Fight club, god and masculinity

[map_of_the_world]

I really enjoyed reading fight club i partly because I'm interested in how multiple personality is portrayed in literature, but mostly because its about the construction and creation of heterosexual male masculinity. I'm probably more interested in the construction of masculinity than I am in the construction of femininity, maybe because I've never been and never will be expected to fit inside it, the more obscure rules of and aspects masculinity are not something that the world had tried to teach me and then spent much time in hand wringing when I failed miserably at them.

I have to say some of this book, in its nihilism reminded me of American Psycho with its litany of clothes, objects,and out of control materialism

"You buy furniture, you tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. buy the sofa, then for a couple of years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled, then the right set of dishes, then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug.

ultimately though found it much, much more redemptive than American psycho, (which was not at all redemptive and was stomach turning.) Because unlike American psycho the narrator of fight club gets the pointlessness of things and the emptiness of living a life like that,

Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things that you used to own, now they own you."
Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need.

This is where Tyler Durden comes in. The narrators uppermost self, is too comfortable, too conforming and too scared to blow it all over and start again so Tyler does it for him.

but I also thought the class issues were really interesting and the ripping away of the myths about how society actually works

"You do the little job you're trained to do.
"Pull a lever.
"Push a button.
"You don't understand any of it, and then you just die p12“

The people you are trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. We’re the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you’re asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers and we know everything about you. We process your insurance claims and credit card charges. We control every part of your life.”

Although technically I guess some of the jobs mentioned are not so much working class jobs but service sector jobs. We live in a world that lies about power, that routinely states that the people with the power are those at the top of the pyramid and we all swallow that lie. When actually if everybody in service sector jobs stopped working or just revolted all hell would break loose. And I think a lot of middle class people don't understand how much impact service sector jobs have on them and what their lives would be like if they weren't done. I once heard a media studies lecturer say that media studies was more important then pluming, which made me go "WTf" I love media studies, I love media studies theory and I do think ideas are important but seriously? Clean running water and toilets that work and someone who knows how to make that all happen and fix it when it doesn't? yeah, If I have to choose I'll take that over Adorno and Althusser any day thanks.

I also though the connections between a certain type of Christianity and how white western culture perceives god was interesting, which of course is also about how we, as a culture construct masculinity

"The mechanic says, 'If you’re male and you’re Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God?'"

Partly I'm interested in that nowhere in the book is the possibility of a female god, surely a female good would make a lot of the issues around and the reasons for constructing and creating masculinity as it is now moot? Also I never made the direct connection between masculinity and god before (which is kind of dumb I know)
and its interesting that the type of masculinity being explored here is essentially adolescent, as it is in a lot of popular culture because we live in a culture where men don't have to, are not expected to, grow up, which is I think part of the refusal to take responsibility for their children (I don't for a minute think people should stay in unhappy relationships but I do think people should take responsibility for and children that arose out of those relationships) and because they aren't expected to grow up theydon't get to partake in the good things about adulthood, such as intimacy and community building and so do feel empty I guess

Comments

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I like the book too, for a lot of reasons you mentioned (though the writing style was very sparse, not to my taste). I agree with you that so many of us buy into the idea service sector "drone" jobs are so unimportant, when really that's how the world runs, and without those utter chaos would ensue. what would happen if we all woke up to that fact?

[baaing-tree.livejournal.com]

I've never read Fight Club, though I hear tons of people raving about it.

People frequently mistake us for older than we are, particularly if they're in our age group. I kinda poo-poo the idea that we're somehow magically more mature than anybody else.

I wonder if multiplicity hasn't meant we had to pick up a little more responsibility than usual. Most middle-class kids are age actually PARTIED in college; we were busy trying to restructure our system. We've got inner children to take care of, and though they're a helluva lot less difficult than the corporeal kind, they still need some comics and cookies now and again.

In our case, we've ONLY worked those minimum-wage sort of jobs. (Pizza delivery, hotel laundress, sweeping floors, etc.) And when everything was going to shit, we'd think to ourselves, "Well, if we quit, YOU won't get your pizza, or your floors cleaned and OH WILL YOU BE SORRY!"

Someone once said everyone should work in service just to see how it feels. I personally agree. I know some people whose first jobs were working at ritzy golf courses where Japanese dignitaries went, and I always ENVIED THE HELL OUT OF THEM.

--Rogan