Review: Fight Club
/2019 CHALLENGE: 1 YOU HAVEN'T READ THAT YET?! PER MONTH 06 / 12
5 stars. Fight Club is spoken about with such reverence and now I understand why. I understand why it peppers the millennial landscape. I see why it resonates with readers in such a profoundly powerful way. It literally inspires action.
It takes an entire generation’s scream and segments it into something articulate and corporeal. I’m so deeply impressed and confused and curious. What is this? What did I just read? Why do I feel like someone opened me up, poked around, and sewed me back up wrong?
It’s a short book, and written with a sharp, deadpan voice. Our narrator finds himself at the center of a male-driven cultural movement that begins with little rebellions - tampering with rich people’s food, for example, and secretly beating the shit out of each other in bar basements - and ends with total chaos.
It’s about seeking genuine connection amid the cogs and gears of the machine, it’s about returning to your roots as a human being, and it’s about eradicating the bullshit. It’s about angst, and regret, and restlessness, and masculinity.
I can’t stop thinking about something that has stuck with me over the years: first of all, hi, nice to meet you, my entire education revolved around standardized testing. Later in high school, when I was scheduled to take one the of the mandated exams - the SOLs, the AP test, maybe - I came across a news article about how students across the country were writing “THIS IS SPARTA” in the middle of their essays (this was the late 2000’s and 300 was like The Thing). I loved that idea. Harmless, hilarious, but a way to take back control, if only for one second.
Now it’s REALLY going to stick with me.
I don’t want Flight Club to be prophetic, but it may have already proven itself as such. And honestly, I found myself drawn toward Project Mayhem - nodding along with Tyler’s declarations, eager to know what’s next, feeling more alive with every sentence. It has a very prominent dude smell, which I kind of hate, but it really is incredible.
So, so happy I read this. It’s insane.