This review/discussion is going to contain spoilers, so I would recommend to have read Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk before continuing on, if you would like to preserve the mystery of the novel.
I, however, had this mystery divulged to me before I had the pleasure of reading the book, which is how I first learned that the soap is made from the liposuctioned fat of the elite class, and that Tyler Durden is just a split personality of the main character who never assumes an actual name, thus allowing for him to be anyone.
Even though I knew the main twist of the novel, I still fell in love with it. The novel is fast-paced and exciting; as the reader you jump from scene to scene, and are instantly thrown into a situation that often involves mass chaos, violence, or giving a metaphorical or literal middle finger to the elite. It keeps you dialed in, and feeling like you’re going full throttle up the hill on a roller coaster, prepared to fall off the big drop at any moment. This style also caters to the overall tone of the book, which can best be described as dirty, dank, exposed, and honest. This world is painted in extremes, where the elites eat the most lavish delicacies and have the nicest toys while the rest of the world is destined to ruminate in the gutter. It caters to everyone’s individual shortcomings, and diverts them to fit into the narrative of a beaten down person living a life they never wanted, doing what they can to wait for the minutes to run out.
In a word, it’s fantastic how Palahniuk’s writing can transport you into this psyche.
“If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t.”
Besides the quality of the writing, the content it conveys is also very important. It addresses the emptiness left in the hearts of the workers of a capitalist society, as well as the search men go through to find a father figure that they can use to rebel against their birth father, should they have them. It grapples with the struggle for masculinity, as embodied in the split personality that is Tyler Durden. It spits at the feet of the elite socialites it criticizes, while pointing out the hypocrisy of the ‘space monkeys’ as they too blindly follow a new goal(the only difference being, it’s a new goal).
As someone with high hopes and aspirations, I often wonder why I want these things. Is it for money? Because it is what I was told in school? Because it is what I was told will make me happy? Or a combination of all three of these questions and an infinite number more?
I don’t know. But books like this get you to thinking about questions like these, and make you almost buy into the life that the narrator/Tyler Durden led, until you remember its one lived in a dilapidated house filled with bags of liposuctioned fat doing jobs you hate by day and carrying out domestic terrorism homework assignments by night. And so you remember, this world you just read about is now yours, and the life you live and the happiness derived from it is determined by yourself.
Or you brush past all of these allusions to a failing society and you think huh, maybe I should take up boxing.
“A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.”
One of the reasons I think this book ascended to the status it did is because of its quotability. I’ve scattered some of my favorites throughout this review, but I am not lying when I say you can find a prolific quote on nearly every page. All of the language has meaning; nothing is ever said for the sake of being said.
The quote below is one of my favorites, and it comes from the Afterword in my copy. I like it, because after having read a novel about an anarchist it emphasizes the importance and reward of good honest work, presumably in a society that will recognize you for it.
“Being tired isn’t the same as being rich, but most times it’s close enough.”
Finally, the last quote below stuck out to me, because it reflects my generation’s struggle with climate change. Here we are, left with a problem created by a generation we never knew, that became exacerbated by the generation we came from. This great problem, which we are now tasked to fix with some miraculous answer, that I hope we can figure out. I found it really interesting that Palahniuk references the struggle between humans and our planet, especially since the novel was published in 1996. Especially since now in 2019 even, climate change is still a disputed topic, it is nice to see that it was so aptly conveyed over 20 years ago.
“For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil.
And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born.”
In conclusion, if you don’t like to read, love to read, are bored with books, are bored with life, are in love with life, etc, make sure to read this book.