![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: Fight Club
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Published: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 1996 (2005)
Pages: 218
Total pages: 8134
Text number: 27
Read for: my own enjoyment over Thanksgiving break.
In brief: Fight Club as a book is nearly identical to Fight Club as a film, and the only changes made in the movie adaptation were good changes. I rarely say this, but: see the movie instead, and there's very little reason to read the book. The book is the original, however, and remains a fast, entertaining, thought-provoking read.
I read this book because I found it in the house and wanted to take a break from Foucault. I read it in about 24 hours total time. It is quick, it is engrossing, but unfortunately it's not as good as the movie and, while thought-provoking, it's not too new and it is a bit disturbing.
No doubt about it, this is a fast novel and it keeps the reader engaged. The tone is very informal, the plot is clichéd but still nicely done, and the content is delightfully disturbing. A fast reader will get through it in just a few hours, and any reader will be pretty amused for as long as it takes. I have no problem recommending the novel to those looking to take a quick break and read something different for a change.
That said, the violence, feel, and characterization of this book work better in the movie version. Hell, everything about this book works better in the movie version. I've heard a number of people claim that the story is better as a book, but for once I don't agree. In 99% of cases that is true, but here all the book grants is a few extra plot point and a slower climax, nothing dramatic. I liked it more as a movie.
The content of the book, the idea of destroying to discover oneself, is thought-provoking but is also a classic concept. The author knows this and says as much in his afterword: destruction is nothing new; this may have reminded the general American public of it, but that doesn't change the fact that people have been doing it for many hundreds of years. Moreover, the more familiar I grow with the concept the less I trust it. Destruction is informing and revealing but I don't think it is really healing or creating, and to that extent I think we can get so lost in the concept of destruction that we forget the truths we were trying to seek. I think the text realizes this, and the final thesis isn't very radical, but I'm afraid that audiences get caught up in Tyler and forget that the protagonist actually, rightfully, kills him.
So it goes. By all means, read the book, but I'd rather you watch the movie and I'd really prefer you try not to get caught up in the grit of Hollywood. It amused me for a day, but it's no where near a favorite on my list.
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Published: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 1996 (2005)
Pages: 218
Total pages: 8134
Text number: 27
Read for: my own enjoyment over Thanksgiving break.
In brief: Fight Club as a book is nearly identical to Fight Club as a film, and the only changes made in the movie adaptation were good changes. I rarely say this, but: see the movie instead, and there's very little reason to read the book. The book is the original, however, and remains a fast, entertaining, thought-provoking read.
I read this book because I found it in the house and wanted to take a break from Foucault. I read it in about 24 hours total time. It is quick, it is engrossing, but unfortunately it's not as good as the movie and, while thought-provoking, it's not too new and it is a bit disturbing.
No doubt about it, this is a fast novel and it keeps the reader engaged. The tone is very informal, the plot is clichéd but still nicely done, and the content is delightfully disturbing. A fast reader will get through it in just a few hours, and any reader will be pretty amused for as long as it takes. I have no problem recommending the novel to those looking to take a quick break and read something different for a change.
That said, the violence, feel, and characterization of this book work better in the movie version. Hell, everything about this book works better in the movie version. I've heard a number of people claim that the story is better as a book, but for once I don't agree. In 99% of cases that is true, but here all the book grants is a few extra plot point and a slower climax, nothing dramatic. I liked it more as a movie.
The content of the book, the idea of destroying to discover oneself, is thought-provoking but is also a classic concept. The author knows this and says as much in his afterword: destruction is nothing new; this may have reminded the general American public of it, but that doesn't change the fact that people have been doing it for many hundreds of years. Moreover, the more familiar I grow with the concept the less I trust it. Destruction is informing and revealing but I don't think it is really healing or creating, and to that extent I think we can get so lost in the concept of destruction that we forget the truths we were trying to seek. I think the text realizes this, and the final thesis isn't very radical, but I'm afraid that audiences get caught up in Tyler and forget that the protagonist actually, rightfully, kills him.
So it goes. By all means, read the book, but I'd rather you watch the movie and I'd really prefer you try not to get caught up in the grit of Hollywood. It amused me for a day, but it's no where near a favorite on my list.
