There were a lot of interesting things going on in Fight Club, but my favorite aspect was definitely the twist that Tyler and the narrator were the same person. I’ll admit I didn’t see it coming, though in hindsight there were a lot of clues (having the same suitcase, the fact that Marla seemed very offended when the narrator asked her why she was there, etc.) It reminded me very strongly of a book I read called Three by Ted Dekker. I’ll attempt to describe the book from memory, so the details may be way off, but basically the main character has three personalities (hence the title). One is his regular self, one is his female childhood friend-turned-love-interest named Sam, and one is a crazy guy who blows stuff up and kills people. Sounds famliar already, right? Obviously we don’t know that they are the same until near the end of the novel, for maximum dramatic effect. In this novel, the main character’s trauma stems from his parents, particularly his mother who neglected him and I think had some hoarder issues. Like in Fight Club, the “evil” persona mutilates his own body in some way. For Tyler, this meant dumping acid on his hand. For the protagonist in Three, this meant putting ice cubes in his eyeballs. When I read this book years ago I thought it was incredibly original, but now I’m skeptical that the book just ripped off Fight Club.

There is one noticeable difference though, and that is the love interest. The protagonist of Three dreamt up Sam as his childhood friend, which shows that his mental illness started at an early age. In fact, Sam is the first of his three personalities to realize that they are all the same person and coaxes his “true” personality to the realization. We discussed the possibility that Marla is another of Fight Club’s narrator’s personalities. I actually did consider this, in part because of Three and also because Marla seemed too eccentric and appeared so suddenly in the narrator’s life. This would definitely be an interesting possibility, though I don’t know what that would do to the message of the movie. In any case, I guess that my point is that if you liked Fight Club you will enjoy Three as well. I already spoiled the whole thing, but it’s still a thrilling read and you can look for the clues that they are the same person throughout the book.