As much as I loved and identified with
Tyler's potent
anti-establishment ramblings in
Fight Club, they are the "
non-message" of the movie. That is to say, the "message" the author is trying to get across is different from the one Tyler Durdan is trying to impress upon the
Narrator. Reading interviews with the author of Fight Club (Chuck P. Can't spell his last name to save my life), I remember reading that he is often
startled and dismayed to see people dressed as "
space monkeys", shouting lines from the book/movie.
Let's not forget that it is the rejection of Tyler's "raison d'etre" (such as it is/isn't) that saves our unnamed narrator by the end of the story (his sanity, anyway). Although being exposed to Tyler's brilliant lunacy lead the narrator to become something greater than himself, it isn't until the narrator puts all he has learned into context and "grown up", as sad as that can be, that the story is complete. The process of the Narrator rejecting Tyler and becoming a healthy, functioning human being can easily be likened to Calvin putting Hobbes away for good, and behaving like a young adult. It's difficult and unpleasant, but it has to be done.
If not for Hobbes, Calvin would have been a much different person. So too with the unnamed narrator of Fight Club, who never would have been able to come to his valuable Self Realization without the aid of Tyler.
"Everything's going to be just fine." *BOOM*
Of course, the book has a deliciously -different- ending (which I won't spoil), but the point is valid either way:
Tyler's ideals are not a guide or model for the Narrator (or for us), but rather an obstacle that we must all embrace, and eventually overcome, for us to become whole.