popular, and I couldn't think of a good reason not to, especially after she told me that I probably wouldn't have a panic attack or anything because of the content, the way I did with Bastard Out of Carolina.

I was careful not to read spoilers about the book (or film) before starting, so I didn't really have any idea what I was getting into, except for knowing the rules, of course. I guess that I expected it to be an average sort of book with a hook that appeals to a lot of people, maybe like Twilight or the Da Vinci Code or My Sister's Keeper or something. I expected it to be about a middle America guy in a dead-end job who is bored with his life and so moves to a big city and gets caught up in these "fight clubs" in order to feel alive, and the book is about him hitting the bottom and despairing, with an ending that involves some hope and looking to the future and being okay with ordinary existence, maybe finding his niche and someone to care for.

I wasn't entirely wrong in my expectations, but I wasn't 100% correct, either, as anyone who has read the book will know. It's not so much of an average sort of novel as I'd thought it would be - the whole stream of consciousness style makes it stand out, and I do love the stream of consciousness technique. There's also a lot of really nice imagery, even if I sometimes felt that the symbolism was a bit too heavy.

The basic plot itself, though, I can't say I was wrong about. Maybe the ending didn't quite work out like I thought, but as I read the book, I began to realize that it wouldn't. Fight Club seems to be firmly on the low end of the sliding scale of cynicism vs idealism, though it sometimes tries to shift more towards the idealistic side. But the "realism" and the club and everything just won't let it settle there. And the romance, that someone to care for, is kind of twisted and bizarre.

I'm still kind of confused about how I feel about Fight Club, and I'm not sure I'll ever be not confused. The first few chapters were really great, very enjoyable. But somewhere around the middle, it was just strange and weird, and I was really wanting it to lighten up and stop being so serious and self-consciously "gritty". (That seems like the kind of word that would get assigned to this novel a lot.) I mean, the very beginning with all the repeated phrases and descriptions and the recipes for explosives was really cool, and then, it just... stopped being so cool. Maybe it's partly my fault because the second or third chapter, I twigged onto the big twist and skipped to the very end to check if I was right, and the very end in my copy happened to be an afterword, which pointed out how Palahniuk was going for a Great Gatsby kind of thing, so I then proceeded to mentally compare the two novels as I read. Perhaps because of this, I was less involved with the process of the storytelling? (On the other hand, I did get distracted from checking on the ending, and didn't have my suspicion fully confirmed until the very end. I actually started to wonder if maybe I'd seen a red herring, and Palahniuk wasn't going to do something so very obvious. But he did.)

Actually, the twist thing? I'm really disappointed in it. Like I said, I suspected it from very early on, though not that first chapter. I had hoped that since I saw it and suspected it, there was no way that it would actually be true, not with the way Palahniuk was doing stream of consciousness and all that symbolic stuff. I feel like he may as well have just said "lol, it was all a dream!" in the end - and, actually, that may be implied with the last few paragraphs. Which probably makes it worse.

I very much want to like Fight Club, and there are some parts that I really do like, but overall, it's just not my thing. Do I actively dislike it? I don't think so. And I'm glad that my coworker lent me her copy so that I could finally read it - it's definitely one of those novels that has entered into popular culture to the point that by not reading it, I was missing out on a lot of allusions and jokes. Especially with internet the way it is.

I'm not likely to ever want to re-read the book, and I don't think that I care to read anything else of Palahniuk's, at least not right now. It was a decent read, definitely engaging at the beginning, but it just didn't work quite right in the end for me. But I'm glad that I did read it. ( )

I read this for my book club as it is not the type of book I normally read. Although easy reading, there is a twist to it which makes me believe I should read it again before discussing it with the book club. ( )

This isn't what I usually read. Several colleagues expressed surprise to see me with this book. They said (didn't ask) "you don't like it." LT's "will you like it feature" says I "probably won't" like it, certainty "very high".

All of that is an accurate reflection of who I am and what I read. And all of it proved to be wrong.

Reading Fight Club, I was, at times, horrified but couldn't put it down. At times, I thought it was just so improbable and unrealistic and stupid. But couldn't put it down.

Fight Club is violent. I'm glad I didn't even try to watch the movie. Fight club is about disease, consumerism, and the relative absence of fathers in boys' lives. It's about the need for heroes, and for leadership in a society where there is often neither.

It was an experience for me to look at, and reflect on, things from a perspective very different from my own. It's very well written. I loved it. I will never read it again. I won't have to, because I'll never forget it. ( )

I liked it in a different way from the movie. I think it has a more logical ending. ( )

Very easy to read story that slowly unfolds to describe a man with multiple personalities that creates fight club and organises multiple guerrilla attacks on consumerism. ( )

i loved this movie, and when i found out there was a book i just had to read it. i was surprised in how well the movie stuck to the book.

this book showed me a different writing style that i had no idea was out there. the characters, the plots, the minimal writing style. it was just an awesome read. ( )

When nihilism becomes a fashion, it means that somehow it's vanishing.
This is still a funny book anyway. ( )

To me, Fight Club is a mysterious symbol of life that depicts our inner hidden personality and emotion. It is about a man named Tyler Durden who finds himself in a huge twist in the road of his life in which he develops dual personalities and finds a rather strange way of therapy. I liked it because I found the way of therapy, "fighting" a very interesting way to relieve one from their problems. The novel shows the deep inner emotions of a person through symbolic events and scenes. ( )

Insane. The first book I read by Palahniuk. Still has that acidic taste. ( )

"If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?"

Like many, I had heard of the book "Fight Club" after seeing the movie. As soon as I found out that it was based on a novel, I remember thinking to myself: How could this be a book? Is that even possible? The movie alone was so unbelievable that if it were done wrong, it would've been a horrible mess. But it was done just right, and the results were amazing.

But one of my friends had read the book and told me, "You've got to read the book." I was hesitant, thinking that I'd find Palahniuk's style of writing to be obscure. I was dead wrong.

The book is filled with some of the most memorable lines; some that were used in the movie, others that were not. This is dark satire at its finest:

"A person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection."

"You're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."

"You don't say anything because fight club exists only in the hours between when fight club starts and when fight club end."

"Fight Club" is the story of an unnamed narrator, an insomniac yuppie who spends his days helping insurance companies get out of having to pay their claims. He wanders through a meaningless life until he discovers the emotional release of attending therapy groups for people suffering from various deadly (and rather embarressing) diseases -- all of which the narrator pretends to have. When the arrival of another "faker" (the wonderfully dark Marla Singer, whose role is far less central in the book than in the film), the narrator finds even the shallow comfort of testicular cancer self-help groups has been taken away from him.

Luckily for him, he happens to meet Tyler Durden around this time. And it is Tyler who introduces him to the concept of fighting. What starts as a few rounds in a bar parking lot soon transforms into the nationwide movement known as Fight Club. Every night, yuppies gather together and proceed to beat each other up and get in touch with the pure destructive instinct that society has forced them to suppress. From this violent but relatively benign concept, Tyler sets out to build up an even more extreme movement and our narrator finds his own life suddenly spiraling out of control.

Writing in an ironic deadpan tone and including something to offend everyone, Palahniuk is a risky writer who takes chances galore, especially with a particularly bizarre plot twist he throws in late in the book. 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.

Book Details:

Title Fight Club
Author Chuck Palahniuk
Reviewed By Purplycookie ( )

A staccato look into the mind(s) of America's disengaged younger generation, Fight Club is as stunning as it is sad. Being of the generation that was raised to want it all (materialistically), I find this novel a true reflection of just what we really have: broken homes, misdirected energy, messed-up romances, an utter lack of job satisfaction, and enough brimming angst to be marginally capable of shocking our little corner of the world. The philosophies are dry and pessimistic, yet ring true in ways too disturbing for most to feel comfortable with. This novel is for anyone who does not feel completely safe or sufficiently satisfied, and who likes a little crazy with their daily affirmations. ( )

Since the first rule of Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club, I guess I shouldn't be writing this review. Oh well, let those chips fall as they may.

After many, many viewings of the movie, I finally convinced myself to check the book out.

I'll start out by saying that I truly enjoyed the book. Of course I did, the movie did an excellent job of capturing the nuances and the feeling of the book almost exactly. That being said, at times reading it, I really didn't feel (for almost the first time ever) that reading the book really was all that necessary for me. Either Chuck Palahniuk had his finger in the pot the entire time that the movie was being made, or the director felt that the only way to bring such an amazing novel to the screen was to put it on film as close to word for word as the medium would allow.

If you've seen Fight Club more than a few times, reading the novel really won't give you any additional insight into the world of Tyler Durden. However, if you haven't seen the movie and want an interesting perspective on movie theaters, catering/waiters and making soap, then give Fight Club a try. ( )