Palahniuk, I think, describes more effectively how the movie spoils the book in his Afterword, which begins with an encounter he had with a cowboy tour guide for a never-described “Haunted Tunnel.”
There, another step into the dark, the cowboy says, “The first rule of the Haunted Tunnel Tour is you don’t talk about the Haunted Tunnel Tour.”
And I stop. The rope still a loose sagging smile between us.
“And the second rule of the Haunted Tunnel Tour,” the cowboy, his whiskey smell says, “is you don’t talk about the Haunted Tunnel Tour…”
The rope, the feeling of braided fibers, is twisted hard and greasy smooth in my hand. And still stopped, pulling back on the rope, I tell him: Hey…
From the dark, the cowboy says, “Hey, what?”
I say, I wrote that book.
The rope between us going tighter, tighter, tight.
And the rope stops the cowboy. From the dark, he says, “Wrote what?”
Fight Club, I tell him.
And there, the cowboy takes a step back up. The knock of his boot on a step, closer. He tilts his hat back for a better look and pushes his eyes at me, blinking fast, his breath boilermaker strong, breathalyzer strong, he says:
“There was a book?”
Yes. There was a book. It is the book that the movie spoiled because after the movie everything became a kind of vulgar pastiche. As Palahniuk describes in great detail, after the movie…
...Donatella Versace sewed razor blades into men’s clothing and called it the “fight club look.”
...Gucci fashion models walked the runway, shirtless with black eyes, bruised and bloodied and bandaged.
...Houses like Dolce and Gabbana launched their new men’s look -- satiny 1970s shirts in photo-mural patterns, camouflage-print pants and tight, low-slung leather pants -- in Milan’s dirty concrete basements.
...The band Limp Bizkit bannered their Web site with “Dr. Tyler Durden recommends a healthy dose of Limp Bizkit.
...The Onion newspaper ran an expose on “The Quilting Society,” where old ladies would meet in a church basement, lusting for “bare-knuckled, hand-stitching action,” where “the first rule of quilting society is you don’t talk about the quilting.”
...A zillion “Fuck Club” porn sites.
...A zillion restaurant reviews headlined: “Bite Club.”
...Rumble Boys, Inc. started labeling their men’s grooming products, hair mousse and gel, with Tyler Durden quotes.
...You could walk through airports and hear bogus public address announcements paging “Tyler Durden … Would Tyler Durden please pick up the white courtesy phone.
...People in Texas started wearing T-shirts printed with: “Save Marla Singer.”
Before all that there was a book -- a small book written at a particular time and in a particular cultural place.
At the same time, the bookstores were full of books like The Joy Luck Club and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and How to Make an American Quilt. These were all novels that presented a social model for women to be together. To sit together and tell their stories. To share their lives. But there was no novel that presented a new social model for men to share their lives.
This is the kernel that the book tries to honor, this new way for men to be and be together. From the novel itself:
You aren’t alive anywhere like you’re alive at fight club. When it’s you and one other guy under that one light in the middle of all those watching. Fight club isn’t about winning or losing fights. Fight club isn’t about words. You see a guy come to fight club for the first time, and his ass is a loaf of white bread. You see this same guy here six months later, and he looks carved out of wood. This guy trusts himself to handle anything. There’s grunting and noise at fight club like at the gym, but fight club isn’t about looking good. There’s hysterical shouting in tongues like at church, and when you wake up Sunday afternoon you feel saved.
This is the primal thing that lives at the center of the novel, and the thing that the movie and all that came after it exploits -- glorifying and perverting it at the same time.
If you want to enjoy this book, don’t see the movie first.
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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
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