Author Archives: maijasalokangas

Published in 1996, Chuck Palahniuk’s satirical novel Fight Club tells the story of an insomniac with a seemingly perfect life, but who is driven to attend numerous random support groups due to his fatigue and half-asleep half-awake state of mind. The book was also adapted into a movie starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt in 1999. I decided to read this novel because I already owned the paperback but never actually managed read it until the end.

The protagonist of the book is left unnamed but is usually referred to as ‘the Narrator’ outside the book. Sometimes the readers of the novel have called him Joe (or Jack if you prefer the film) because of the way the Narrator speaks of himself, ”I am Joe’s Complete Lack of Surprise”. The anonymity of the main character is likely meant to make it easier for the reader to identify with him, to strengthen the image of him being modern society’s average man.

The other main character is Tyler Durden who’s an exact opposite of the Narrator: a reckless extremist who’s only standard for people is their ability to ‘hit bottom’. After their meeting, the Narrator slowly begins to feel drawn to him. And of course there’s Marla Singer, the curious woman whom our protagonist encounters at a testicular cancer support group. Instantly, he recognizes her as a person who doesn’t really belong there, a person just like him.

In the presence of Marla, another support group ‘tourist’, the Narrator can no longer project his feelings, which leads to his insomnia to return immediately. Guided by Tyler, he learns how to cure his sleeplessness through fighting instead. As a result, the two of them set up a fight club in a basement of a bar. There they and other men relax, as insane as it sounds, by beating each other until the other begs to his opponent to stop.

The book is often misunderstood to be only about fighting, which it definitely is not, but what is it about then? Well even for me who has seen the movie a few times and now even read the book, the question is really hard to answer. There seems to be a great number of various ways to explain the message of Fight Club.

To me the story is about a man bored with his stressful job and unpleasant life. Subconsciously, the man makes a decision to change his life. In a way Fight Club is about growing up, not necessarily becoming an adult but evolving as a human being. It’s also about the absurdness of a materialistic lifestyle; in the long run, material things don’t matter because someday we’re all going to be dead, or like it’s said in the book, “The things you used to own, now they own you.”

But Fight Club is also about opposites. Whilst Fight Club does look down on people who dedicate their whole lives to their dull meaningless jobs and Swedish furniture collections, it’s also supposed to make the reader condemn the rebellious and violent acts the men of fight club do, not to mention their ridiculous devotion to the club resembling a religious cult.

Then there are the Narrator’s new lifestyle choices that at first glance look very promising, but not all of them turn out to be the best ones, neither is that something we can blame only on our protagonist since one of the story’s main themes is mental illness. Though that’s not something I can go too much into detail without spoiling the climax of the plot.

The language of the book is rather peculiar. At first some parts of the text felt a bit out of space; there are a lot of time jumps and weird scene changes, making it feel like you were reading a movie script. “Freeze. Drop the weapon. This was better than life. On his hand was a scar from my kiss.” I read the afterword where the author says he wanted to find a way to just cut and jump from scene to scene without losing the reader, and I think he managed to do that; to find the way and not lose the reader.

No wonder they made such a good film out of it.

Everything is also told from the Narrator’s point of view, obviously since we call him ‘the Narrator’. What makes the writing style really interesting though, is the lack of actual lines delivered by the main character. Nothing the Narrator says is put between quotation marks, which makes most of the text seem like an inner monologue. Here’s an extract of the text that proves my point: “I’m counting on my fingers: five, seven, five. The blood, is it mine? Yeah, I say. Some of it. This is a wrong answer.”

The overall reading experience was alright. Reading in English was nothing new for me. I just usually don’t read a lot of novels, whatever the language, so it took some time for me to actually start enjoying it. After all I really liked it and now I’m just dying to watch the movie again.

I recommend this book to anyone who’s not afraid of harsh, violence-describing language, or if you are like me and prefer filmography, go watch the movie. I promise the plot is going to blow your mind.

The Walking Dead is an American horror drama television series set in a post-apocalyptic world where a vicious zombie virus has swept over the planet. The show follows those who have survived the outbreak and are now forced to live in a world ruled by the living dead.

The show premiered on Halloween 2010, after which it has been only growing its popularity. The first episode of the fifth season broke the ratings record as the most watched cable show of all time with 17.3 million viewers. Considering the high ratings and the cable channel AMC’s strong faith in its show it’s no wonder they renewed the show for a sixth season – before even airing the fifth one. The producers of the show have already plans for season 10 and beyond.

The show starts out with the main character sheriff’s deputy Rick Grimes (portrayed by Andrew Lincoln) waking up from a coma to find out he’s amidst a zombie apocalypse. He has no idea what’s really going on since in the universe of The Walking Dead concept of Zombies doesn’t exist. That is also to explain why the characters never use the word ‘zombie’ but refer to the living corpses as ‘walkers’. Terms such as ‘roamers’, ‘lurkers’, ‘biters’ or even ‘geeks’ are also heard throughout the show. To me that gives the show a unique feeling and an interesting starting point.

After his awakening Rick is set to a path to find his family, in which he miraculously succeeds after finding them amongst a group of other survivors. Rick gains the status as the group’s leader and from this point on the show follows their group that is to encounter several other comrades in fate.

While The Walking Dead is based on the comic books of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard, the show runners have taken their own course with the show adding new characters and changing plot details. The show has also given a second chance to some characters that didn’t make it alive in the comics. Robert Kirkman has stated that it will be impossible for the fans to tell what is going to happen next on TV series just by reading the comics, which in the world of The Walking Dead means you can never know who’s going to get killed off next. The fact that no character is beyond death’s reach makes every episode an intense experience and it’s exactly what keeps you intrigued – but also really scared.

The Walking Dead is not a show about zombies. It’s about the people and what they’re ready to do in order to stay alive in a world, where the choices are either to stay alive together or die alone. The show is also about humanity and how easy it is to forget, which is proven by fact that the real antagonists of the show are humans, not the flesh-eating roamers. Whether you choose to trust or distrust someone can easily become the difference between life and death – all this considering the slim possibility that you somehow haven’t been bitten by a walker yet. Needless to say, death is always present.

In addition to the physical aspect of survival, the show is also about emotional surviving. The Walking Dead can seem really grim show from time to time for it deals with themes such as abuse, mental health and even suicide, self-harm and euthanasia. It underlines the power of desperation, but also shows the importance of hope. For example desperation can compel a character to do something amazing, but just as easily it can cause something terrible to be done. It’s only hope that can really help the characters move forward.

The show can also be viewed from a social perspective: what could happen when the society is completely broken down, with no economic or political structures? How would it affect our lives if things like technology and electronics were taken away? If there was no food left, how far would people be ready to go trying to get some?

The Walking Dead is definitely one of my favorite TV shows. I appreciate the well-written characters and the individual development of each one of them through the show. My personal favorite is Daryl Dixon, the crossbow-wielding, complex and flawed badass with a heart of gold. He never existed in the comic books, but thanks to the actor Norman Reedus’ impressing auditioning for the show, the writers decided to create a whole new character just for him. It was not a mistake since Daryl Dixon became a fan favorite almost instantly.

I like the visual look of the show, too. It is mostly shot in a modest way and a slightly lower image quality than TV shows usually, both of which are methods to achieve the feeling of “the end of the world.” I also love the sceneries because American TV shows are rarely set in a state like Georgia.

But the main reason I love The Walking Dead as much as I do is that the show is ultimately about family, not in the traditional meaning of the word though. It is about trust and friendship between people who in a pre-apocalyptic world – let’s face it – wouldn’t even have gotten a chance to meet each other just because their backgrounds are so different. By focusing on a group instead of just one or two survivors the show teaches us that for people to thrive, they need other people.