All the twists are revealed as we conclude this epic and chaotic tale.
Here at the end, we wonder - just what is Chuck Palahniuk teaching us?
We reflect on the camaraderie and community that has grown up around the Fight Clubs and Project Mayhem. There’s an instant and sometimes unspoken bond between people who have been through a shared struggle.
The two brothers reflect on the quickly understood shared experiences they have with other former home schoolers.
Moses reflects on the necessity of unfiltered relationship experiences in which all of the raw parts can come out.
Moses concludes that ultimately this is not a book about addiction, though there is conspicuous depiction of chaos, escalation, and unmanageable life patterns. More accurately, we could say this is a book about attachment failures, about deficits in community, and about how we navigate reality. There are extreme reactions in which the goodness of us, the humanity, and Image of God within, is completely pushed out. In a nearly de-humanized state, there is no end to what chaos we can create.
In one paragraph, Tyler Durden delivers a soliloquy about how the upper classes are entirely dependent on the working class for their way of life. From here, we talk about classism, the frustrations of the lower class, and the romanticized ideal of “The Uprising.” Could it work? Could a redistribution of wealth really have a curative effect on the world? We tend to think not, no matter how appealing the idea may seem.
What would a Christian response to classism be? Could it be that somehow this inequity could be working for the salvation of our souls? Maybe so, but we should still actively attend to the needs of the poor and the concerns of the world. Why? Moses says, “What happens in the body matters because that’s part of the salvation of the soul. What happens in the world matters because that’s part of the salvation of everything.”
Moses suggests that an Orthodox response should be, “There’s so many problems in the world! I need to repent!”
We talk about toxic masculinity, about intimacy, about revolution, healing, death, dying, illness, and the mysterious art of growing old without getting grumpy.
You can tell when inner peace is really growing when you can stay practically engaged in the burdens of the world without being consumed by anger.
In the end, although we are tempted by the idea of societal revolution, we find the primary and most powerful struggle to be in inner life of one's own mind.
Also in the end, community was available for the protagonist all the while...if he would only have been honest and vulnerable and able to receive love. In this we see that it is the weak and foolish, the sick and the dying, that hold the greatest treasure.
As a bonus, we share favorite memories of Lola Jesse.
For more information about Moses, subscribe at www.mosesbernabe.com, or support at www.patreon.com/mosesbernabe.
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