Fight Club

Rating:
Summary: A Very Unique Novel......
Review: Fight Club is a very unique novel. Chuck Palaniuk wrote a very unique novel with Fight Club, the narrator is mysterious, but he tells us about this individual who goes to meetings faking illnesses, and goes across the country until he meet Tyler. Him and Tyler then go to restaurants doing some sick things to soup to high-class people, and yet they both create this club in bars called Fight Club. The first rules of Fight Club, no one talks about Fight Club, the second rules of Fight Club, no one talks about Fight Club, the third rule is two men to a fight and with no shoes and shirts. So the narrator goes along with his life working in this boring office setting, and as Fight Club starts to grow, so does another club involving follwers who make soap and sell it to stores with human fat. Now the narrator meets Helen, one of the people in his groups, Tyler befriends her, and they make love a lot. Now Fight Club is HUGE, and it is national, and the FBI starts to shut down Fight Club in Portland Oregon, but still the men keep on fighting. Now as the book moves along, (sorry I am going to spoil this for everyone, if you dont want to know the ending, then dont read the rest of this review) the narrator starts to see Tyler's followers shaking his hand, and just happy to see him, but he does not know that when he sleeps he is Tyler! Tyler is a split-personality that the narrator has! Now the narrator tries to shut down Fight Club, but to no prevail, and Helen dumps him, and now in his office building, his follwers are burning paper, and throwing office desks and cabinets through the building. Now the narrator has a gun in his mouth, and Helen tries to stop him, but is unlucky. The novel ends with him going to heaven meeting Peter.

This is my first Chuck Palahniuk novel, and I loved it from page one. I thought this was the most orginal novel of the last decade. A keeper for this constant reader's library.

Rating:
Summary: a response to a previous review
Review: in response to "musclehead":
1) nice job getting your own opinions. your point number 2 makes no sense. you're ragging on the book because you think the two main characters are gay, but you're also saying "oh but i'm not homophobic." right. if you aren't then it really shouldn't make a difference, so your point is irrelevant. and then you end that point with how they both need each other. if you've actually read the book or seen the movie, then you would understand the reason for this,

2)of course getting beaten up isn't an empowering experience. the point of the book is that in order to be free from social pressures such as owning BMW's or 2 million dollar houses, you must lose everything. they moved into an abandoned house that didn't even have sanitary running water. if you get your butt kicked you know that it doesn't really get worse. when you beat someone up you feel a sense of power. it goes both ways. sometimes you must be picked up, and sometimes you must be put down. this is a manual way of doing this. in society it is an automatic thing to be picked up and be put down, but it's sporatic, so you never know when its going to happen. this is a manual way of making sure it happens.

3)are you saying that masculine violence doesn't make you more masculine? please, "musclehead", enlighten me. tell me what does make someone more masculine. would a man that wears dresses qualify as masculine. if you see two boxers going at it on tv, you automatically think "i'd never mess with them, they look really strong." of course you wouldn't mess with them. why? because they are much stronger than you, and more masculine.

4) i don't think that chuck palahniuk stole his ideas from other authors.

if you want to disprove any of these points you can email me at [e-mail] i'd be glad to have a conversation with any of you about this.

Rating:
Summary: An Eye-opening Experience
Review: Palahniuk has done an amazing job portraying our corrupt modern day society based around material possessions and working in jobs we dont want in order to buy things you dont need. The ending challenged all odds and left the reader amazed and provoked with deep thought. All in all, this book amazed yet still disturbed just as much as the movie did. Don't pass up this amazing work of literary art. READ IT NOW. If you are prepared to be amazed go for it. Also recommended: POST OFFICE by Charles Bukowski, THE LOSERS CLUB by Richard Perez

Rating:
Summary: Amazing Exploration of Modern Society
Review: Although the movie is better--due to an incredibly talented screenwriter, who GOT the story and added subtle nuances that just enhance the themes of the book, the book is still amazing... and has a slightly different bent to it which makes it an original, rather than duplicative experience. I highly recommend it, as well as Palahniuk's other works.

Rating:
Summary: Musclehead
Review: I would like to express my profound admiration for the author of "Big Jocks." S/he has correctly identified the central problems with FIGHT CLUB.

1.) FIGHT CLUB espouses a mindless athleticism and jock-fascism. It does not merely imply, but states in the most obvious manner, that bare-knuckled fist-fighting makes effeminate men more virile/manly/masculine. Such is the book's childish "message." FIGHT CLUB shouts in the reader's ear: There is only one way to "overcome" the feminized support-group culture which is America. There is only one way to avoid morphing into a woman-man (such as "Bob," a former weight-lifter who grows breasts). Beat up, and get beaten up by someone else! That will make you feel like A REAL MAN! But as everyone knows, getting beaten up is NOT an empowering experience. And to say that masculine violence makes you more masculine is idiotic, conventional, and boring.

2.) This hyper-macho attitude is belied by the novel's OVERT homoeroticism. I am not a homophobe. But it is obvious that this book, which tries very hard to be "male-heterosexual," is homoerotic through and through. Tyler proclaims to the narrator that "another woman is not what we need right now." No, instead they both need each other. The fight clubs are homoerotic associations.

3.) The book DOES proclaim that you are a better person if you gain more muscle. So does SURVIVOR. So does CHOKE. Both Tender Branson and Denny loses their unsightly fat, gain some muscle, and thereby become "holy." Now, if you've ever seen chuckpalahniuk strut around with his muscle-shirt, you can tell that he resembles one of his "jockalicious" characters (if the word "character" is appropriate). To say that muscleheads are BETTER PEOPLE than the flabby or skinny is repulsive AND fascistic.

4.) chuckpalahniuk should concern himself more with the one muscle that matters to serious writers: the brain.

One final note for Amazon customers: Purchase Ballard's HIGH-RISE or CRASH instead. Although it is currently unavailable, HIGH-RISE will come out in paperback soon. chuckpalahniuk stole all of his ideas from Ballard and other, sophisticated authors... and regurgitated them minus the sophistication.

Rating:
Summary: A fantastic satire of everyday life
Review: I was reading reviews about this book, and I saw some that referred to it as "jockalicious." I don't see how Palahniuk's "Fight Club" is like this in anyway. The story starts out with the narrator in a rather dull, desperate point in his life. He can't sleep, he hates his boss, and all he has is his materials that he is constantly consuming from the market. In a desperate attempt to find something new, he gets addicted to going to support groups, where he feels he can actually talk and have people listen to him. As we get further into the book, we find that his home, his quaint little products, everything, are all destroyed. However, he makes a friend (Tyler), who opens his mind about a lot of things: consumer America, materialism, parents, etc. The two form a group known as Fight Club. Why? Because they're jocks. JUST KIDDING. They do it because they can finally vent their feelings of anger, frustration, whatever, and they can do it together, forming a strange kind of common bond among the members. However, as the we get further into it, we find that there is more to Fight Club than just venting rage, and it slowly takes a turn for the worst, with a wicked twist of a climax. Written with an extremely dark, cynical, yet hilarious outlook on things, Palahniuk takes the story of the average man's life and turns it into a nightmare, the reader not wanting to put the book down the entire time. Jocky? I think not. "Fight Club" simply delves into the darker side of the human condition, creating a fantastic fable, and cannot be missed.

Rating:
Summary: |Fight Club|
Review: to start fight club is one of the best books ive ever read. secondly all those who say its only for the jocks and those who admire their personal appearence read the book backwards. This book is about the liberation of ones mind and bind to everyday life. This is a unique book that everyone can benifit off reading. Also if you liked the movie than read this book! besides some minor differences the book and the movie are almost identical. Im going to leave it at that with one of the quotes from the book

"its only after you've lost everything, that your free to do anything" chuck palahniuk.

Rating:
Summary: Big Jocks
Review: "Fight Club" is a great book if you are a big jock who likes to flex your muscles all of the time. The plot is about a self-help club with a lot of guys who want to liberate themselves from Swedish furniture by pounding on each other with their fists. "Fight Club" is an ad that celebrates physical fitness and looks down on those who don't quite fit a certain fashionable physical profile. And all of this is said in the name of non-conformism. But wait! What's more conformist than the belief that working out in a gym and sweating like a pig makes you a better person? "Fight Club"'s jock-fascism is jockalicious.

There's also a latent homoeroticism in the book. The narrator says that he "wants Tyler" and he has a fantasy about Tyler lifting heavy logs. That's fine, except that the book pretends to be ultra-macho hetero.

Anyway, it's a great book for jocks, folks!

I apologize for my poor writing skills, but English is not my first language.

Rating:
Summary: FIGHT THIS
Review: Hey chuck, wanna fight.

i think you have to get past seeing the characters of brad pitt and edward norton, and even helena carter to be able to read this book with a clear conscious. however, if you should happen to read it, and see the movie, then well thats cool too.

its a good read. pretty quick, pretty painless. other than learning the facts about my contributing to the corporate cop out in america.

yeah im part of the rat race as well narrator, but come on, lets face facts, it beats the alternative. or does it?

the narrator, call him jack for now, is quite a fellow with quite an interesting mind. perhaps so interesting that he could be a schizo. other great littel tidbits about this book is the wealth of knowledge one gains in corporate espionage. darn you chuck, you have turned my one man city campaign of destruction terror and mayhem, and made it into a commercial success.

hisss at you chuck.

but buy it, read it, love it, become a member of the legion, but please keep on reading. thats the great thing about chucks books, it made me read, it made me think, and it made me continue that groove well past his library, and into the libraries of so many others who can contribute to your life in so many ways.

happy hunting

Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: Before you go and see the movie (if you haven't yet) you should probably read the book first. The book is almost always better, but in the book the endings are different, and the character are too, but anyways.
What makes this book so good is how much it can make you realize. As you read this book, you often find how stupid and trivial a lot of your life is. The dark humor adds a nice touch. Even if you are getting this book, because you need some entertainment, it's still an excellent read, with a higly engrossing plot, and very interesting characters. Palahniuk is an excellent writer and i would recommend this book to anyone.