Fight Club is my new favorite book.

I picked it up from the library this morning, started reading it when I got home, and didn't put it down until it was finished. I found out about Fight Club through Helena Bonham Carter, who is my favorite actress. When I looked her up on IMDB, I saw that she played Marla Singer in the movie, and whenever I hear about an interesting movie, I immediately check to see if it was first a book.

Marla Singer did not disappoint me. Neither did Tyler Durden or the unnamed narrator. As for Chuck Palahniuk, I liked him so much I've memorized the spelling of his name. I was thrilled to find out that Fight Club was only his first novel (and a ferocious first novel, at that), and my next task to is find more books by this diabolical author and read them til I become Molly's Racing Heart and reach my own enlightened Zen state.

I was totally convinced by Tyler, from the point that he sat in the shadow of his 60-second perfection to the point that he puts a gun in the mouth of the narrator. As a fellow soap maker, I loved reading about the fat rendering and tissue-paper wrapping and packing the pure tallow with flower petals to give it scent. But by far, my favorite lines in the book are the confused sperm in the cave-painted toilet bowl.

And I learned a lot from this book. I learned the hepatitis virus can live on stainless steel for six months, that meringue is odor-absorbing, that the Parker-Morris building has exactly one hundred ninety-one floors, and that roses are a natural astringent. And above all, that cow-fat collagen injections don't last.

As for the "Big Twist," I totally didn't see it coming. It was almost sort of a letdown, because I thought, oh no, here comes another contrived situation. Although it resolved itself rather quickly, it ended perfectly, and the narrator finally got the ALL the support he so badly needed. And now, I definitely want to watch the movie. I might just fall in love with Helena as Marla Singer.