Chuck Palahniuk is one of those authors you have either heard of or you haven't; and this a terrible shame. To a proportion of those that have actually heard of him, he is just "that guy that wrote Fight Club" (the original book, not the movie, which was rather successfully adapted by Jim Uhls). This article intends to show you that he has done things other than Fight Club, although it is in the list, and hopefully get you interested enough that you may go out and pick up some of his work. Let's get to it...
5. Fight Club (1996)
As mentioned in the introduction, this is Chuck Palahniuk's most well-known work, having been brought to the big screen in 1999 by director David Fincher with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton starring. It had been floating around as a novel for 3 years, before it became the cult smash that many know it as today. The novel, as most people will hopefully know by this point, follows the life of an insomniac office worker who becomes involved with a nihilistic character known as Tyler Durden. His life is never the same after this. Without wanting to give too much away about the novel, although you must have been living under a rock for the past 20 years if you don't know the full story and especially the twist of Fight Club, it is the classic anti-establishment story and seems to sum a generations feeling, especially the male gender, of how unconnected they feel to their surroundings and how hard it is to find a place they can feel comfortable within the world; even if it does mean beating the crap out of each other or blowing up the occasional Starbucks!
Bearded. Geek. Ba Hons in Film and Media Studies and MA in Film and Cultural Studies. You've caught me at a very weird time in my life and I have to return some videotapes
