harrowclare 's review for:

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

3.5

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I was very excited to revisit this book because I loved it during my formative years (and also liked the movie quite a bit.)

Unfortunately, I found it to be boring, and I think nostalgia had set my expectations a little too high. I even put the book on 1.25 speed to get through it a little faster because the narrator was boring me.  

I can see how this would have been a very punchy short story, and I think having to turn it into a novel did the story a disservice. 

There are fun moments in the dialogue where I can really feel Palahniuk's style shine through, and I could very easily imagine a lot of the scenes as they were described. I liked the ways in which the book stands out from the movie (

the narrator seems to have more homosexual feelings toward Tyler in the beginning

, Marla is more of a compassionate character,

the whole thing with Marla's mother's fat

) and I enjoyed the back and forth in time and all the repetition. Plus, I find the ending of the book to be a lot more satisfactory.

I love an open ending.

Sadly, the characters are all sort of bland. I suppose that is the point, considering most of them give up their lives (and identities) for the greater cause. But even as we get to know them early in the story, or in scenes where they rebel and act out, there is a lack of life and oomph. 

Although I don't wish to stir any pots or start any arguments, I can understand how people with poor media literacy can take this as a cue to go blow shit up and act like a shithead, and it bums me out, in light of just...society. It's not the author's responsibility to hold anyone's hand, and I am not faulting Palahniuk for creating a sort of cult of weirdos with this work (I might be slightly faulting Fincher tho for the way the adaptation was handled) but I think that upon revisiting it was hard not to dwell on the thought. 

I admit that it is hard to review the book as a standalone piece of media because the movie is so vivid, and I think that times in which the dialogue rewrites for the movie were more punchy and effective, it made me like those parts of the book less. 

All that being said, I am glad I revisited this one. There are more by Palahniuk that I want to get to soon, and this was a nice little reintroduction to his writing.