by Chuck Palahniuk

isbn: 0805062971
subject: Fiction and Literature
finished: 8/11/2001

Fight Club shares many of its sensibilities with Generation X: both books encourage a rejection of materialistic, middle-class values and a refusal to be burdened with problems caused by previous generations, all while maintaining a certain level of ironic hipness. Strangely, the human fat left over from liposuction makes an appearance in both books. However, while Coupland's protagonists were passively disenfranchised, telling stories in the desert, Palahniuk's are angry, violent, and ready to do something about it. Fight Club is a very funny book, but the jokes are always macabre. The plot twist is foreshadowed from the very first page and, happily, the book works whether you know the twist beforehand or not. This is a fun, short book; it's worth reading and, unusually, is very close to the narrative presented in the movie version.