A naked fight club.
or wonderful depending on your view of life.
My title reflects on the fact that i just finished David Sedaris' Naked and began Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club.
They were wonderful and so was Naked not surprisingly.
It started off being hilarious, then is got really sad and kind of depressing to a self reflective ending on a book titled short story called Naked where Sedaris spent the week at a nudist camp and learned about himself.
I know this is kind of the most informal book review ever with no actual content but i just can't help geeking out about books once i finish/start them...
And so yeah finally started Fight Club.
Maybe you've heard of it?
I'm pretty sure every college student in the United States has seen the movie & obsessed over it.
I saw the movie in high school and really liked it and i sort of began my Palahniuk crush then reading Lullaby & Survivor (both of which i really appreciate) and then i read Haunted and wanted to stab my eyes out. Not because it was disgusting which at some part i guess were but not enough to throw up (what's with all that hype?) but because it was so contrived and stupid and annoying. it took me probably a year to get through it and i'm not exaggerating (which i often do).
I felt really bad hating it but after reading some of his books you have to wonder are his publishers keeping him held hostage somewhere forcing him to write more? so he keeps spitting out worse and worse novels in order to alert his fans without letting his editor know? But then he just loses fans and makes new dumb ones and his suffering goes on. I'm obviously dramatic and i get that all his novels have the same formulaic novelty to them. And i dug it in Survivor and i dug it in Lullaby and i'm sure i'm going to be fine with it in Fight Club because i know what happens and even though i occasionally roll my eyes at how Chuck views the world or excuse me how Chuck wants his audience to perceive the world its not bad. But Haunted got under my skin so deep i needed to read children's book from the 60's to get myself back. From where? i don't know but there are psychological states that books push me through. Some are sad but beautiful and necessary and some are so horrible that i need to reflect on the life's simple pleasures just to pull myself into an equilibrium.
I really enjoy the whole set yourself on fire vibe of the movie and take a creepy inspiration from Marla Singer i mean she's so sad, dark and simplistic. its all black and white with her and apart of me really enjoys that. Also i'd like to be her for halloween maybe. I've got the crazy curly hair and i can probably go to salvation army for an old dress.
The books are always better then the movies (usually) but what really bugs me is that i can't picture the characters how i want. And granted this cast kicks ass but i really want to know how my brain would have made everyone and i really never will.
The more i read the book, the more i realize how well the movie was actually directed. I'm told the endings are very different but so far the book and movie are matching up pretty well. Fincher really captures the tone of the novel in the movie, cuts things out that are pretty appropriate without ruining story line. Sure some of the anecdotes are cute and i enjoyed reading them like Tyler and the 5 logs making a perfect hand only at 4:30 but really how were they gonna do that in the movie without ruining the plot? I mean how does that even make sense in the novel? Did he really met some guy like that and appropriate him as an alter ego? along with dramatic i'm obviously way too excited but i really liked the way the movie was shot too. I mean the casting, the cinematography, the style? Brad Pitts pink shades are kind of amazing and Helena Bonham Carter is golden, always.
I enjoy the over all mood of the film and novel.
Also i don't remember Haiku's in the movie but i do enjoy them and i think i may be giving myself a little inspiration mission.
Write a Haiku everyday for a year? These always sound good until they're not but i'm doing it no matter how ridiculous i make them.
Keeping in mind Haiku's only requirement is 17 syllables.
I'll work on it.
Anyway i hope people survived the holidays
- Jazz
