Book #3: A touching romance

Ok, so who guessed that the book that I read that was later made into a movie with Helena Bonham Carter was Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk? Anyone? Aww, come on.

Anyway, I recently saw the movie for the first time. It has only been out for 6-7 years now, you know. I mean, I was aware of the phenomenon at the time of the movie's release. My best friend's teenage brother and his friends spent the next couple of years beating the crap out of eachother and trying to build things to bring the school down. I even knew the first 2 rules of fight club, but I figured that the whole thing was just another marketing ploy directed at angry, adolescent males without any other value. After seeing it, I felt that though I absolutely loved it, it probably would have connected on a more personal level if I had fewer X chromosomes. But I liked it enough to be interested in the book that started it, which I picked up on my recent "using up my holiday gift cards" shopping day.

So, on to the book. I think it added to the whole experience. It really expanded on Tyler and the Narrator's philosophy of destruction and clarified a few bits that I was kind of fuzzy on from the movie. In some ways, it was even more violent, because you got more of a description of the pain and injuries, and the ever-widening hole in the narrator's cheek. It kind of turned my stomach, and I had to read through it because I couldn't just look away and wait until the scene changed. So it ended up being a more intense experience in some ways. The story ended differently in the different tellings, and I think that I definately liked the movie ending better, as it gave more ambiguity to it. In the book, it felt a little trite and maybe a little like a twilight zone episode. Still worth the read, though.

You may be wondering why I describe this book as a romance in the title. In the afterward, Chuck discusses the aftermath of the book's publication and movie's release, and how other people described his book to him. Some of the the ideas were outlandish, but I thought it was interesting that he really only describes the book as a romance. I guess it just made me think of when a friend described the movie Unbreakable as a romance, too. In both cases, I have thought about it and come to the conclusion "huh, I guess you're right". My question is, though, were they envisioned that way from the start? It would be interesting to find out if he thought "Ok, so there are 2 people in love, but let's make one of them suicidal with a tendency for self-mutillation and the other have a friend who is shoving him towards hitting rock bottom and is hell-bent on destroying civilisation as we know it. Oh, and they should meet by pretending to have various horrible diseases and attending support groups for them. That sounds nice."

In summary: liked the book, want to watch the movie again.