Cult Fiction (The Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk)

Member Name: catatonic

Product:	The Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Date:	12/07/00 (99 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: quick to read

Disadvantages: disappointing

When I saw the film of The Beach, starring Leonardo di Caprio, I hated it. Partly because Leo is a pretty boy that can't act but predominantly because I'd read the book first and didn't agree with the plot changes they'd made ( see seperate review ). With Fight Club I tried approaching things vice versa, saw the film first and then read the book, unfortunately this didn't work for me either!

I didn't get off to a good start with this book. Firstly it was way to thin for me ( barely 208 pages of relatively large print ). Secondly it carried a quote from Bret Easton Ellis on the front cover ( who's book American Psycho mortally offended me - see that review as well!! ). And thirdly because this book offered me absolutely nothing new.

If you've seen the film already this book just serves as a revision exercise. Where usually you find the book has been hacked to pieces and strung back together again this book has actually been transposed pretty much literally and beefed out a bit! The only minor differences that I could distinguish were that the souce of the vital ingredient for Tylers miracle soap was slightly more gory and the book seems to offer more clues to the eventual outcome ( though admittedly I could just have been more conscious of this because I approached the book with prior knowledge of the plot )

Trying to overlook the fact that I've seen the film and judge the book purely on its own merits I still found it lacking. The writing is rather disjointed, which ultimately means you either concentrate or loose the plot, and the humour, unlike the film, frequently falls flat. I also found the characters a little disappointing; Tyler doesn't come across particularly strongly and Marla is just plain annoying.

If you haven't seen the film then perhaps you will enjoy this. Like most 'cult' novels it has been over-hyped undeservedly. Whilst the story is original and the digs at
Ikea infested society amusing the book doesn't handle its subject matter half as well as the film does. My recommendation? See the film but give the book a miss!

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