How do you interpret fight club?
I personally thought it was about how people are mindlessly swept up in fads and how it seems that no one feels that they really have an identity until they've created something they either despise or have created something huge and corperate (which, a lot of the time is the same thing.)
"A fool will study for twenty or thirty years and learn how to do something, but a wise man will study for twenty or thirty minutes and become an expert. In this world it isn't ability that counts, but authority."
-Barry Hughart
"Giant Typhoon Rips Through Graveyard, Hundreds Dead"
-Headline from The Daily Pennsylvanian
intense kick-ass social commentary about the fall of the male spirit, or castration if you will
Among other things, for me, it's about the awareness of one's
own mortality and limited time for deciding what life is about-
-something that few people in our culture realize in a visceral
way before about the age of 30--and how this can become a
driving force... a catalyst for important change
vs.
the illusion of immortality that people persue and perpetuate
when they buy into all sorts of social status gimmicks.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm about as old
as Chuck was when he wrote Fight Club, but I feel that it's a very
30-something kind of book. It makes me a little sad when hormone-driven
teenagers want to read it literally as 'extreme violence and anarchy
is the path to liberation.' I don't mind anyone having their own
interpretation of anything.
But in this one case, they're either flaming hypocrites or they're
going to do tons of damage to themselves and other people
before they realize it leads no where good.
And haven't they noticed that many of Chuck's characters are monsters?
It makes me a little angry when they preach their view like Fight
Club fundumentalists and try to shout down anybody with a more
subtle interpretation. No, angry isn't the right word. I think it
embarasses me a little. Because the whole forum seems a little
dumber, and the Chuck Palahniuk Fan stereotype gets perpetuated.
Then I have to remember that in the grand scheme of things,
this really doesn't matter.
But then, I guess you guys have read the 'Letter' thread. I'll stick
a link on here for newcomers, since it's really worth a look.
[URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5953]A Note from a "Fight Club Mom"[/URL]
I guess any way you slice it, it's all testimony to how much Chuck's
writing stirs people.
VP - Workshop Dog
still figuring out what fight club is all about...
i think it has something to do with the darker side of the process of creating one's identity. this process has different stages
in the beginning he wants to know he is being listened to and accepted unconditionally. but he is not satisfied with his tourist status. he wants to feel his own feelings/being without the limitations of society (in himself).
but fighting in the basement will never be enough. the message of fight club has to be spread, even if it is against the rules of fight club.
why? i don't know. maybe it has something to do with convincing oneself (the 'i am so zen'-talk at the office and sighing afterwards). becoming a preacher in order to persuade yourself. maybe it is a sign of being too convinced about your own truth. feeling so much better than the others who are not enlightened. forcing somebody to go to college in order to make something of his life is pretty moralistic. but it's at least giving somebody the benefit of the doubt (at gunpoint).
at the end tyler wants to control the fate of the whole world. decides that everything has to be destroyed in order to start from scratch. the identity of individuals has become less important than the realization of radicalized ideas of personal freedom.
sounds familiar. it's a story of the twentieth century. it's the dark side of radical humanism. it's the ultimate consequence of the idea that to change something you have to start all over again.
There was a time that I thought I was the only one that seen the flaws of society. Or the lack of flaws.
You walk through a tunnel not only to enter the light, but to escape the darkness at the other end.
It seems that in our society there isn't enough darkness to provoke us into moving forward.
And thus, we're stuck in the middle up to our knees in the shit and piss we've soiled ourselves with, but everybody pretends it isn't happening, because they all have cell phones and Mp3 players with 300 songs.
After reading Fight Club and several other things, I realised that I'm not the only person that feels this way, everybody does. Most people, however, are so good at hiding it that they don't even realise it.
Right now, I think Fight Club has no single or stringed together meaning. I think Fight Club speaks to every single one of us in a different manner.
Fight Club could inspire a suicidal teen(is there another kind?) to put the gun down.
Fight Club could inspire a music teacher to try one last time at a career in music.
Anything from perks of adreneline to discovery of ones self is inside the pages of the bible that athiests never had.
Fight Club.
I deff. think a million people can get a million things from fight club.
Yeah, not all hormone driven teenagers are that shallow, thank you very much.
[COLOR=YellowGreen][FONT=Arial]Facts are simple and facts are straight. Facts are lazy and facts are late. Facts all come with points of view, facts don't do what I want them to. Facts just twist the truth around. Facts are living turned inside out. Facts are getting the best of them. Facts are nothing on the face of things. Facts don't stain the furniture, facts go out and slam the door. Facts are written all over your face. Facts continue to change their shape.[/COLOR][/FONT]
What about "homo driven teenagers?" Is it okay if they're that shallow?
I hope so. For them, I mean. Not me.
i interpret it as a amazing movie and book
In Chuck "I" Trust
[QUOTE]i always thought there was a strange homosexual vibe between jack and tyler[/QUOTE]
me too. they always seemed reminiscent of stuart and vince from the uk version of QaF to me ... but maybe that was just too much slash-fiction playing with my head *blushes*
It's a motivational tool more than anything else.
Tommorrow will be the greatest day of my life.
I feel that this book is about a lot of things but the strongest point in the book I feel is. If you lose everything and hit bottom, you will be immune to consequences and have nothing to lose, therefore you will be free to do anything.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who know binary and those who have friends
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Blonde Fury [/i]
[B]sure there are some kids who will take it so seriously that they wills start their own fight clubs and claim to be recieveing enlightenment but those kids want to say they have acheived this for the sake being a part of something. [/B][/QUOTE]
exactly. I think the quote from fight club, "When it was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered" pretty much says it all. Thats why kids do it, because its something to be doing. Everyone thinks they are original...
Fight Club has many interpretations that I took from it.
The loss of masculinity in the average male and the rise of the metrosexual.
How instead of defining ourself, large corporations are telling us who we are and what we should be, and how we should feel.
The slow decay of individuality, and society's desire for everyone to become another drone.
The slowly eroding ability to truely be free.
Fight Club changed the way I viewed the world, and made me actually think about everything, and not just react.
I interpreted it as The Most Awesome Book Ive Ever Read In My Life...and thats until i read all of chucks other books then i had to share the title
it was a very subtle novel about many things
order and chaos.
interpersonal relationships
violence and productivity
and it's a sort of male coming-of-age story.