Fight Club
- This article is for the novel by Chuck Palahniuk. For the film based on this novel, see Fight Club (film).
Fight Club (1996) is the first published novel by Chuck Palahniuk, in which an unnamed protagonist struggles with the commercialization of American culture and male disenfranchisement through fighting. It was made into a movie of the same name in 1999 directed by David Fincher. A reissued version of the novel was published in 2004 that begins with an introduction by the author which talks about the conception and popularity of both the novel and the movie. As of June 23, 2004 Fight Club is in development as a musical, developed by Palahniuk and Fincher.
History
When Palahniuk made his first attempt at publishing a novel (Invisible Monsters) publishers rejected it for being too disturbing. This led him to work on Fight Club, which he wrote as an attempt to disturb the publisher even more for rejecting him. Palahniuk wrote this story in between working while on the job for Freightliner. After initially publishing it as a short story in the compilation Pursuit of Happiness, Palahniuk expanded it into a full novel, which, contrary to what he expected, the publisher was willing to publish. While the original, hardcover edition of the book recieved positive reviews and some awards, it had a short shelf life. Nevertheless, the book had made its way to Hollywood, where interest in adapting it to film was growing. It was eventually adapted in 1999 by director David Fincher. Though only successful at the box office for a short time, the film built itself a cult following. Two paperback rereleases of the novel, one in 1999 and the other in 2004, were later made. This success helped launch Palahniuk's career as a popular novelist, as well as establish a writing style that would appear in all later books by the author.
Many events in the novel were based on experiences that Palahniuk himself had experienced. The support groups that the narrator attends are based on support groups that the author brought terminally ill people to as part of a volunteer job he did for a local hospice. The club itself was based off of a series of fights that Palahniuk got into over previous years. Project Mayhem is loosely based on the Cacophony Society, of which Palahniuk is a member.
Plot synopsis
Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.
The book centers around a nameless narrator who hates his job and the way his life currently is. The narrator works for an unnamed car company, organising recalls on defective models if and only if the cost of the recall is less than the total cost of out-of-court settlements paid to relatives of the deceased (which parallels the 1970s story of Ford Pinto recalls). This combined with his growing disenfranchisement with the consumerist lifestyle he has been living cause him to suffer from chronic insomnia.
At the recommendation of his doctor (who doesn't consider insomnia to be a serious ailment), the narrator goes to a support group for men with testicular cancer to "see what real suffering is like". After finding that crying at these support groups and listening to emotional outpourings from suffering individuals allows him to sleep at night, he becomes addicted to attending them. At the same time, he befriends a cancer victim named Bob. Although he does not suffer from any of the ailments that the other attendants have, he is nevertheless never caught being a "tourist". However, one day at a support group he meets Marla Singer, a woman who also attends support groups without needing them for their original purpose. Her presence "reflects" the narrator's "tourism", and only reminds him that he doesn't belong at the support groups. This causes him to be unable to cry and consequently causes him to hate Marla. As a result of both of these factors, the narrator is once again unable to control his insomnia. After a short confrontation between the two, they begin going to separate support groups in order to no longer see each other at them.
His life changes radically when, in the aftermath of this incident, he meets Tyler Durden,a beach artist who works low-paying jobs at night in order to perform deviant behavior on the job. After the narrator's condo is destroyed by an explosion, he asks Tyler if he can stay at his place. Tyler agrees, but asks for one favor: "I want you to hit me as hard as you can." The resulting fight in a bar's parking lot attracts more disenchanted males, and a new form of support group, the first "fight club", is born. The fight club becomes a new type of therapy through bare-knuckle fighting, controlled by a set of eight rules.
As fight club's membership grows, Tyler begins to use it to spread anti-consumer ideas and recruits its members to participate in increasingly elaborate attacks on corporate America. This was originally the narrator's idea, but Tyler eventually takes control from him and the narrator becomes uncomfortable with the increasing destructiveness of their activities after it results in the death of Bob. Tyler eventually gathers the most devoted fight club members and forms "Project Mayhem", a cult-like organization that trains itself as an army to bring down modern civilization. As the narrator endeavors to stop Tyler and his followers, he comes to realize that he is Tyler. Tyler is not a separate person, but a separate personality; he is born from the narrator's unconscious want to be with Marla despite his conscious hatred for her, which was the final straw in causing his mind to snap from the stress of his life. The story climaxes in a conflict between the "real" narrator, trying to regain control of his own mind and prevent a disaster that Tyler has set into motion, and the calculating Tyler, who always seems to be one step ahead.
Characters
- The narrator - The nameless protagonist. He starts the story suffering from insomnia, and starts going to support groups for terminally ill people (he fakes that he is dying of their diseases) to help him sleep at night (through crying at them). He eventually quits going to them after he becomes part of fight club. He co-founds fight club along with Tyler Durden as a method of dealing with his insomnia and annoyance with consumer culture.
- Tyler Durden - A nihilist with a serious hatred for consumer culture. Tyler works night jobs just to cause problems for the companies; he also does beach art to find "perfection". He is the co-founder of fight club (it was his idea to have the fight that led to it). He later launches Project Mayhem, from which he and the members make various attacks on consumerism.
- Marla Singer - A woman that the narrator meets during a support group. Marla causes the narrator to lose interest in the groups when he realizes that she is faking her problems just like he is. After he leaves the groups, he meets her again when she meets Tyler and becomes his lover.
- Robert "Bob" Paulson - A man that the narrator meets at a support group for testicular cancer. Bob lost his testicles to cancer and had to undergo testosterone injections; this resulted in his body increasing its estrogen, causing him to grow large breasts and develop a softer voice. The narrator befriends Bob and, after leaving the groups, meets him again in fight club. Bob's death later in the story while carrying out an assignment for Project Mayhem causes the narrator to turn against Tyler.
Awards
The novel won the following awards:
- the 1997 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award
- the 1997 Oregon Book Award for Best Novel
ISBN numbers
See also
