You already know the story about why I decided to read Palahniuk books, but in a nutshell, its because my bf said to me, that they are cool. Well, now I have a chance to tell you more about his attitude to the first and widely known Palahniuk book — Fight club (maybe it’ll be a shaggy dog story, but I’m ok with that).
Before we begin, I would like to say a couple words about all of this. The idea to make some interviews with him came up to me, because he is good at expressing his thoughts, when he talk about something he loves. I couldn’t speak better about this book. This interview was recorded on my phone and then translated, because he doesn’t really speak English. In our school, I was helping him with this subject, and he was solving all of my tests (even final one) on math and geometry. Yeah, sweet lazy days of school. Anyway, let’s start the interview, shall we?
My first question. Nikita, why did you decide to read this book? Honestly, I watched the film at first. I liked it, but I felt like the book will tell this story more widely. Okay, and why did you decide to watch the film? Just because it is a popular movie and everyone was talking about it but I didn’t have any idea what was it all about. You mean “everyone was talking about it” in the internet? Like in VK, where every social group was posting some quotes or pics from this film? No, I didn’t even see the quotes, in my social groups, there were not just pictures, there were critiques and articles and things like that. Oh, and also a heard jokes about this movie from my friends a couple of times. Mostly about “the first rule of the fight club is…”. Ok, that makes sense. And why you decided to actually read the book? You dont often do that. I imbued with this film, with its messages, with atmosphere. I wanted to dive deeper in it and understand everything.
Hmm, do you have any favorite ideas from this book? Oh, yes, the idea that the people, which in our world considered as inferior people, work of which is underpaid, which are working under someone and etc. those people, in reality, the main mechanism of civilisation.
“Remember this,” Tyler said. “The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. We’re the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you’re asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers and we know everything about you. We process your insurance claims and credit card charges. We control every part of your life.
So don’t …(mess) with us.”
Another idea is about true values for a person. It is about the fact that material values isn’t real values, they are just imposed on us by modern society. In pursuit of those things we lose ourselves. How do you think, is the fight club the way to find themselves for people, who joined it? No, I think it’s simply just a place of consolation for those people. They found relief in a fight. They could forget about their problems during a fight and it was enough fot them. And also, we can connect this with the first idea and say a famous phrase: “Who was nothing, would become everything” in the fight club. I think it is the way in which they felt in here. As Tyler once said: “I just want to show those people what power do the have”.
Do those ideas present in the film? Yes, but you can’t understand them completely. Especially the idea about little people, which was blurred very hard. Oh yeah, it’s true. And I have an opinion about that. I think that there are can be two reasons: either producer didn’t really understand the book and just filmed some hype movie with Brad Pitt, or, which is more likely, he considered this idea as too provocative. In the way, that the government will secretly or openly ban this film, because they could see the call for revolution in it. Well, I thought that it is like that because of a short duration of the film. Yeah, but a smart producer can draw everything in a two-hour-long film. Anyway. What is your attitude to the main character, Joe? I understand him. He was a lonely person, his whole life was about his job and then also about support groups. When he found a real friend and a real place, where he could feel himself better, he was happy.
So, we came to the end of the first part. I don't know when it will be continued but anyway, it was a good practise for me. Thank you for reading.
