<p>Hey guys</p>
<p>Has anyone read "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk? And if so, is it a respected book?</p>
<p>I'm playing with the idea of writing about it for an essay that asks me to describe my favorite book (it is one of my faves) but I'm worried, because some people call Chuck Palahniuk a "shock writer" and I don't know if he's a very respected writer.</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>He's amazing.</p>
<p>All his books are generally similar, with some quotable lines repeated, but that doesn't mean they aren't good.</p>
<p>He's not disrespected, at the very least. Go with it. He doesn't have any National Book Awards or Pulitzers, but he's won awards, and isn't looked down upon in any intellectual circles.</p>
<p>And besides, if you have a lot to say about it, then it shouldn't matter what book it is. Even Harry Potter could work, provided it connects to you in some way other than how cool you thought it was.</p>
<p>I love Chuck Palahniuk. Choke, Fight Club, Invisible monsters, Diary, Lullaby. He may be called a "shock writer", but his writing invokes a lot of thought and you can pick apart some of his books all day.</p>
<p>I wouldn't worry if he was respected as long as you love and understand his work enough to write about it. I would be careful about "Fight Club" though. Since it was made into a movie, you have to push the fact that you read the book, Chuck's writing style, and the differences. Just so they know you didn't watch the movie, realize it was a book, and go for it.</p>
<p>Have you read "Battle Royale" by Koushin Takami? It's crazy, too. If not a little too violent for some.</p>
<p>That book was intense. There's a movie version of that, too. Worth reading.</p>
<p>You should read Rant, too, although it's much different from Palahniuk's other books.</p>
<p>If you're going to write about Fight Club, keep your focus on the messages, personal connections, etc. I wouldn't worry too much about distinguishing from the movie, watching that first doesn't make you any less smart, as long as you can write about the book.</p>
<p>If you mean Battle Royale, yes the movie was awesome. I want Rant, but people tell me it's not at all his style. So I'm hesitant. </p>
<p>I watched the Fight Club movie before I read the book, and I wish it was the other way around. I want to read this essay, if the OP decides to write it. I want to read "Haunted", but someone ruined the ending for me.</p>
<p>I haven't read the Battle Royale comic, I'm not really used to reading those, but I've heard it's good, too. Not necessarily a different plot, but the characters (and deaths) are supposedly entirely different.</p>
<p>Rant isn't similar to anything else, meaning the normal nihilism is generally missing. If that's what you want, then skip it. It also seems pretty slow at the start, as the narrative skips around, and you don't really figure out what anything is until the middle. There also aren't the massive, vivid, disgusting passages present in most other books, particularly Choke and Haunted, although there are certainly massive, vivid passages.</p>
<p>He's a great writer. Even if he weren't, adcoms wouldn't pass judgment on you for liking him.</p>
<p>I'm reading Lullaby right now. I'll read Fight Club next.</p>
<p>another CP question....I also considered writing about "Survivor." It's about a suicidal necrophyliac.....yeah. It's quite dark and very, very weird. Do you all agree I should stay away from that one? </p>
<p>I think it's actually great satire, but it's so overwhelmingly creepy, I feel like that's all the readers will see. What do you think?</p>
<p>kyle - If you're enjoying Lullaby, you should love Fight Club.</p>
<p>And if you're still interested in Palahniuk after that, but want something slightly different, try Diary. It's a based more around the plot than most of his other stories, which tend to be simple (or not exactly simple, and definitely amazing) mediums to express certain messages.</p>
<p>Survivor should be fine. Dark isn't bad. Weird isn't, either. If you can write about it, then go with it. If you have more to say about it than Fight Club, then write.</p>
<p>I don't remember any suicidal necrophiliacs in survivor though.</p>
<p>maybe suicidal necrophiliac is too harsh a term, but the main character definitely has some sort of attraction to corpses, and he also is suicidal at some points. </p>
<p>thank you all for the advice</p>
<p>T'is very good.</p>
<p>You shouldn't worry about what adcoms will think, just do what you like. that's what they're looking for.</p>