Books 140: Fight Club

The first rule about Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.
The second rule about Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.
The third rule about Fight Club is two men per fight.
The fourth rule about Fight Club is one fight at a time.
The fifth rule of Fight Club is no shoes, no shirts in the fight.
The sixth rule about Fight Club is the fights go on as long as they have to.

Many people seem to be surprised to learn that the rather popular movie Fight Club starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter was actually based off of the book by Chuck Palahniuk.

As I am running out of time to write this, here's a quick summary by David Loftus:

"The narrator, an insurance investigator prone to depression and insomnia, finds temporary joy and distraction by attending various support groups. But he keeps running into another support group fraud named Marla, which spoils his fun. Meanwhile, he also meets a free-lance projectionist named Tyler Durden, who splices frames from porn movies into mainstream features and suggests they undermine capitalist society with dangerous pranks and the Fight Club -- a group devoted to bare knuckles, all-out battles between similarly confused and frustrated young males. Someone bombs the narrator's apartment, and he has to move into an abandoned house with Tyler. Eventually clandestine fight clubs spring up all over the country, and our hero finds himself uncomfortably stuck within a passionate triangle between Tyler and Marla. Something's gotta give, but what? Palahniuk's strange, offbeat 1996 debut novel came to a deservedly wider audience when it was made into a movie starring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, and Helena Bonham Carter."

This is one of those cases where I find it really hard to say whether I liked the book or the movie. better. The two are very alike in some aspects, but also differ quite a bit in others, especially the ending. Well, at least the way I interpreted the ending... I'd say it's one of those times where you really just have to see for yourself, honestly.

If anyone else has both read the book and seen the movie, what are your thoughts on this? Did you like one better than the other?

Happy weekend!