Those Pesky Anecdotes

Fight Club was a book that I really found a pleasure to read. It possessed a style of prose that was able to be rebellious and incoherent without losing the plot as a result. Really, I was continuously impressed with how much story Palahnuik manages to tell despite it not feeling like the real focus of the book.

My favorite parts of Fight Club, however, were the small and easily ignorable anecdotes that pop up throughout the novel. The boyfriend Marla had who had terrible nightmares, so he took amphetamines to stay awake until they killed them. All the descriptions of technical possibilities of the making of napalm, of filing a cross in the tip of bullets to make them spread. These small things were the most enjoyable to me.

Nihilism vs Existentialism

I find Fight Club to be quite entertaining. It's frenetic, disjunctive, and seems incredibly random at times, a perfect read after the coherency of The Plague. That being said, I have not found Fight Club to be as good as Camus, yet.

The reason I started to thoroughly enjoy The Plague was it's tone and characters. I find it difficult to get involved in characters, even ones as intriguing as Tyler, with the disjunctive style and frenetic pacing. Now granted, this is a fun read with it's humor ("I want you to hit me as hard as you can") and has some really intriguing scenes (the beach scene contains one of my new favorite quotes of all time, something to the effect of "A single moment of perfection is worth the hours of work put into it") but at the pace it's going, it doesn't seem to be on the same grounds as Camus' book.

I could be wrong, maybe I'll find it to be my favorite book ever, we'll see.

yay extra credit.

First I will start by saying thank you so much Mr. Lavender for giving me this amazing opportunity of receiving extra credit for simply attending your class. That's why you are the best.
Secondly I would like to talk about the writing in this book. I love it! Everything about it. I love how chopped up and sporadic it is. It reminds me a lot of how I write. I don't change subjects as quickly but I love the way he interrupts himself with reality. and another thing that I really appreciate about the writing is how he uses just one word. Like when they are in the different medical help groups and he looks at a girl in the testicular cancer group and he thinks "faker, faker" but he knows she is saying the same thing about him. Even though she may not know whether or not he has testicular cancer there is a certain spotlight effect that he displays. As if everyone is focusing on him and everything he does someone has some sort of interest in him. If he doesn't say anything he believes people take extra notice to him because things are "really bad" and so on. It is really interesting. I really like what I have read so far though.

Don't WOrry.... no Spoilers

As Shanna said, "I think he writes like I do," I kind of think the same. Except I feel like I think like he writes. It hits home in a certain way, but how my brain is so random kind of drives me crazy so the fragments make me want something that flows! I do like the suspense the type of writing creates.
One of my favorite quotes from the first 46 pages is "everyone smiles with an invisible gun to their head." I feel like it's so true. Because of the world we human beings have created for ourselves we are constantly under a subtle stress that hides beneeth our smiles. I find it true that people are more stressed than they are happy, which is sad, but when they are I feel like the true meaning of happy has shifted.
I guess I can see this strand of unhappiness and underlying worry/stress in the book. The fragments might be there to conceal the unhappiness because if you don't expand, then you don't have to explain anything, like why you are unhappy.
Take Marla and the Narrator being in the classes for example. They are finding this "happiness" in these classes where no one is really happy. Are they taking advantage of the fact that they are less unhappy then these people? Does that make them seem "happier?"

Fight Club

I've read this book once already, and I have seen the movie. Reading this book for the second time makes me feel sort of dumb. The twist is almost obvious. "What Tyler knows, I know." Everything seems to give away the twist, but yet no one in a million years could ever guess the ending. I also like this book because it's like a rookie signing with a pro team and then ending up being the star his first year. As we've talked about in class, Palahniuk does make mistakes because this is his first book and he still made it big. I don't beleive that this book shows the pure genius that The Plague did, but it is very entertaining and the idea is great. I love the idea of Nihilism, because nothing really does matter. Once we are gone from here, I don't believe that we will float up and live in bliss in the sky. This is it, and this book presents this in a great and entertaining way. Yes at times, The Plague was very boring, but at the same time it was presenting such a cool idea.

I need some soap *SPOILERS*

First off, I love this book. I couldn't put it down that first day we got it assigned, so I finished it in one night. I think that it's a lot better than The Plauge. Fight Club speaks to me a bit more. The whole death and rock bottom thing, and giving up for a full release of mental stress, the total freedom to enjoy life by having nothing. It's all very interesting, and I like that message better than Camus' be aware of every moment by anxiety. Freedom > Anxiety. Plus the book has given me some interesting ideas of what to do with the giant bags of fat I have sitting in my freezer. I could use some soap. Plus the freon lock break, the CRT bomb (which is luckily becoming mostly unfeasible), the water pressure thing, etc. that stuff is very interesting. Not that I'll ever try civil terrorism. I felt that reading the book after the movie was really beneficial, I may have missed out on the wonderful narrative twist at the end but it was still nice knowing it cause it made a lot of stuff about the rest of the book make sense.
The one thing that has never made much sense to me was how Tyler knew as much as he did about soap, explosives, and terrorism. Was he running around experimenting and researching during the insomnia at the beginning of the book? How did he learn all that? Cause he had to teach it to the narrator. Although Chuck Palahniuk seems a little suicidal. His whole obsession with release from all the worries and problems of life via death is a little creepy.

Mortality

Although I really love how the novel is written, initially I felt that Fight Club was another trashy novel that didn’t really make a whole lot of sense. However, as I have come to read more and more I’m beginning to understanding the characters role play and the general themes of the book. I found it to be quite a twist that Tyler is in fact the narrator. Once learning this, the previous readings of the book seemed to make more sense to me. Fight Club has opened a new spectrum of death, mortality and humans vs. the “animal”. I found it especially interesting when Tyler speaks of death and pain in chapter nine. Pain and death are a byproduct of our mortality (something Tyler and the narrator argue about) “Think about the animals used in product testing. Think about the monkey shot into space. Without their death, their pain, without their sacrifice, we would have nothing.” The quote seems almost contradictory to the rest of the characters feelings in the book. Death is the only way of escape used by those who have horrible illnesses and diseases, but Tyler continues to escape his mortality by forcing his mind into a different world, one filled with no pain.

Fight Club Thoughts

When we were first handed Fight Club for some reason, I had this thought that is was all about the dark world of drugs. As I have read on, although I have only read about 50 pages, I have found that that does not seem to be it at all. At this stage in the reading I am still undecided as to whether or not I like this novel but it is intriguing. I like how even though the book seems to be choppy and kind of all over the place, that it all comes together at the same time. I like how the author uses the different "therapy" groups to put points across. The description about every feeling that he gets is great. I love how the description of getting hugged by Bob makes you feel like you are watching a small person just get totally engrossed into another person through a bear hug. Also, around Marla, I like how the awkwardness that is felt through the characters is sent to the reader. I think this book will be an interesting one to read and once I get more into it and really get hooked on the story, I think it will be one I will not want to stop. I have heard from many this book is one you will not want to set down so I look forward to getting to the point in the reading.

Fight Club

Although I haven't gotten all that far into Fight Club, I've gotta say so far I'm really enjoying it. The style and content are both completely different than any other books I've had in an English class, and the change is refreshing. The scattered prose and collage of scenes occurring simultaneously make it slightly bewildering but much more interesting. After a few pages, the ADD format ceases to confuse as the reader learns to simply go along with it. Its a weird book to be sure, but actually very insightful. I haven't seen the movie and have no idea where its going , but I think it will be an enjoyable ride.

Fight Club

In terms of an exestentialist novel I would say that The Plauge is the better novel; however, as far as accesability goes I would say that Fight Club is an eaisier book. unlike Camus's novel Palahniuk's novel is less of a slog through the evnets. This book is much faster paced however i like The plauge better

Human Buttwipe

This novel is famous for several different reasons. It can be seen as an anti cultural, anti aMerican rampage. It could be taken for pure enjoyment. It is a very entertaining book. Or some look at it as an existentialist feel good novel about freedom. It is not a pure and beautiful freedom, but is that possible with the human condition? Is our ultimate freedom created by unteathering our selves of material bonds? Violence is a fundamental human condition. It is what is most base in our nervous systems. Reflexes, anger, and the willingness to resort to violence show what is most animal in ourselves. But what is our true enlightenment? The satisfaction of our most basic instincts from the base of the brain. Or the mastery of the frontal cortex and all the things that make us human and the rest "animal."
I like this book. For some people it will allow them to think of the world in a different way than they ever had before. Others may not be able to stomach it. But like a Pollack or perhaps a Monet, some can take in the big picture, and use it to trigger their own thoughts, while others would rather nit pick and complain about how messy or gross it is. It is all up to the interpreter, you. (Palahniuk is not a Pollack or Monet)

Fight Club

I think this is going to be one of the best books I've ever read. I like the way it's written, I love the way words are used. I think it's very interesting how every single character needs to "challenge" life and to feel free, first through the support groups and then fighting. The author was able to make the reader want to read more and more because the story is so different, so strange, and written in such an unusual way that you always want to know what comes next.
Probably my favorite quote so far is "losing all hope was freedom". Everybody defines 'freedom' in their own way but I think there's one thing that makes freedom the same for everyone: hope. If you hope, it means that you're still attached to something, it means that something is missing; that makes you dependent; that brings you to spend your time waiting, thinking about whatever it is that you want and you don't have. Once you lose hope, you're free, you can fully enjoy your life without feeling like it's incomplete anymore, you can live.
I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of the book. I want to know what comes next!

Human buttwipe

Fight Club (WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS)

I can't stand this novel.
Before you all jump down my throat, allow me to explain my reasoning behind it.
Let's begin with the basic structure of the book. While it moved along (albeit sluggishly) at an okay pace, the writing was absolutely atrocious. His sentences were long run-ons punctuated by commas in the wrong places and incomplete sentences. While run-ons and incomplete sentences are good in moderation (in the correct places, they add flavor to one's writing), all it did in this case was start and stop the book like a funky car clunking along on the wrong kind of fuel. Maybe part of the point was to make the narrative seem like a stream of consciousness. These are as difficult to understand as a language you only know a few words in: a writer's conscious stream is completely his/her own. Unless there's context, there is no way to understand it. And no, it wasn't even saved in the end by the explanation that Tyler and the narrator were halves of the same person. Even towards the end, it seemed like the author had dropped a bomb in the middle of his words, leaving them scattered in chaos.
Speaking of chaos, what is up with the message of the book? Is there even a message? I hate feeling so judgemental, but come on: the message I got out of the whole thing was that life is pointless unless you chase death. Through chaos comes clarity. Through sin comes salvation.
Uh, can you say depressing? How counterproductive is it to self-destruct in the hopes that your life will make more sense? How is it that ruining your life - or ruining the life of others - makes it that much more precious and meaningful? The world is not meant to be seen that way. People aren't meant to see the world that way. Such negative thoughts make the journey each of us must go on pointless in nature.
I agree with Gandhi on this one: Everything you do in your life will be meaningless. But it's very important that you do it.
So there.

Fight Club **spoilers**

I really enjoyed Fight Club. I like the books where a single event makes you think back on the rest of the book and say 'oh, so that's why that happened.' Such as when it's revealed to us that Tyler and the narrator are the same person. It makes you think about their first fight, and how that would have looked to the people watching. Not to mention the whole thing with Martha. Poor Martha. I feel sorry for her, but she is really messed up. I think that I can understand how death can be a positive thing, but to me it's just stupid. Although going to the support groups, and being surrounded by death to better grasp your own life, that makes sense. Like in The Plague, Rieux says that the priest cannot understand death until he sees it and its affects. You can't really realize the importance of life until you see what death is like.

Fight Club!

Even though I've seen the movie, I was still extremely into the book. In fact, it made it more of a page turner. I knew what happened and wanted each scene to come along, and was excited for each part. There are a few scenes left out in the movie that are very funny and interesting in the book, and that disappoints me. The narrator's birthmark of Australia and New Zealand on his. When we meet Tyler on the beach setting up that one moment of perfection that he works for. Having cancer for ten minutes, and the picture of his foot. The freezer full of Marla's mother. Running away to the car dealership and spending the night there. All of these add to the story and are greatly missed in the movie.

Great story, quite intriguing. Wish it was longer, but nonetheless, loved it.

The afterward could have ruined the book for me, but luckily I stopped reading it. Why would you put something like that at the end of such a great novel just to let your readers down? So upsetting!