Fight Club

I recently watched Fight Club after finishing the book, and I was surprised at how much I liked the movie. While the novel is definitely more detailed and has a clearer message, the movie captures the essence of the book well. One specific scene in the movie that I like was the chemical burn scene. Edward Norton plays out the scene with the same pain that the narrator of Fight Club shows. Even more, I thought that the movie captured the same fragmented style. For example, scenes were cut into the middle and the narrator’s random thoughts were interspersed throughout the entire novel. The main difference between the two occurs at the end. There is no hospital scene, and the ending is less ambiguous in the film. In the epilogue of the novel, there actually seems to be the possibility that Tyler Durden will return. People are waiting for Tyler Durden. However, the shot in the movie is the final end of Tyler Durden. In addition, the movie makes it more obvious that the shot ends Tyler. In the novel, the impact of the shot is up for interpretation.

Fight Club was an interesting read, and although scholars debate its literary merit, I think that the themes and devices used in the novel are clever and significant. In terms of merit, I wonder if modern authors don’t get the credit they deserve simply because the novels are different and don’t follow any of the normal conventions. What makes a novel have literary merit? For Fight Club, Palahniuk uses symbolism, figurative language, and his distinctive style to convey his message. His incorporation of Tyler Durden successfully conveys main motifs of redemption and sacrifice. On top of that, his novel is well-written and has many layers to it. I believe that a novel’s merit is determined by the message and way the author conveys the message. I hope that the debate over Fight Club isn’t simply a result of its recent publication and mass appeal.

I recently used Fight Club for the open question timed writing on the practice AP exam, and I though it fit extremely well with the question asked. The prompt asked about the importance of a mentor and how that mentor shapes the main character’s view of the world. In the entire novel, Tyler Durden shapes the narrator. Durden discusses his views about the world (“you must hit bottom in order to be successful”) and implicitly makes the narrator stronger. At the end, the narrator becomes strong enough to kill off Tyler Durden himself. The whole question worked so well because the entire novel was about Durden as the mentor and views about the world.

Now that we are starting Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, I actually see many of the same elements in both works. Both have a fragmented style and ignorant characters. Even more, there is a search for meaning, which is never really there. Just as the narrator is lost in his own world, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are lost.