FIGHT CLUB

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by Chuck Palahniuk (1996)

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In a world without hope, what should the hopeless do with themselves? Should they slink off into some corner and slowly expire? Or should they meet, talk, organise, participate, and evolve into something beyond what is? Consider this: if there’s no way left to ascend, perhaps the only way to go is down. If hard work cannot yield results and ambition remains unmet, if love and affection belong solely to the glossy magazines, impossible to capture and experience, if nothing can be changed for the better or even just tweaked to your own temporary benefit, and if all avenues for evolution are closed off and shut down tight, then the squashed dregs of our exploited existence will yet manage to express their outrage at all the risible and miserable attempts to make one’s own self relevant. Want to be authentic? Fake an emotion. Want to be included? Slag off someone else. Want to get ahead? Toady to your boss even though they will always despise you. Food for thought? Go on a strict diet. As America’s God has all but evaporated, and America’s dream has become unobtainable, there are new responses and new solutions: Fight Club and Project Mayhem. Fiction. 208 pages.

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DETAILS:

Title: Fight club

Year: 1996

Author: Chuck Palahniuk

Pages: 208

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Book review by Keith Salter