Revisiting Fight Club: Fincher Improving Palahniuk

Being a teenage boy in the late 90s, the movie version of this book was totally on my radar. In fact, the movie along with American Psycho were both such a part of my self-identity that I went back and sought out the source material for the movies the summer after my freshman year so I could seek out the source material figuring if I liked the movies then I would like the books because of course the books were better.

There was – in that baby age of everyone being connected to the internet instead of just nerds – a newsgroup or a site that I think called itself the Cult. It was there I learned that Palahniuk thought that Fincher had improved on the book. (And it was not long before I burned out on Palahniuk’s works, feeling him just a one-trick pony who really couldn’t write people that deeply and female characters not at all).  At the time, I think I agreed, but that was unfair because I was such a fan of the movie that anything that deviated from the movie was wrong, because to me the movie was the source material. (Odd thought, I’ve never read any of them but there exist(ed) a market for novelizations of movies that were already books. Thought that was weird, but it may mitigate my feelings here. My first time I was disappointed in a movie vis a vi the book was Jurassic Park in like third grade, but I digress).

Ultimately, there are differences between what the movie was able to accomplish and what the book could do. I recently revisited the text, listening to it on audio, and I think I have it pegged. The movie is able to hand-hold you to the big reveal. I think that the seeds it plants are fun enough that it makes the movie worth rewatching multiple times. I remember catching something new on what must have been my 40^th viewing and having listened to the director’s commentary. Say what you want about Fincher, but his work is deeply planned out. The book on the other hand is shackled to the narrator. The movie uses this to great effect, allowing the narrative voice in to add emphasis to what is happening on screen, but the book is stuck with what would be the Edward Norton character for the whole time (and this is discounting the importance of the twist reveal and the ending. So I think the book works, but it might not be Palahniuk’s best. I would say that of the earlier books that I am familiar with, it may be the easiest to film, so that’s why it made his popular reputation. Invisible Monsters and Survivor may be more interesting as texts in themselves, but I’m not sure how you make movies out of them that could come close to Fight Club (For example, the only other book that I am aware of Palahniuk that has been filmed is Choke, and that worked on a much smaller scale, and let’s be honest, Sam Rockwell isn’t Brad Pitt or Edward Norton).

In the end, the book is mostly interesting as an artifact to compare in relation to the movie because that is what made the vast majority of the public aware of the author and his work. It is not a stand out text and the story wasn’t that deep until Fincher got his hands on it and was able to use some of the anti-corporate imagery and the idea of fight clubs to latch onto some sort of late 90s, pre 9/11 aimlessness he puts in the mouth of Tyler Durden. But we have both had our great war and our great depression. Yet the critique is as valid today as it was when written. I guess it is still worth sticking back in your mind…

Quality Instruction: David Byrne's "How Music Works"

I listened to this as an audiobook I downloaded. That means that there were points that I wanted to write something down, but may not have been able to fully capture. There are no notes to reference so rather I will have to speak in generalities.

The book is both autobiography and analysis. I have not been following Byrne’s career much or at all, but it is interesting to listen to because it is one example of the career path that a musician could take in the days that he started out and has still continued to make a living as a working musician. Any aspiring artist should be able to look at that for inspiration. He and other members of the Talking Heads lived in a run-down flat on the Bowery when the Bowery was more Warriors New York than the Disney version of a city at least the island is today (poor people could afford to live there!).

The stronger sections though are the ones where Byrne dives deep in the history of recorded sound and the playing of music in all its contexts. I will not be able to fully articulate it here, but he covered a lot of things about music that I hadn’t really thought of, like how the cultural context of how we listen to music shapes the music that artists create, and how dependent on technological developments the music that we listen to today is – even what is played on the oldies stations were novel at some point, and that’s important to remember. My favorite little piece of trivia is that the Theremin was invented in the 20’s, much earlier than I would have though.

Overall, this is a very successful book, and I was a bit disappointed when it ended, since I really wanted him to keep going. It will be worth it to wait around for the sequel.

Do You Like to Laugh? Jenny Lawson's "Furiously Happy"

Let me just drop some names: Sloan Crosley, David Raikoff, Augusten Burroughs, and David Sedaris.

I’m not sure if I spelled them right, but those are all people who have written at least one book that takes their life and examines it to mine the funny things that happen and then put them on the page. I’m not sure how true all the stories are, or if it really matters because they come across as if true. What does matter is that they have used their lives and they have made me laugh on page.

I had never read any of Lawson’s works prior to picking this up. I think it was a mixture of the reviews and the dead raccoon on the cover that made me buy it. I ended up reading it really quickly because it was fun to read. Let me tell you this too – I think in terms of laughter, I laughed more reading this book than I have in reading any of the dropped authors at the top. There’s a solid laugh on every page. And sure, it might not be the deep thinking sort of NPR laughing that you might want; it’s not totally cheap either.  The story about her visit to Australia is the high point for me, but just her everyday life is funny. I recommend this book solidly, and I have bought her previous work so that I can laugh some more.