Chuck Palahniuk

[Mortis Anarchy]

I love him!! The first one I read was Choke. It was hilarious and mentally scarring at some points...haha. I think his style is interesting. He has a twisted sense of humor and his characters seem very real. My friend just started reading Rant, his newest book. She says it is really good and based real events. Don't quote me on that, but thats what she told me. I highly recommend his books.

I just finished Diary, I wasn't very pleased with it...it made me feel really, really weird and sad. I couldn't sleep that night, I finished it around midnight and then couldn't sleep until around four...so beware!!!

[KITTO]

Invisible monsters is really well written =]
Lots of abstract and almost twisted theories

"Nothing of me is orginal, I am the product of everyone I have ever known"

but I thought the end was a little disaspointing and tbh the storyline is a bit weak in places

PEACE OUT =]

[Old Crow]

Phalanuik is good, but not great. Enjoyable to read, extremely interesting, but ultimately forgetable. I read "Lullaby" some years back, and enjoyed it, but I don't think I'll seek out his other stuff unless I find myself craving something quick, simple, and entertaining to break up my (sometimes) stuffy regimen of literature.

[jenny1114]

I have read the book and watched the movie. I am trying to compare the themes in both. I think that the book is more about anti-consumerism and the movie is more about reclaiming masculinity. Does anyone agree?

[ZaphodBeblebrox]

No its pretty much the same thing in my eyes, both center on the fact modern america belongs to the corporations and that people in general are stupid or like sheep. Even the fight club members.

[reems]

I think both the book and movie are anarchist reactions to a consumer, corporate driven society.

I also think it's easy for a person to accuse the film of depicting an immature machismo, but really, the film portrays the effects of a consumer obsessed society on the individual.

An individual reaches a breaking point and seeks some form of release; both the book and film show this form of release through violence.

Reema

[1n50mn14]

For me, both the book and the movie were very similar in theme.

To me, it portrayed the sick kind of society in which we live, where it is extremely consumer and corporation based and everybody falls into that trap at a very young age. Yet we aren't meant to be docile sheep, and here I am going to refer to J.J Rousseau and the quote "Man is naturally good, and only by institutions is he made bad." The consumer based institutions that society is based off of have driven these characters to madness that needs to be released in some form. The build up of resentment and anger and self loathing that results from everyday life has to go somewhere...

[curlyqlink]

Both book and movie seemed to me dull-witted rebellion against the ills of "society". Believe it or not, there are responses to the temptations of consumerism other than punching oneself repeatedly in the face.

[B-Mental]

I found the theme of insomnia to be representative of discontent...I no longer remember the names, but the male lead, and the female role are both searching for something. I'm sure that there is an emptiness in these characters that is brought about by the status quo of money and physical possession of material goods.

[Seabird111]

Well, I started reading Chuck Palahniuk when I picked up Diary, (apparently his worst book). I decided that I needed to read Fight Club, and so off to Barnes and Nobel I went.

The opening chapter grabbed me. I wanted to know more about the characters.

It took a little bit for everything to take off, but once it did, it happened very quickly.

It could be confusing at times, and it seemed to fall into the Stream of Conciousness sort of writing.

If you can get past it's very first-novelosity, it's a great read with a great ending.

7/10.

[curlyqlink]

I found it terribly juvenile. I hate it when authors indulge in wish fulfillment fantasies via their characters, particularly when their greatest wish and aspiration is to have been... a tough guy.

Equally sad is when they indulge in self-pity. Which is about all the characters in this book do, in the final analysis. Oh, it's so hard being a man in today's society. Boo-hoo. Oh, by the way... did you notice what a tough, bar-fightin' kind of guy I am?

Utter silliness.

[TheFifthElement]

I found it terribly juvenile. I hate it when authors indulge in wish fulfillment fantasies via their characters, particularly when their greatest wish and aspiration is to have been... a tough guy.

Equally sad is when they indulge in self-pity. Which is about all the characters in this book do, in the final analysis. Oh, it's so hard being a man in today's society. Boo-hoo. Oh, by the way... did you notice what a tough, bar-fightin' kind of guy I am?

Utter silliness.

I think you missed the point. By a long way.

I enjoyed Fight Club though I understand why many people wouldn't. I certainly didn't find it a self-pitying book, quite the opposite in fact. There's a lot in there about taking control.

[Drkshadow03]

I found it terribly juvenile. I hate it when authors indulge in wish fulfillment fantasies via their characters, particularly when their greatest wish and aspiration is to have been... a tough guy.

Equally sad is when they indulge in self-pity. Which is about all the characters in this book do, in the final analysis. Oh, it's so hard being a man in today's society. Boo-hoo. Oh, by the way... did you notice what a tough, bar-fightin' kind of guy I am?

Utter silliness.

The story is about the problems of a hypersexualized, hyperviolent masculinity. Also, it's a critique of Capitalism in general and more specifically the consumerism of modern society. It's even more broadly an existential quest. The dude is trying to find meaning in a world where middle class business men are defined by the objects they own and he's living a stagnant life. So he has to create Tyler Durden, a split personality who represents all the things he's not. But even Durden is a distortion of modern masculine values.

It's also an anarchist manifesto. However, I would caution such a reading as I do think the book is suspicious and critical of Tyler Durden and his activities towards the end rather than necessarily celebrating them.

[Shalot]

I've only seen the movie, so maybe I shouldn't comment here about it, but I'm going to anyway.

The movie didn't seem to be about tough guys and fighting to me. There was a little more to it than that in my opinion. As I watched it for the first time, it seemed to be a story about a man's attempt to become someone other than a consumer.

In the beginning you seem him staying up all night watching infomercials and ordering household items from expensive catalogs and the character says that if he could just find the perfect [insert decorative household item here], then he would have the perfect life.

The man hates his job but he keeps reporting to work day in and day out so that he can pay for all the stuff he's purchased--presumably on credit. He develops insomnia. He goes to a doctor who doesn't take his symptoms seriously and he is sent home without any real treatment.

He begins attending support groups for people with various ailments. He goes to AA, and cancer support groups - he'll attend anything on the bulletin board because there is no support group for the ailment he's suffering from. His life is void of anything meaningful and all he has to show for it is an apartment full of stuff that he realizes doesn't fulfill him.

Eventually, he meets Tyler Durden. Soon after, his apartment and all his furniture goes up in flames when there is a mysterious explosion in his unit. He needs a place to stay and ends up bunking with Tyler and somewhere in the middle of all this, Fight Club is born. Fight Club becomes the one activity that he can find meaning in and it replaces his string of support group meetings.

Fight Club is not a group for tough guys. Their fights are not about being tough guys. They're railing against a materialistic, soulless society through their fights, or at least that's how it seems at first. And then, Fight Club becomes something else.

It becomes Project Mayhem, an organized movement against certain institutions, with their final target being the credit card companies - or more specifically the records of debt incurred by millions in the pursuit of a meaningful existence.

This movie touches on several issues: consumerism, cancerous credit card debt, lousy health care, spiritual famine....

And then it takes a disappointing turn. We find out that the main character suffers from mental problems. Tyler doesn't exist. Project Mayhem is not part of a revolution against consumerism. Project Mayhem is instead a series of terrorist attacks masterminded by a schizophrenic who recruited an army of morons to carry out the attacks.

That's my take on the movie - or my brief Sunday morning summary (written by someone who hasn't written a paper on a book or a movie in YEARS). I haven't read the book though it is on my list of things I want to read. Maybe someone who has seen the movie and read the book could tell me how closely the movie adheres to the book.

[JCamilo]

The movie is better because it can carry on the illusion of the split personalities better than the book. Also I think the book is not about fight or tough guys, but need of change, anarchy. It is a punk book where the punk is hidden.
Some obivous picks with classical themes of literature (dopplegangers, secret societies) under a new guise. Not as bad a most books but not such bad thing. But them movie is consierable better.