The company of men

"The major device [in each novel] is the secondary character who catalyzes growth and enlightens the narrator," states Scott Heckmann of UCLA in his paper "Chuck Palahniuk's Fiction." "Palahniuk's [work] influences the reader the same way his secondary characters influence the main character. Palahniuk is Tyler Durden, Brandy Alexander [from "Invisible Monsters"] and Fertility Hollis [from "Survivor"]; he is the character that finds a hero in a spectator. By causing the reader to become the central character, in the end, the reader is also heroic."

In his presentation on "Fight Club: Beating Men Out of Submission," Bowling Green State University graduate student Rafael Colon Gonzalez agrees: "Tyler Durden's role in creating fight club is to save these men who are controlled by capitalism. The violence that Tyler wants men to take hold of is normally only fed to them as spectators."

One presenter, Edinboro student Mike Oelke, went so far as to say that the reining in of their violent instincts and the relegation of men to the spectator stands is the root of many men's inability to cope with society. In "Human Services and Their Failure as a Therapeutic Tool for Men," Oelke says that "what makes men feel good about themselves is being able to look in the mirror and see a man they can respect -- not a coward, not a slave, not a charlatan. This can only be achieved by the building of character. From a young age, little boys are taught that when they have a problem ... they settle it 'like men.' So they fight. This rite of passage has been taken away from today's man, and we're all suffering for it."

At the Boro Bar, Edinboro's most tolerable watering hole, a motley crew of Chuck-heads gathers. Across the table from me, James Dolph talks about his own conference presentation, "Chuck Palahniuk's Virulent Burroughsian Visions." A student of the beat school, Dolph savors Palahniuk's paranoia. But I also recall that during one of the Q&A sessions with Palahniuk he proposed that "Invisible Monsters" was, perhaps, an homage of sorts to C.S. Lewis' "'Til We Have Faces." (Palahniuk said he hadn't read Lewis' reworking of the Cupid and Psyche myth.)

Dolph studies full time as a graduate student in literature at the University of Central Oklahoma, and then works 40-hour/three-day weekends as a nurse at the Oklahoma City Jail. His eyes are chronically shadowed from lack of sleep. He thinks a lot about literature and how it relates to the harsh environment that surrounds him.

"You know Terry Nichols, McVeigh's accomplice in the Oklahoma City bombing?" asks Dolph with an Okie drawl, explaining why he hates his job. "I see him every day at work. The worst part of it is that he's so nice. These murderers are always so nice! It makes you long for the Mansons, guys you could instantly recognize as what they are.

"Sometimes," Dolph continues, raging against the hardcore criminals he's grown to despise, "I put a sign up behind my desk that says [quoting "Fight Club"] -- 'You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.' But they don't even get it."

What does the author himself think of this kaleidoscope of responses to his work? "It's incredibly exciting," says Palahniuk. "Not so much that they're dealing with the books themselves, but that they're dealing with the issues raised in the books. It's an exploration of these issues, not just a big Chuck love- or hate-fest. Now people are looking at these issues, and it's like a continuation of what the books were supposed to create."

Wherever Palahniuk goes during the conference, a long line of attendees seeking his attention forms. They want the longhaired, casually dressed anti-guru to weigh in on their theories about his novels, or to autograph a paperback, or simply to shake their hands.

Next Page: Palahniuk dreams of being forgotten

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