Book, Film of Fight Club Essential Reading and Viewing

Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club is a fabulously dark, macabre look at male issues, rage, absent fathers and how men deal with pain. David Fincher's film Fight Club also tackles these themes, blowing them up into larger-than life images of anger; hopelessness and how one group of men took out their aggressions on corporate America.

The two mediums-the film and the printed page-are perfect for expressing Palahniuk's ideas. While the movie is a faithful adaptation in many respects, the book is to be treasured for going far deeper into the minds of the main characters. In the film, Tyler Durden seems to be an out-of-control media prankster and culture terrorist. In the book Durden is far darker and much more unpredictable.

Some people read a novel and dismiss seeing the film, others do the opposite. But with Fight Club, the two worlds must collide in order to gain a full appreciate on the dark vision of author Chuck Palaniuk. There really is no other way to fully understand what exactly he is talking about. To see the battered and bruised faces of the men who smash one another up, night after night brings the real consequences of fighting home to the viewer. Reading about it is one thing, but to watch Ed Norton spit out a tooth is quite another.

This may be the factor missing for the minority of Americans who went out in search of a fight club of their very own after watching the film. These people were inspired to find others to hit-and be hit by-after watching the absurdest fantasy on the big screen.

Does this mean that Americans are a lot of simpleminded sheep? Not really. In fact, the willingness to join or start a fight club after watching the film ties into one of the deepest messages of the novel AND the movie. For most Americans, pain is either an abstraction or something to be shied away from. Tyler Durden would accuse most of growing fat and soft, comfortable in ruts free from most real traumas. The complete visceral and jarring experience of having your lights punched out is Fight Club's way of offering its characters a means of escape from a pathetically pampered, pain-free existence.

Of course, like many great works of art, there is a huge contradiction, which must be embraced. Fight Club is about men who are already in a great deal of pain because of shattered dreams and the illusions there were taught to believe in by society. The embracing of physical pain, of privation and real torment forces the characters of Fight Club to let go of the unrealistic fantasies of fame, wealth and popularity, and become agents for change. This is the message of both the book and the movie-but only by experiencing both can the reader/viewer truly find the nuggets of truth inherent in the story.

Fight Club the book is available now in paperback, the film is also on DVD in a fabulous collector box complete with commentaries and behind the scenes footage. Both are reasonably priced, it is well worth it to buy them both and experience them as a set.