Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (Pg. 1 - 88)

Summary:
As the story begins with a cold opening, we are immediately introduced to the narrator, and Tyler. Both are on the Parker-Morris Building as it's rigged with homemade bombs, which is Tyler's area of expertise. As the narrator counts down the minutes, he gives a . We are then transported to a meeting of Remaining Men Together, testicular cancer support group. The narrator suffers from severe insomnia, which causes himself to feel distant from reality. Believing that the only way to feel alive is to be in a room full of terminal patients, he starts visiting numerous support groups, to the point where he creates a schedule. All is well until one day, he notices a woman at the testicular cancer support group. At this point, he realizes she has been attending every support group as him. He the vows to tell her the next meeting to quit attending, as he feels threatened by her presence. The next chapter then starts as the narrator is describing Tyler's job as a movie projectionist. At the same time, the narrator reveals his job as a Product Recall Specialist. Due to the nature of his job, he constantly travels and lives in a routine. Coupled with his insomnia, he constantly hopes for a plane crash. The narrator then tells us how he met Tyler at a nude beach, and received his phone number. He then skips back to a support group meeting, whom Marla is also attending. He finally confronts her, and finds out she too uses the support group as a way to feel alive. They then agree to split the attendance of the support groups. The narrator then comes back to the present story, as his luggage is left behind, due to his electric razor going off. As he arrives home by taxi, he finds his condominium to have exploded during his leave. Not caring much, he calls up Tyler and asks him if he can stay over his house. They agree to meet at a bar, where Tyler asks the narrator for one favor: To hit him as hard as he can. The narrator skips forward to a meeting between his boss and him, as he has a bruised and swollen face. He talks about the rules of Fight Club, which is what he and Tyler started at the basement of a bar. It started out the night of the explosion, as the narrator and Tyler gathered up support from the crowd as they were fighting for their first time. The narrator then tells how Tyler came to know Marla. Marla calls the narrator as she's about to commit suicide, but Tyler calls the cops and rushes to her hotel room. Marla however exists her apartment and directs the cops to the wrong room, as she follows Tyler back home. The narrator is back at his job, as he is sent back for all the dried up blood in his pants. Back at home, Tyler shows the narrator how to make soap, using fat. After creating the soap, Tyler kisses the narrators hand, to have water on his hand. The purpose is to pour lye, a dangerous substance, on his hand. When he pours it on the narrators hand, he explains how one must go towards self-destruction and hit rock bottom first, to be saved. Afterward, the narrator is working at a famous hotel restaurant with Tyler, as they stop an elevator full of food in between floors. Tyler proceeds to piss in one of the soups, as the narrator tells of how often they ruin the wealthy people's food. Now, the narrator is at a abandon car lot with Tyler, as they eat chinese food. They discuss how profitable Tyler's soap and company, Paper Street Soap Company, is. However, they can't get back home because Marla is highly upset at the both of them, and they fear her dangerousness. The narrator explains how Marla asks her mom for her fat to use to enlarge her lips, and asks the narrator to use his freezer as a storage of her fat. As she opens the freezer, the narrator realizes Tyler has been disguising himself as Marla in the form of a telegram, and has been asking Marla's mother for her fat too.

Quotation:
"Tyler says I'm nowhere near hitting the bottom, yet. And if I don't fall all the way, I can't be saved. Jesus did it with his crucifixion thing. I shouldn't just abandon money and property and knowledge. This isn't just a weekend retreat. I should run from self-improvement, and I should be running toward disaster. I can't just play it safe anymore. This isn't a seminar. "If you lose your nerve before you hit the bottom, " Tyler says, "you'll never really succeed. " Only after disaster can we be resurrected. "It's only after you've lost everything, " Tyler says, "that you're free to do anything. "(Palahniuk 61)

Reaction:
This quote explains the whole theme of the narrator's journey of life, and Tyler's view of how to deal with life. This explains the purpose behind Fight Club, and Tyler's imprudent lifestyle. This quote also reveals how close the narrator pays attention to Tyler, as shown how he repeats "Tyler says".