The first rule of fight club. . . .

As soon as I finished reading and put down Fight Club, my husband walked over and picked it up. The first words out of his mouth, “How was it compared to the movie?” My honest response, “So much better-you should read it!” He and I must have sat through the movie version of Fight Club at least a dozen times since it was released. We saw it in the theater and own it on VHS and DVD. I have often teased him that it is such a “guys” movie because of the escalating violence. I had always appreciated it for its intelligence, not knowing or understanding, his attraction to the story. At least, not until I read the book.

As in most cases, the movie can not possibly provide the insight and inner thoughts of the characters in the way that a book can. Movies do not allow for the level of detail that a book provides. While I do believe that the movie version was done very well, I do think that a few of the scenes cut and/or modified would have been beneficial for the audience to experience. If only for the story to send all of the messages that it intends.

One of the most important scenes that was eliminated completely from the movie is where the Narrator is on the bus on his way to work and he is confronted with the knowledge that he has blown up and murdered his boss. "I am the Pit of Joe's Stomach. It's my desk. I know my boss is dead."(p.185) It is at this moment he sees how he had given himself to Tyler. He had provided permission for Tyler to create the mayhem and murder that had ensued. The Narrator begins to make the deeper connection of Tyler's purpose. "I wanted out of my job. I was giving Tyler permission. Be my guest. Kill my boss."(p.187) This whole scene gives the reader a stronger feeling to the rising panic within him regarding Tyler and the reality that he has no control over what he has started.

His helplessness is further compounded when it is followed by another key scene where the Narrator is attacked on the bus by the other passengers and the police that board it. Their "homework" is to castrate him for trying to unravel the chaos that he allowed Tyler to create. Tyler knowing this would be something he would try to do, has advised the men to castrate him. "Picture the best part of yourself frozen in a sandwich bag at the Paper Street Soap Company." (p.188) This single statement get to the heart of the message. After all, men tend to correlate the masculinity to their anatomy.

It is also important to note the way that Palahniuk describes these two scenes and the thoughts that raced through the Narrator’s mind which created a sense of urgency, fear and lack of control that the story needed. After all, one of the main points of the story is that men feel that they have lost their masculinity and their raw animal instinct in the machine of society. Here we learn about the regret of a man that found it again, only to lose the stomach for it.

Another key message that is also entwined in these scenes relates to the other men. The "followers". They become the blind faithful because they believe in Fight Club? Or is it because it gives them a feeling of belonging to something more then the emasculating life they live? Unfortunately, they only substitute their feeling of powerlessness to become mindless soldiers that blindly listened to and did what Tyler wanted. They weren’t thinking for themselves, but merely buying into someone or something else because of their own issues with who they had become.

I honestly believe that even as a woman, this story is something that can be easily identified with. Who hasn’t had a crisis of character and felt as if they were two people in one? A million times I have been confronted with a question of conscience, fighting myself as to what I should do and who I should be. Am I good with a little bit of evil? Or am I evil with moments where I am good? Is the life that I lead all that there is for me? Do I surround myself with things that the world has told me I need, but that I would never have wanted otherwise? I believe like the Narrator, we have all suffered at one time or another a feeling of inadequacy or an overwhelming sense that we do not measure up. Or maybe we aren't living the path that was meant for us. It can be so tempting to tear it all down-to take the highest building and burn it (metaphorically). That is why this book is so meaningful. And, why it is an instant classic where people to this day will say, "The first rule of fight club. . . ." and we all know what they mean.