I have tried to make this weekend a “Me” weekend, spending some time alone, relaxing… To that end, I have been somewhat successful, Friday night I went over Adam’s for a party, and tonight Molly is cooking up a Pot Roast for the crew.. My original goal was to avoid other people, but I guess my real goal was to have a weekend defined on my terms. As wonderful as the guests that have visited me here in Boston have been, it is somewhat stressing to have to “do the visitor routine” every weekend, and sometimes I need a weekend off. By no means am I saying that I want the stream of visitors to stop, but I need a break on occasion. :)
Saturday I cruised out to the Cambridgeside Galleria to just wander. I ended up picking up replacement copies of the Fight Club and Se7en DVDs that “i no longer possess”. I also started re-reading Fight Club, hoping to answer a few questions I have popping around in my head. Specifically, “Is Tyler a real person when ‘Jack’ first meets him?” Well, I have switched back and forth on this issue, and watched the movie several times trying to decide. I have read the book once, and since it treats the Tyler/’Jack’ introduction differently, I figured it might be a good place to get an idea of what Mr. Palahniuk had in mind, and how that was interpreted on the screen by Mr. Uhls. I watched the film again yesterday, with commentary by Palahniuk and Uhls, but it didn’t address my question. The book is a very quick read, perhaps it will clear up this conflict. Any ideas?
I also scored Chuck Palahniuk’s new novel, Choke. He is coming to town for a reading next week, I might check it out…
I think Tyler is entirely imaginary.
Tyler blinks in several times before he is clearly seen in the airport prior to jack meeting him on the plane.
This could be disputed by the fact the the story is in retrospective narrative, but a few points go in favor of tyler being imaginary.
1. Jack “sees” that they have the same briefcase, this could be the first clue that they are the same person.
2. In their first meeting, Tyler introduces the notion of the Paper Street Soap Company.
3. Jack’s apartment had been loaded with explosives prior to Tyler showing him the soap which is the byproduct of making the explosives.
4. Jack had to already have been utlizing the Paper Street house or the police would’ve found evidence in Jack’s apartment of him making explosives.
5. Tyler blinks in for multiple solitary frames prior to Jack’s meeting him, except for when Jack’s insomnia abates from going to support groups.
6. Jack meets Tyler after Marla enters his life. He comments in the beginning of the movie that “it all had something to do with a girl named Marla Singer.”
7. When Jack’s insomnia is at its worst is when Tyler first appears. Jack progresses to full dissociative identity disorder with the creation of Fight Club.
You’ll have to do better than that.
1) Sure they have the same briefcase, but that is not enough information to preclude my hypothesis. Perhaps the matching briefcases is simply the trigger, the association that allows “Jack’s” mind to center on Tyler.
2 & 3) Valid points, but…
4) But who is saying that the REAL Tyler lives in that same house, on that same Paper Street.
5) As you said above, this is all a flashback, so he could simply be blinking in during the flashback.
6) This argument doesn’t really have anything to do with my point. Sure “Jack” said it had all started with Marla, but that statement doesn’t address the formation of Tyler.
7) I would argue that “Jack’s” insomnia was far worse before the appearance of Marla. He had not slept well for weeks before Marla invaded his groups, the post-Marla time had only been a few days.
What I think is more interesting that just trying to pull bits and pieces from the screenplay, which was written by a different author, is to analyze the intent of the novel. “Jack” meets Tyler on a beach in the novel, and while it is a less complicated introduction between the two, I think it might give insight. Of course, I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, so….
Re: You’ll have to do better than that.
True, I haven’t read the book, though I’m going to have to now… vacation’s coming up…
As to my point #6: Marla’s entrance into his life is entirely relevent to the point that (according to the movie) Tyler is not real.
“Jack” was sleeping like a baby for the month’s that he was in the support groups. Marla shows up and he’s sleepless for four days. Losing the last thing that allowed him to sleep and keep him whole, could’ve been enough to drive him over the edge.
However, what really toasts my brain is not whether or not Tyler was a real person apart from Jack, but whether or not Jack was a person created by Tyler.
Follow this scenario:
Tyler Durden is an angry, twisted individual but he keeps things bottled up, hidden away from the world. He has a respectable job at a fairly large company and seems generally complacent.
He decides that he is really an angry person, hellbent on delivering a crushing blow to society as we know it.
He starts to live as Tyler, the angry person, but creates a cover persona, Jack. Jack isn’t aware of the original persona; his existence is just to keep up appearances until Tyler is ready to live as he wants and complete his plans.
Slowly, Tyler starts to ween off Jack.
Thanks for starting this discussion… I’m really interested in reading the book now.