Fight Club

I had never seen the movie Fight Club prior to watching it in class and I thought it was a pretty good movie. I was really confused at first when the movie revealed that Edward Norton was Tyler Durden, I had no idea that was going to happen. I thought it was interesting that Edward Norton finds comfort in joining support groups for illnesses in which he did not have in order to see what real suffering was like. I thought it was weird how his doctor pretty much blew Edward Norton off like his problem was nothing, but obviously as we saw he had some serious mental issues. I was pretty surprised that a person like Edward could create Project Mayhem, it was obvious he was unhappy in life, but I never would have imagined that he could come up with such an idea to destroy New York City's financial district and that even people who were part of the police department were part of his club and were involved in Project Mayhem.

I did not really understand the ending and why when Edward shot himself Tyler disappeared, that was a little strange to me and I thought if Edward shot himsef and Tyler disappeared that would mean that Edward was dead. I was also puzzled by the ending when Edward. was standing with Marla in the building and they were watching the financial district buildings blow up. I am curious to know what happened to Edward and Marla, Edward pretty much gave himself away to the police, but since a majority of the police force was involved in Project Mayhem it makes me question whether or not he would even be arrested when all the buildings were destroyed. After seeing the movie I would like to read to the book just to see how similar they are and what happens in the book.

Candy

My group for the final project decided to read the book entitled Candy and I would have to say it is the best book I have ever read. The book reminded me of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. This is because the main characters are similar. Like Oscar, Joe who is the main character of Candy meets this girl named Candy who he falls madly in love with only to find out she is a prositute and is addicted to drugs which she gets from her pimp. Joe quickly finds out that Candy's pimp is a very large intimidating man who likes to beat his women when they don't do what he wants them to do. This reminds me of Oscar because he too falls in love with women who get beaten by the men the are involved with. Both Oscar and Joe are naive with women as well, it took Joe awhile before he realized that Candy was a prostitute and that she was addicted to drugs, even though there were signs that gave away Candy's drug use and prostitution he still didn't really realize that this was going on.

The ending of this book was excellent, the author left the ending somewhat open, he gave you just enough information to conclude the novel, but he didn't completely tell you everything that happened to the characters maybe to allow the reader to use their imagination to decide for themselves what should happen to Candy and Joe. He really focused on addictions quite a lot in this book, which I found very interesting since addiction is in everyday life and a lot of times you dont' actually notice it. For instance, Joe the main character is in a band and is addicted to music and playing his guitar where Candy is addicted to drugs which has cause her to become addicted to prositution in order to feed her drug habit. It was obvious to me with Candy's addictions but I didn't think of Joe's interest in music as a addiction until I read the interview with the author at the back of the book. Overall I thought this was an excellent book and would strongly recommend it.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The beginning of the book was a real struggle. I had a hard time getting into it and the language barrier was difficult for me to get past. I spent a lot of time looking up Spanish words when I first started reading. There were many words that I could not find, so eventually I just gave up on the words and kept reading. I realized the book was better when I wasn't trying to find out the meaning of the Spanish words. Although the book was depressing I actually really liked it and I am thinking that when I have time I will go back and read the book again. Once I finished the book I was relieved to be done, but at the same time I felt there was some closure. We knew exactly what happened to Oscar and the other characters in the book.

I felt horrible for Oscar through the entire book, it seemed as though no matter what he did something bad was always bound to happen to him. I was glad to find out that he was able to get what he wanted most out of life, to have sex with a woman, and that it was with someone he really cared about. I felt bad for him when he would make friends with these beautiful women and they would end up dating these horrible guys that would beat them and treat them like dirt when there is this really nice guy that just wants to fall in love and care for his woman. It saddened me that he was killed over a woman, I wish he would have just taken her back to America with him and they could have lived happily ever after. Even though it would have been nice to see Oscar be able to live his life out with a woman I was okay with how the book ended. I really enjoyed this book and I hope I get a chance to sit down and read it again because I know that there are so many things I missed.