Fight Club, written in 1996 by Chuck Palahniuk, is his first published novel and was written in retaliation to the rejection of his novel, Invisible Monsters, by publishers. The theme of the novel is existentialist in nature and deals with profound human emotions.
The novel is the story of an individual suffering from insomnia who, on seeing a doctor is advised to pay a visit to a support group in order to realise the true meaning of anguish. Once there, he begins to find some kind of solace among the members of the support groups and is finally able to get some sleep. Meanwhile, he meets a man named Tyler Durden, and soon a friendship born out of a mutual sense of angst and hatred for the consumerist culture, evolves between them.
This rebellion within them leads them into setting up of an underground fight club, where men come to fight in order to relieve themselves of their misery. Every weekend, these men, each of whom personifies a different yet similar kind of failed life, come together and partake in fights. The book reveals to us the significance of the fights in the lives of these men and how this psychotherapy soon turns into an anarchist organisation with larger goals.
In 1999, the book was adapted into a film, Fight Club, directed by David Fincher, and starred Ed ward Norton and Brad Pitt.
About Chuck Palahniuk Charles Michael Palahniuk or Chuck Palahniuk, is a renowned American freelance journalist and novelist. Some of his other fictional works include Survivor, Choke, Haunted, Damned and Doomed. He is known for his transgression from traditional ways of writing and for the use of satire. His writings usually deal with people belonging to the marginalised sections of society who then react to their situation in an aggressive manner. His writing was greatly influenced by writers like Albert Camus and Michel Foucault.
Palahniuk was born in Pasco, Washington, in the year 1962 and grew up near Burbank, Washington. He graduated from the University of Oregon, School of Journalism in 1986 and moved to Portland later. He wrote for a local newspaper for a brief period before beginning work with Freightliner as a diesel mechanic. The first novel he wrote was Invisible Monsters, which was rejected by publishers due to its disconcerting content but was later published in 1999 after the success of two of his other novels. He joined the Cacophony Society as an adult and his experiences with the group was the source of various occurrences in his writings. He won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award for Fight Club in 1997 and for Lullaby in 2003, and the Oregon Book Award for Best Novel for Fight Club in 1997. He has also written some short fiction for various magazines like Playboy and also a few non-fictional works.
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