FIGHT CLUB
Palahniuk, Chuck 1996 208 Pages New York: W. W. Norton & Co. “The insomnia distance of everything, you can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you.” -Joe "You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile. Our culture has made us all the same. No one is truly white or black or rich, anymore. We all want the same. Individually, we are nothing." -Tyler Durden "Getting God's attention for being bad was better than getting no attention at all. Maybe because God's hate better than His indifference. If you could be either God's worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? We are God's middle children, with no special place in history and no special attention. Unless we get God's attention, we have no hope of damnation or Redemption. Which is worse, hell or nothing?" -Tyler Durden “After you’ve been to fight club, watching football on television is watching pornography when you could be having great sex.” -Joe I had to admit that I need to skim DSM IV and some article about anarchy before writing this book review- although it does not affect any significant thing here. Fight Club was one of my most favorite movies. By years I figured out that remarkable movie was based on a novel. So I listed it in my to read list and after almost a decade I decided to read the pdf copy of that book. A white collar worker, Joe, was dragged into an anarchy project. The story was started by a detail description of two men on the top of a building. One was holding a gun, another terrified with a gun in his mouth. Two men; Taylor Durdan and the main character (joe?) was trapped in a triangle love. Well, it’s not a romance novel but there is one character named Marla Singer who gave a significant role in the plot even tho she was not taken a lot of scene. The main character got the insomnia, as the quote I cited above. He felt empty and hallow, he went to a therapist and the doctor said “if he wanted to see real pain, he should swing by First Eucharist on a Tuesday night. See the brain parasites. See the degenerative bone diseases. The organic brain dysfunctions. See the cancer patients getting by.” So, he went to those support groups of dying people with different fake names in different groups. After that, he could overcome his problem but then there come Marla Singer who always be there made the main character could not cry and focus on his ‘therapy’. Later on, he met Taylor Durdan randomly and on the plane they talk for the first time. Fight club was held under they creation: every night in a basement of a bar or in a garage, two men per fight, no shoes, no shirts, the fight goes on and on and on as long as it has to. Just like a virus it spreads over the states with the same rules. Moreover, Taylor Durden also created project Mayhem, a sequences of anarchy actions. The plot was pretty fast-because I got the spoiler from the movie. If you had watched the movie, indeed the novel is more comprehensive. This is a brilliant novel from Chuck Palahniuk to insinuating today's life. A monotone life cycle in urban society is a real phenomenon. The boredom leads to emptiness or depressive conditions and how self-harm or insinuating today's life with violence acts as the alternative antidote. After a self-harm, the frustrating phase start to steal public attention by conducting some anarchy actions. Bipolar might be a common term that can be used for Taylor Durdan. But according to some talks with some friends, bipolar with two different identity does not really exist. It was just a series of depression-manic-and hypo episodes; the extreme mood swing with a certain duration. The culture might affect the tendency of bipolar cases. In this novel, the fictionous character might give us a clear depiction of how the eroding cultural values in social construction could cause a serious chaos such as terrorism.
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CATCHER IN THE RYE Salinger, Jerome David. 214 pages New York: Little, Brown and Company 1991 Holden Caulfield was a teenage boy who was dropping out from a boarding school thrice before. Caulfield's journey starts when he supposed to return home and tell his parents that he was dropped out (again), yet he escaped instead. In my personal perspective, although Caulfield didn’t pass many subjects at school he was not a stupid student-- this is the major reason why he was dropped out along with his lose temper attitude. He just did not know why he must study those subjects and why he must achieve the best score, with a long term perspective; what does he want to be in the future. Caulfield big brother was a successful young folk who migrated to Hollywood as a writer whereas his little sister, he admitted was a brilliant young girl, she was so smart and either was his little brother who had passed away. Caulfield then stayed in a motel in Manhattan for a few days; got drunk, did some random things and partially attempted to see an ex-girlfriend, his little sister, and eventually his ex-history teacher from his former school to lamented. Overall, in a nutshell, this novel is about teenage rebellion. Was born in new year's 1919 Salinger had created a notable fiction literature although with some controversial. In some countries this novel had been banned due to a suspicion of communism and socialist content. Holden perspective in questioning life and the way he act in the whole story reflecting socialists' aim of life. He was in a serious alienation phase as an adolescence, feeling frustration and very emotional. However, in the end of the story-line Holden figured out what he wanted to be: the Catcher in the Rye. In his interpretation catcher in the rye has a duty to protect the children when they are playing in the rye field so that they are not slipping off the cliff. This novel can be considered as a light and thin novel that you can read in a whole day with a cup of tea or hot chocolate in a lazy weekend. The plot is easy-reading, even though in the beginning it was a little bit boring, particularly in the first chapter, but afterwards I could not stop the rest chapter as I myself had ever known how Holden feels when I was a teenager. Holden Caulfield skeptical thinking along with his bad words could dragged us back as a teenagers, at least in a point of view. |
little noteI love reading since I was an infant, I can't recall the exact age, yet from the very beginning folklore attracted my childhood's fantasy. Archives
December 2017
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