Quote Porn
Dark Places
"I was born bent out of shape. I could picture myself coming out of the womb crooked and wrong. It never takes much for me to lose patience. The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it's near. Midtongue."
"I had that overwhelming feeling I get when I'm about to give up on a plan, that big rush of air when I realize that my stroke of genius has flaws, and I don't have the brains or energy to fix them."
Fight Club
"You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world."
"Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you."
A Few Thoughts
This match-up features a couple books I read because I so loved the first thing I read by their authors that I instantly jumped to try out something else.
Fight Club is, to me, about redemption. Not really thematically (maybe about the redemption of modern society if you want to push it), but moreso because the first time I watched the movie, I hated it. The plot twist, selon moi, was just too much. Who in their right minds would follow a global revolution lead by someone who gets their jollies from knocking himself senseless on the reg? For some reason, the book is different. Perhaps it has to do with my mental filing system, but I can't hang on to my suspension of disbelief while watching the story evolve on a screen. I walked away from the movie thinking the big plot twist was dumb, but it was redeemed when Palahniuk spelled it out for me. Watching the movie since reading has been a much more placid experience, where I'm able to file away my doubts and pay attention to its stellar acting and directing.
Next time, book before movie.
(Hell, there are a number of movies I'd never consider watching whose books I loved. The Prince of Tides, Never Let Me Go, On The Road, Atonement, Fever Pitch... the list goes on and on. So do I, sometimes.)
Back to the matter at hand, Fight Club is a masterful protest piece. The revolution will not be televised, and all that. Perhaps ironically, the book is more effective at its short (208 page) length, delivering its inspiration before too much effort is involved. Upon reflection, I was actually surprised that the book was only that long; it really feels like so much happened in the narrative during that time. In addition to Palahniuk's staple flair for the quotable, Fight Club packs a lot of action into relatively few pages, and though it doesn't really qualify as a thriller, I kept interest and turned its pages faster than I did when reading today's opponent Dark Places.
One thing the book doesn't do as good as the movie is Robert Paulson. God bless the casting director who convinced Meat Loaf to play a man who has breasts and a soft voice due to a hormone imbalance, because I could never have formed a mental image for the character without some help.
I'd like to write a better segue than talking about Meat Loaf, but for some reason I can't come up with one.
Bitch tits!
I always felt like, if I were writing a book, I'd start with an ending and make the pieces fit around that. In my blogs so far, I've rambled about concrete endings and endings with open questions, and though I prefer them less, open endings always impress me because I don't think I'd know how to write one. I say all this because Dark Places felt like a race to its definitive ending only, and it's bizarre and specific enough that there's no way Flynn didn't start there. I was satisfied and got pretty much what I expected from a Gillian Flynn mystery, but there are critics of the ending whose viewpoints I understand.
The other 348 pages of the book are a solid read, with Libby Day's perma-depressed state providing both something to relate to and a darkly comedic side to the happenings of Kinnakee, Kansas. Obviously, nobody is really going to truly relate to a character orphaned as the result of a Satanic cult, but her sharp cynicism and morass of self-pity (though a little maudlin at times) are almost essential traits in the human condition.
I feel like the book is more of an attempted page-turner than an actual page-turner. I'm not sure if Flynn failed in creating full suspense for a thriller, or if the thriller aspect was meant to be muted, but she either failed or I failed during my time in the book's pages.
Runner Day is a humorous caricature of a deadbeat dad. The sections concerning him are side-splitting. I definitely intend this as praise for this book; despite staying true to its name and venturing to some metaphorically and physically dark places, there are a number of good laughs to be had along the way. Thrillers aren't often funny, but here we are.
Meanwhile, while doing some research for this blog, I discovered that Gillian Flynn not only wrote the book that David Fincher's basing his next movie (Gone Girl) on, but Dark Places is set to come out in September starring Charlize Theron, Christina Hendricks (Joan of Mad Men) and Drea de Matteo (Adriana of The Sopranos). If you're wondering whether Dark Places is worth the read, just look at how quickly Hollywood is drinking up Gillian Flynn's work.
Next time, book before movie.
(Hell, there are a number of movies I'd never consider watching whose books I loved. The Prince of Tides, Never Let Me Go, On The Road, Atonement, Fever Pitch... the list goes on and on. So do I, sometimes.)
Back to the matter at hand, Fight Club is a masterful protest piece. The revolution will not be televised, and all that. Perhaps ironically, the book is more effective at its short (208 page) length, delivering its inspiration before too much effort is involved. Upon reflection, I was actually surprised that the book was only that long; it really feels like so much happened in the narrative during that time. In addition to Palahniuk's staple flair for the quotable, Fight Club packs a lot of action into relatively few pages, and though it doesn't really qualify as a thriller, I kept interest and turned its pages faster than I did when reading today's opponent Dark Places.
One thing the book doesn't do as good as the movie is Robert Paulson. God bless the casting director who convinced Meat Loaf to play a man who has breasts and a soft voice due to a hormone imbalance, because I could never have formed a mental image for the character without some help.
I'd like to write a better segue than talking about Meat Loaf, but for some reason I can't come up with one.
Bitch tits!
I always felt like, if I were writing a book, I'd start with an ending and make the pieces fit around that. In my blogs so far, I've rambled about concrete endings and endings with open questions, and though I prefer them less, open endings always impress me because I don't think I'd know how to write one. I say all this because Dark Places felt like a race to its definitive ending only, and it's bizarre and specific enough that there's no way Flynn didn't start there. I was satisfied and got pretty much what I expected from a Gillian Flynn mystery, but there are critics of the ending whose viewpoints I understand.
The other 348 pages of the book are a solid read, with Libby Day's perma-depressed state providing both something to relate to and a darkly comedic side to the happenings of Kinnakee, Kansas. Obviously, nobody is really going to truly relate to a character orphaned as the result of a Satanic cult, but her sharp cynicism and morass of self-pity (though a little maudlin at times) are almost essential traits in the human condition.
I feel like the book is more of an attempted page-turner than an actual page-turner. I'm not sure if Flynn failed in creating full suspense for a thriller, or if the thriller aspect was meant to be muted, but she either failed or I failed during my time in the book's pages.
Runner Day is a humorous caricature of a deadbeat dad. The sections concerning him are side-splitting. I definitely intend this as praise for this book; despite staying true to its name and venturing to some metaphorically and physically dark places, there are a number of good laughs to be had along the way. Thrillers aren't often funny, but here we are.
Meanwhile, while doing some research for this blog, I discovered that Gillian Flynn not only wrote the book that David Fincher's basing his next movie (Gone Girl) on, but Dark Places is set to come out in September starring Charlize Theron, Christina Hendricks (Joan of Mad Men) and Drea de Matteo (Adriana of The Sopranos). If you're wondering whether Dark Places is worth the read, just look at how quickly Hollywood is drinking up Gillian Flynn's work.
Head-to-Head
Characters: Both books don't get too big for their britches with respect to character number, giving both of them requisite time to develop well-written characters. I'd be remiss not to give this over to Tyler Durden, though.
Advantage: Fight Club.
Plot: Again: both solid, both recommendable. I said above that Fight Club packs a lot of action into limited space, and it makes it much more enthralling.
Advantage: Fight Club.
Ending: The ultimate unfolding of Dark Places versus Fight Club's narrator's building-top decision and the denouement afterwards.
Advantage: Push. Both stellar.
Language/Writing: Palahniuk's a(n invisible) monster. Flynn is compelling sometimes, but Dark Places doesn't show it off nearly as much as Fight Club highlight's Palahniuk's strength.
Advantage: I am Jack's preference for Fight Club.
Philosophy: It's funny; Fight Club tries way harder to have a philosophy, but I don't really buy it. Dark Places is primarily about plot, but Libby's interaction with the media and her fans ends up making some statements I like.
Advantage: Perhaps unintentionally, Dark Places.
Winner Winner Turkey Supper
Both writers, IMO, have better books. That said, Flynn's ceiling is much higher than Dark Places would have you believe, while if Fight Club isn't Palaniuk at his best, it's close—and that showed in the tale of the tape.
Fight Club heads to round two.
Fight Club heads to round two.
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