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Epicurus.com - Fight Club: A Novel
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List Price: $13.95
Our Price: $11.16
Your Save: $ 2.79 ( 20% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780393327342
ISBN: 0393327345
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 2005-10-03
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Studio: W. W. Norton
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Editorial Reviews:
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The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.
Chuck Palahniuk's outrageous and startling debut novel that exploded American literature and spawned a movement. Every weekend, in the basements and parking lots of bars across the country, young men with white-collar 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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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: This might be the worst book I have ever read
Comment: I find it inexplicable that some of my smartest friends love this book.
I only read the first 30 pages of this book. However, this does not make me ineligible for a review. This is one of very few books that I have found so unentertaining and devoid of literary merit that I chose not to finish it. Sitting in place and staring at a wall is a better use of my time; at least that does not want to make me throw up.
This book tries to be dark, but what made me put it down is how obviously and self-consciously it tries to be cool. Some writers are skilled enough to write stylistically, but Chuck Palahniuk is not one of these. Palahniuk substitutes irrelevant flourishes and sentences for style.
Also, the characters are immensely unlikeable. Despite any intentions to reveal truths about humanity, the characters are inhuman. They show no vulnerability, possess none of the weaknesses with which we all have to deal. Any problems they may have are too obviously intended to seem cool and countercultural.
Man, it really blows my mind how bad this book is.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Modern day Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Comment: Fight club is contemporary social criticism blended with dark humor and poignant insight. The nameless faceless narrator is unsatisfied in his seemingly perfect white collar job that would gain "alumni notes" approval. Unfortunately, he harbors resentment against the repressed desires in a stifling society and he seek sanctuary in support groups for the mortally infirmed. He develops a relationship with Tyler Durden. As a respectable member of society, the narrator cannot fulfill his repressed evil desires. Thus, he joins forces with Tyler to develop a way to separate and free his evil urges. Together, they invent the "fight club" that evolves into more anti-social gangs that further promote chaos and violence.
Without giving away the surprise ending or too many plot lines, Fight Club is an examination of the duality of human nature. Similar to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, characters are portrayed as tamed and civilized by the laws of society but having an inner propensity for evil and mayhem. Violence is not merely a sin to be avoided, but a path to enlightenment. Life and death are intricately interwoven as living to avoid death is death. The organizations created by Tyler are reminiscent of the totalitarian regime of Big Brother in 1984. No one shares information (the first two rules of fight club are not to talk about fight club) and Tyler is ominous but never present. Mayhem assignments are assigned anonymously and carried out without question and without collaboration with other members. Tyler's directives reduces his being to its most basic form, in which evil runs freely without considering the constraints of society and civilization.
The book reads fast as lightening. Highly recommend, but not for the faint of heart. Story is heavily spiced with acts of violence and mayhem committed against innocent and not-so-innocent victims. Modern classic more comparable to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Frankenstein than Vonnegut.
Customer Rating:
Summary: .
Comment: The First rule of FIGHT CLUB IS You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB.
The Second rule of FIGHT CLUB IS You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Big one
Comment: What can I say more the typical "this is your life and it is ending one minute at a time"? I love this kind of narrative style, but what makes the book so special (apart from the mentioned style) is the philosophical message it carries. I was too young when I saw the movie, but when you get a mainstream job, you clearly feel in in your flesh: you are not special. So accept it and let things happen. Obviously, there is no need to follow Tyler's path and set up a fight club. People just need to focus and follow their own nature. Discard whatever that makes you pain, retain whatever that makes you happy, and that's the whole message.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness.
Comment: Here's a word to describe the pervasive resonance this story has enjoyed.
Confrontational.
Fight Club is a pugnacious challenge to examine your life, in the form of a blunt instrument. If you want to get peoples attention these days, best be prepared to bludgeon them upside the head. We the ADD generations have no time for study and meditation. You have 5 seconds to deliver the message in an original and exciting way. Check and check.
Take a massively concentrated answer to the existential dilemma, throw in a couple themes of timely relevence, a sense of urgency, twisted humor and wrap up the whole enchilada in a transgressional tortilla and voila! A quintessential 90's literary masterpiece. Fight Club is the successor to Clockwork Orange.
"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time"
Consider yourself challenged.
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