Fight Club (novel)
Fight Club (1996, ISBN 0393039765) is a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, in which an unnamed protagonist struggles with the commercialization of American culture and male disenfranchisement through fighting.
Fight Club (1999) is a movie based on this book. It is directed by David Fincher, starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter, and features an original soundtrack by the Dust Brothers.
Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers
Both the book and the film centre around a nameless protagonist (named in publicity for the movie as 'Jack') who hates his job and is addicted to support groups. Faking dying of terminal disease is the only way that 'Jack' has of relieving his chronic insomnia.
'Jack' 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. This parallels with the 1970s story of Ford Pinto recalls.
His life changes when he meets Tyler Durden (a soap salesman in the film, a beach artist in the book). After the protagonist's flat 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 the first fight club is born, a new form of self-help group.
Tyler slowly changes the clubs from a fun if brutal sport venue to a breeding ground for revolutionary "space monkeys" who graduate from the club to "Project Mayhem", which forms a growing army that carries out increasingly elaborate attacks on symbols of corporate America. The protagonist finds himself slowly losing control of what he helped create until he realizes that not only is Tyler trying to bring down civilization, but also that Tyler is in fact his night-time split personality. The final battle is between the increasingly frantic "real" protagonist trying to prevent disaster and the shrewd, calculating Tyler who always seems to be one step ahead.
The film was critized for its graphic violence, though only one person is killed. Its highly critical view of consumerism and modern living echoes Naomi Klein's book No Logo and also caused discomfort among some critics. Some elements from the film have found their way into the mainstream, such as first two [sic] rules of fight club -- You do not talk about fight club -- or the name "Tyler Durden" itself.
Parallels are also drawn between Tyler Durden's vision of the world after his revolution, and the views of Theodore Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber. This can be seen in one scene where Tyler talks about abseiling down the Sears Tower in clothes that will last you the rest of your life and hunting elk on abandoned freeways.
The movie appears to take place in Wilmington, Delaware, home to most credit card companies. Tyler's business card includes the Wilmington zip code 19808. Moreover, the cities specifically mentioned in the car-smashing scene are New Castle, Delaware City and Penns Grove, NJ, which are close to Wilmington.
Characters
- The narrator - The book's nameless protagonist. He starts the book 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 - An anarchist with a serious hatred for consumer culture. Tyler works night jobs just to cause problems for the companies; in the movie he also sells soap made from stolen lyposuctioned fat. He is the co-founder of Fight Club (it was his idea to have the fight that led to it). He later turns the club into Project Mayhem, from which he launches an attack 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" Paulsen - 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.