Keep your Tyler alive

Rating: 9/10 (11 April 2004)

Coarse, repulsive though it appears, Fight Club has its beauty-- savage beauty-- lie in its audacity to dig into a human soul, scoop out a thing hidden deep there and set it loose.
Unshackled, it ran amok, did whatever it saw fit, and stunned everyone by its frightful, reckless ideas and acts. Undoubtedly, it twisted many stomachs by blowing up a nice condo with all the chic stuff inside, attacking people merely for the fun of it, and messing about without apparent reasons. And yet not everything it did came out of sheer vandalism. Didn't it make sense having a pair of miserable men, under restricted conditions, go beating each other black and blue and forget their woes for a while? Wasn't the idea of demolishing financial bases a dream for those who sank deep in debt to get their credit records erased and their lives started anew?
Here is it, the thing we fear and love, and it is called Tyler Durden -- a spirit of a mortal¡¯s second self, smart, rebellious, powerful, and altogether dangerous.
And that Tyler lives in you, too, my friend, as it does in nearly everyone else. Though the version of it may vary -- yours does not have to be that shaggy, oddly dressed, chain-smoking, villain-like figure, the nature of it remains just the same. You need it, can't live without it, for it is probably the only thing that knows you through and through, inspires you with ideas and plans, and always stays with you, regardless of who you are and whatever you will become. However, you may want to be cautious not to render it too much license, for it would probably run wild, flat out, dragging you all the way to jail (if not getting you killed halfway through), where you two might end up having nothing but the iron bars to nibble at for a change.
And yet, even if, for some reason, you just let it go, and, deservedly, wound up in a sticky situation, you still should keep that Tyler of yours, guilty or not guilty, alive. If you did him in through anger or stupidity, you would be left without a soul, would become a pathetic living corpse, fumbling around, hating yourself. So the point is not whether you should have it--you've got to have it--but how to. It¡¯s a matter of who controls who. So make sure you hold it in leash most of the time, so that both of you could stay alive and go on riding in your one-way journey in this world.

Alas, Fight Club, despite everything it showed with boldness, got frightened at last by its own daring. The fact that it had Tyler killed saddened those who had just been enlightened by it. I rate it 9 out of 10.