Fight Club
THE FIRST RULE about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.
Every weekend, in the basements and parking lots of bars across the country, young men with whitecollar jobs and failed lives take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded just as long as they have to. Then they go back to those jobs with blackened eyes and loosened teeth and the sense that they can handle anything. Fight club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter, and dark, anarchic genius, and it's only the beginning of his plans for violent revenge on an empty consumer-culture world.
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Community Reviews
In the last 25 years I’ve read this book at least 4 times. I’m not sure why I never wrote a proper review. The best way to sum it up is that 25 years later and it still hits me in the face. That’s a good thing. I pick up new ideas when I read this after I’ve experienced life a little more between readings. The one thing that I picked up this last go around is his references to Buddhism. I’ve been playing with the idea that this is a book about Buddhism at its core. Example, “Only after you’ve lost everything, you're free do anything.” Is what the Narrator says, guess what? So does the Buddha? Well, not in those exact words but the Buddha says we can’t grow until let go of attachments.
Over that last several decades this book has been around I’ve heard how it broaches the topic of toxic male masculinity, consumerism, capitalism, work place culture, society in general, the list can be added to as we go along. But the one thing I forgot about why I loved this book so dearly 25 years ago is that this is the book that got me to fall in love with reading again. I fell out love with reading when I forced to read “Wuthering Heights” in high school. I haven’t stepped foot in a high school or on a college campus for years so I couldn’t tell you what they are teaching these days, but my God it would be great if they could teach this book or similar books in our educational system. I think our education system is failing our young men, just like in this book they are looking to belong, looking to be primal, a book like this can show them it’s ok to read about primal behavior. Open this up to young men and let them discuss it. Let them explore what it means to them.
Over that last several decades this book has been around I’ve heard how it broaches the topic of toxic male masculinity, consumerism, capitalism, work place culture, society in general, the list can be added to as we go along. But the one thing I forgot about why I loved this book so dearly 25 years ago is that this is the book that got me to fall in love with reading again. I fell out love with reading when I forced to read “Wuthering Heights” in high school. I haven’t stepped foot in a high school or on a college campus for years so I couldn’t tell you what they are teaching these days, but my God it would be great if they could teach this book or similar books in our educational system. I think our education system is failing our young men, just like in this book they are looking to belong, looking to be primal, a book like this can show them it’s ok to read about primal behavior. Open this up to young men and let them discuss it. Let them explore what it means to them.
I loved the movie when it came out. I loved the idea that your entire worldview can change with just a little more information. So I picked up the book and found it to be slightly less well-edited than the movie. The book was also generally more difficult to enjoy because it was kind of grosser and less dramatic. So here's a rare case of the movie being better than the book.
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