Book of the Week #8

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Having recently watched the film (after promising myself that I would first read the book), Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club has moved greatly up my TBR list.

In essence, Fight Club is a somewhat satirical novel aiming to point out the feminisation of masculinity towards the latter decades of the twentieth century, particularly within Generation X.

Centred around an underground, weekend club where working men fight each other for no other reason than to affirm their masculinity, (lack of) purpose, and release their frustrations — it is easy to brush the novel off as a brutal, but mostly simple, affair.

However, entangled within this novel is not only the greater commentary of fleeting masculinity and personal worth, but also a critique of modern society and the constant devouring of humanism in favour of capitalism. All of this is spearheaded by a deluded unreliable narrator, who invents the underground club, but quickly escalates his cult-like following to target the ways of modern living and corporations.

I like to think of it like a more refined, but equally dark and cynical, variation of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho — a violent novel which also tackled the flimsiness of masculinity, as well as a world shrouded in consumerism, money, and status above all.

I look forward to giving Palahniuk’s novel a thorough read, whilst also observing how it differs from the excellent film adaptation.

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