Fight Club-The Book

Fight Club. The book.  Have never read.  Maybe that’s because I’ve read Palahniuk before.  Choke. Snuff.  Liked. Never loved.  But there’s always been that nagging feeling that I’ve never read the book that put him on the map.  So I did.  I loved it.  No need to go into a plot recap, since most people have seen the movie.  But here are some quick impressions.

It’s reeks of the late 80s and early 90s.  The book is swimming in the influence of of Pranks! (Re-Search), Sabotage In The American Workplace (AK Press), and Apocalypse Culture (Feral House), all of which were underground, small press classics from the post-punk grunge years.  In a way, reading the book in 2012, gives it a strange, nostalgic quality for me.

The book has a great, distinctive style. Spare, economic, post-modern, driving. It is so much more rough-hewn than I anticipated.  I’m kind of shocked someone thought it could be a big budget Hollywood movie.  Granted, it’s a weird movie (and one I haven’t seen since it came out).  But it strikes me as a bold move to turn it into a movie, and a pretty adventurous adaptation at that.  I’ll have to watch it again.

Glad I finally got around to reading it.  It was downright invigorating. Big thumbs up.