Book Review: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

 

Title: Fight Club
Author: Check Palahniuk

Genre: Fiction, Classics, Mystery, Thriller

Publication Date: August 17, 1996

Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation’s most visionary satirist in this, his first book. Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the basement of bars. There, two men fight "as long as they have to." This is a gloriously original work that exposes the darkness at the core of our modern world.

Review

What a whirlwind of a story. I picked up Fight Club after watching the classic legendary movie, and wanted to read the book to deep dive and understand it. First of all, this is one of the most unconventional books I've ever read, where reality blends into the thoughts of the Narrator, who is in a dream-like state. The dialogue and thoughts amalgamate into one big cloud, and it often uses second person to narrate, involving the reader into the jumbled, jargon, messy train of consciousness of the Narrator, whose name is never revealed. It details the story of a cynical insomniac who hates his life and his job, who meets a mysterious man named Tyler Durden, and joins a "Fight Club" where men fight just to fight in basements of bars. The duo engages in making chaos and destruction all over the city, calling it Project Mayhem. Later it is revealed that Tyler Durden is a figment of the Narrator's imagination, due to his split personality, which has invented a whole new persona when he is asleep.

I really enjoyed reading the book because it explained some things that the movie did not; the split personality, how the Narrator manifested his Tyler Durden persona while he was supposedly "asleep", and core themes of the novel that were more fleshed out. The iconic line, "The first rule of fight club is that you don't talk about fight club", is repeated many times throughout the novel and movie. Because this fight club is where men fight each other with no means to the end, my interpretation of the line is that the persona that men uphold and the activities that occur in this space are not open to being discussed, because this is the dark underside of human behaviour--the drive to destroy, annihilate, and cause chaos. I believe that this story is the exploration of the Freudian psychological theory of the life instinct Eros, and the death instinct, Thanatos. Freud believed that humans were ruled by these two forces, with Eros promoting cooperation and survival, while Thanatos encompasses the destruction and death. It explores that humans have an innate desire to return to the ground and destroy, with the "aim of all life being death". Freud observed that people held an unconscious desire to die but life instincts temper this wish, even that Thanatos was a compulsion so elementary and instinctual than the life instincts which acts as a counterpoise.

Fight Club is a personification of the death instinct. While the Narrator lives a comfortable life living an office job, he feels as though his life is empty. One of the quotes in the book is that, "You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”. This quote is about how the identity we derive from the external world are not a valid description of what humans actually are. "Dancing crap of the world" is a descriptor of how humans are so base, vile, and excreted from nothingness--the belief that humans are nothing more than crap is the personification of how negative the death drive is, and how Thanatos is a subconscious desire to return to an inorganic state, hence, crap. This desire to destroy is further exemplified by the quote: “At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.”

The two personalities of the Narrator, one being the Narrator himself in which we experience the story being narrated, and Tyler Durden, are personifications of Eros and Thanatos. The Narrator first meets Tyler Durden on a nude beach dragging driftwoods out of the waters after he takes a vacation, a scene that he doesn't know if it is imagined or not. The Narrator is the Eros, but he is weak and is succumbing to the influence of Tyler Durden, the Thanatos. Often, he thinks that "I am starting to sound a lot like Tyler" in situations and acting like him too, a hint that his split personality has taken into effect. Because the life force of the Narrator is so weak, the death instinct of Tyler becomes so strong that everything in reality becomes a blur, and it is revealed later on that Tyler and the Narrator are the same person. When the Narrator sleeps, Tyler's persona takes over and organizes the fight club, engages in a relationship with Marla, and goes to his job working in movie production as a movie projectionist. Tyler is the embodiment of everything the Narrator wishes he was, the things he would want to say, but does not have the courage to do. The Narrator himself does not have any name, and this is a significant point because in the beginning when he is going to the support groups he changes his identity every time--a foreshadowing of his split personality taking into effect. However, the Narrator refers to himself in third person, which is perhaps his name when he says, "I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. I am Jack's Broken Heart.”

Tyler makes a point about "hitting bottom" many times in the book. In order for things to grow again, they must die. This is the death instinct at play. This is a point about rebirth, as in the end of the novel, the Narrator shoots himself to kill his alter ego, even though he survives and ends up in a mental hospital. The quote, “Only after disaster can we be resurrected.” is a direct reference to death as the only answer to rebirth. Another instance of rebirth as a thematic message in the book is the incident with Raymond K. Hessel where Tyler puts a gun to his head and forces him to follow his broken dreams to be a veterinarian. He says, "I know who you are. I know where you live. I'm keeping your license, and I'm going to check on you, mister Raymond K. Hessel. In three months, and then six months, and then a year, and if you aren't back in school on your way to being a veterinarian, you will be dead...Raymond K. K. Hessel, your dinner is going to taste better than any meal you've ever eaten, and tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life." Tyler wants to rebirth individuals and he uses this method because only in the face of death do we realize our unfulfilled dreams and wishes. This book is about rebirth as much as it is about hitting bottom and death; only if we destroy can we live. That is the whole point of Project Mayhem--it through chaos can we seek order. Without chaos, there would be no life force. Even when the author says, “We just had a near-life experience”, replacing the usual word "near-death experience" with "near-life experience", this is a sign that dying means living again.

It's interesting also how the author places haiku poems in the novel. One of the ones that stood out to me was: “Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave.”. The Queen bee, assumed to be at the top of the hierarchy, isn't as invincible as it seems; it is an ironic twist on power and freedom. The impending doom that even the top of the hierarchy can experience is a symbol that no one is exempt from the death instinct and chaos. The worker bees are the ones who do all the labour, and the drones are the ones whose only purpose is to mate and are expendable. The queen who appears to have the most power is actually the one who is most imprisoned, because the workers and the drones can fly away. Power and freedom are also core message in the novel, being trapped parallels the Narrator's experience as he is trapped by consumerism, insomnia, and an identity he has no control over. The disdain for consumerism is highlighted in the quote: “Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions." and the novel highlights the dangers of being in the cycle of constant consuming, as exemplified by the Swedish IKEA furniture that the Narrator constantly mentions himself having. The IKEA furniture is a symbol of consumerism--when the Narrator, or his alter ego, Tyler, burns down his own apartment, he constantly refers to the furniture and the burning symbolizes the Narrator's desire to disrupt the cycle of being trapped in a society that has pilgrammed itself into being meaningless and corrupt. The critique of society is demonstrated in the line: “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. We have a spiritual depression.” The spiritual depression refers to how people are trapped in their monotonous lives and ridden with the lack of desire to live. There is also the theme of masculinity and how the Narrator says his father abandoned him, and when Tyler disappears, how Tyler abandoned him too. The death force is inherently a masculine concept, with masculinity being untameable, dark, and destructive, with femininity appearing more giving, nurturing, and cooperative. The Fight Club is an all male club which symbolizes the brutality of men and masculinity, in a form that is toxic and uncontrolled. Because the Narrator was abandoned by his father, and Tyler who is another masculine figure that endorses and created the Fight Club, this trauma manifests in the overcompensation of masculinity and acts as a cautionary tale to control this untameable and brutal force.

The relationship between the Narrator's alter ego Tyler and Marla is also interesting to thing about. Marla appears at the support groups and she is also a "faker", as she is not really dying. However, the one thing that connects the Narrator to Marla is that they are both spiritually dying. While the Narrator cannot sleep which drives himself to imagine Tyler and all the destruction he could cause with all the things he would do if he would follow his Thanatos base instincts, Marla is suffering from depression as outlined by her suicide attempt that is disguised as a cry for help. She wants attention and seeks it from the Narrator/Tyler, and Tyler picks up on her spirit being close to wanting to rebirth. Hence, they form a sexual relationship that is symbolic and very poignant. Marla is the only real character in the book: she is the truth, she tells the Narrator the truth, and calls out his lies, instability, and avoidance. She becomes the catalyst for the Narrator realizing his own identity when she tells him that his name is Tyler Durden after the Narrator goes on a wild goose hunt to find what happened to Tyler when he disappears. In the end when the Narrator is on the building attempting to shoot himself, Marla finds him along with the people from the support groups which causes him to regain full control of his mental state. Marla is the saviour of the Narrator, the pillar of truth and also a reflection of his instability. She reflects his vulnerability, fear of intimacy, and longing for connection. She is also the Narrator's worst fear when she starts a relationship with Tyler, because she loves Tyler, the false version of himself, not the real version of who the Narrator really is. However, at the end when she says, "It's not love or anything, but I think I like you." is when she saves the Narrator's psyche and allows him to regain control of his mental facilities, abolishing his Tyler persona. This acceptance is so crucial to understanding what can save a person's psyche--the acceptance of someone in their raw form with all the destruction and chaos. Only after this moment can the Narrator kill Tyler, the death instinct Thanatos, with the life instinct Eros. Only if we accept the death drive can the life force be regained and rebalanced.

I loved this novel and the movie adaptation, because there was so much to unpack and think about. It makes you ponder about what it means to live simultaneously with the desire to live and to die. It is a very thought provoking piece of art that I thoroughly enjoyed, with so many themes that are so relevant to today's society. A must read!