The movie Fight Club was good, but I always heard that I should read Fight Club as it was much better. Typical. In fact, this is such a universal fact that the only reason I think people say "the book was better" anymore is to prove they read or to establish themselves as somehow above the normal movie going masses. Was the book better than the movie? Yes, no, it was the same basic thing, but when your imagination gets to fill in gaps that come pre-packaged in the visual format of cinema you are left feeling like this is more satisfying because I was part of the creative process.

I do not want to get into a seemingly Ballardesque review of this book (a term I just found out existed), that would be too easy. It would be too easy to complain about society and especially the stature of man today compared to yesteryear. However, I will say even though I am not nihilistic (most of the time), nor would I completely try to force this book into that philosophy, I will say it is definitely worth the read.

My preference for writing style (or is it reading style) has been evolving the more I have been reading, but books like Fight Club have always caught my attention. Books with an interesting rhythm, a complicated plot, characters with witty lines, but even more a bit of meta-wittiness that is somehow condescending of the book itself from within itself. It is difficult to pull off without coming across as derivitive. I find that to be the problem with most modern art, everyone is trying to be original, you cannot be accepted by doing something good within someone else's style even if the piece of work is enjoyable. Somehow everything has to be important. Fight Club could be original if you have not read anything else that is similar before, it could be derivitive if you chose to overanalyze it along with many other works in the fucked up world genre, or you could just lay back and enjoy it and stop being an asshole that tries to force everything into either the genius or crap categories. It's a great book and a great movie. I look forward to reading more by Chuck Palahniuk.