Another 'lackluster' turn out by Chucky. I was not a fan of Fight Club 2 and this is more of the "let's make a sequel that barely resembles things from the previous installment(s) but 'furthers' the narrative'...".

So, basically in this new installment, Tyler/Narrator (Balthazar) team together. Marla is pregnant and is the pivotal aspect of the work, and she is pregnant ...with Tyler's baby rather than Narrator's. (We've full gone out of realism now and are completely in a different realm of work, more spiritual, more supernatural, more non-reality than reality).

This time, to "remake the world" they are releasing a STD/plague that will wipe out the 'non-essentials' (for lack of better word) and prepare the world for the Messiah - Tyler's child.

Tyler is also now a ... ephemeral character, a timeless character, that has appeared to Balthazar as a child as well as to Marla as a child, and is more or less a recurring persona rather than an actual person or character or part of the Narrator's psyche.

It is interesting read about an epidemic/pandemic/STD plague during the COVID crisis, and I'm sure this was written/conceptualized long before COVID/coronavirus was even a thing, but still interesting life/art parallel.


I can't say this is very interesting though. Chuck seems to have some sort of fetish for a 'new world order' type story that he keeps going back to. Adjustment Day. This. Etc. And its.... just a trope at this point. "Ok, Project Mayhem is Rize or Die... is now Die Endeavors.... and they want to kill millions to create a world that is better for the next generation.... blah blah blah...."

Fight Club (original) succeeded because it was more than just a NWO type telling, it was original, and it was written at a different time, and when Chuck Palahniuk was fresh. Now.... its all played out... it doesn't work with our time... it's regurgitated.... it feels hackneyed. And for this, it doesn't even come off as inspiring or interesting.

Ok... so a recruit is supposed to get a 'million tallies'. Marla uses Chloe, a super sexed up old person who knows a sex club... and that gets her her tallies. Balthazar can slip into Tyler Burden to get his tallies up.

Meh.

The side-story of the cross being repurposed as a frame, and leading to a specialty afterlife, and that Tyler Burden is Jesus or a Jesus-like being, (a son of God, if not THEE God of Abrahamic religions), and that God is annoyed then when Tyler/Marla's child is a girl instead of a boy.... its just..... so..... "yawn" .... "meh"..... and feels like Palahniuk is trying to make MORE of his character than it really needs to be. Like Chuck fell in love with Tyler, and wants him to be a Jesus like character now and that he wants to 'subvert' expectations and have Marla be the focal point of this work, and she needs hit in the face to break the Tyler/Narrator facade (rather than the shot in the brain/cheek/head that was in the original book/movie) and that its a girl and not a boy for the new Messiah.

It.... just feels..... so hackneyed.... rushed.... and non-interesting.

And the introduction is such a piece of fan service and ass kissery by Irvine Welsh, that makes you think Chuck is the next coming himself and without him, literature would be ruined, worthless, and he's the only true storyteller left to humanity in the 2020s.... and yet, this is what we get then from him.

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