Certainly the greatest thing about reading a book with others as opposed to yourself is the discussions that can ensue. I have really enjoyed getting to hear other people’s perspectives on the story, and to see how each reading of the book is influenced by personal experience. Some of us in the class comprehend working in the service industry, others understand the expectations placed on adults in society. I find that this time around I am also fascinated by the relationship in the story. In a strange way, it is a love story as much as it is anything else. The narrator’s life may have continued on in the same way, until he meets Marla and she shakes up his routine. He even states at one point in Chapter 28 “I know why Tyler had occurred. Tyler loved Marla. From the first night I met her, Tyler or some part of me had needed a way to be with Marla.” Of course, what does that say about a man who has become so emasculated that he needs to birth a separate personality in order to be able to pursue a relationship…
Obviously between my original reading and this one I have seen the movie many times, and some details of the movie had overtaken the book. I remembered that the ending in the book was different, but my memory was fuzzy as to exactly how it was different. Although I think the book ending fits a bit better, I did like the movie ending just for the emphasis on Tyler’s vision of the two of them becoming an Adam and Eve for the new society, the two of them alone atop a building surveying the ruination of our culture.
I think that no matter how many times you read a novel, it is always going to be different. Because so much of a book is based on a symbiotic relationship between author and reader, a book will change along with its reader. And as Heraclitus said, ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice.’ We as readers are in constant flux and our perspective is eternally changing, altering the novel along with ourselves.
