Choke | Chuck Palahniuk | Funny, strange, disturbing, good

Choke | Chuck Palahniuk | Love (or maybe oblivion) and how to get it

books:

Choke

	Choke Chuck Palahniuk Anchor, 2002 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 468 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times. Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be ?saved? by fellow patrons who, feeling responsible for Victor?s life, go on to send checks to support him. When he?s not pulling this stunt, Victor cruises sexual addiction recovery workshops for action, visits his addled mom, and spends his days working at a colonial theme park. His creator, Chuck Palahniuk, is the visionary we need and the satirist we deserve.

for more information click here

Funny, strange, disturbing, good

This is the first Palahniuk book I've read, and I look forward to reading more of his books.

Based upon the description of the book, this isn't one that I'd likely pick up to read...the redemption/recovery/whatever you call it of a sex addict just didn't seem that interesting. However, Palahniuk throws in enough twists and symbolism to make this a very entertaining read. The book was hard to put down.

The story was so graphic, that it was hard not to laugh every time he talked about "throating a dog", or his "white soldiers." The main character gets into some strange situations...every chapter is filled with another surprise.

for more information click here

Love (or maybe oblivion) and how to get it

Like Fight Club, Choke is kind of a short, biographical (and in parts sad, very sad) micro-history of the weird, their weirdnesses, and the world outside of our peripheral vision. Palahniuk turns up things that make me both jealous and glad that I'm not the subject of his work.

And it makes me want to read more of his books.

An interesting book you'll never read again...

I picked up Chuck Palahniuk's Choke after seeing the movie preview for the same title a few weeks ago. The movie preview made absolutely no sense, was hard to follow, and tough to summarize - as Palahniuk's novel would turn out to be. But the preview was intriguing enough to go out and buy the book, and I'm glad I did... sort of.

There really isn't much of a story line to Choke. The book centers on a drop-out med school student, Victor Mancini, who works at a colonial theme-park; fakes choking in restaurants to ultimately pay his mother's institutional bills; and is a raging sexaholic. In a strange twist, he also may be a direct descendant of Jesus Christ.

That pretty much sums up Choke.

The book doesn't so much present a linear story line, as it is a tale of self-discovery for Victor, who is trying to figure out his ancestry as well as why he is the way he is. Along this path, Palahniuk describes detailed sexual situations, gruesome medical conditions and creepy mental disorders that follow Victor from scene to scene. Palahniuk's descriptions are so vivid, in fact, that you'll start to wonder, "Could this ever happen to me...?" And you'll then quickly pray that it does not...

On the plus side, Choke is certainly interesting, moves quickly, and is very funny in some parts. You can knock this out in a long weekend or two, and it's an easy read, especially after trying to absorb The Unbearable Lightness of Being, as I did previously.

But along the same lines, there are better options out there if you're into books about 20- to 30-somethings looking for answers on the road through life.

for more information click here

Gets a little too extreme for its own good...

Not as good as `Invisible Monsters' (his finest work) or `Fight Club' (his most popular) or even `Lullaby' (his most insanely creative), `Choke' has to settle for being merely good. It isn't great, and at times it is slightly bad, but at least it makes slightly more sense than `Diary' (his least satisfying). I am a fan of Chuck, because even when he is beneath himself he is still above many others.

Bad Palahniuk is still pretty darn good.

I have a few issues with `Choke', namely that it rides so heavy on the preposterous that each and every character starts to lose credibility before the conclusion of the novel, but those issues never deterred me from actually reading the novel. Chuck's style is very creative and absorbing, so even when I was rolling my eyes in disbelief, I was rolling them towards the page because I didn't want to stop reading. Chuck has a way of always keeping you guessing, intrigued enough (maybe it's all those moments that make you ask `can he really be serious?') to keep reading, keep barreling through in order to uncover the inspiration for all his madness.

`Choke' tells the story of Victor Mancini. He is an addict (of the most perverse kind), he is a loser who failed to go through with his big dreams and he comes from the most insanely unbelievable background imaginable.

Oh yeah; and he may be Jesus Christ.

The story weaves through Victor skipping his AA meetings to feed his addictions, visiting his dying mother in the hospital, working his pointless job at a colonial-era theme park and killing time with his best friend Denny at strip clubs and collecting rocks (I know, I know). In the meantime he meets Paige, a doctor at the hospital his mother is staying at. She seems convinced that a risky procedure could save his mothers life (I'm not going to tell you what she proposes, because it really would kill that `what the...' moment that it is bound to create). The question Victor faces is, does he really want to save anyone, let alone his mother?

Palahniuk is known for pushing the envelope, and I admire him for that. He knows how to hit us where it counts, how to engage the reader and turn his stomach at the same time he is turning his mind. My complaint here is that Chuck may have gone a little too far. Some of the scenes reach `American Psycho' amounts of explicitness, but unlike Bret Easton Ellis, Palahniuk doesn't know how to make his perversions intelligent. In the end we are left with a novel that thinks it is establishing a groundbreaking prose on the adult male but instead is rattling off a list of impulses we are all familiar with yet repulsed by in the same breath. It is entertaining in parts, mind-numbing in others, yet is always presented in Chuck's signature style, which makes anything readable.

Palahniuk has been hailed as the author who finally got men reading again (for I cannot see women fully enjoying his work) and for that he should be commended. The problem I have with that is that that statement paints men (his target audience) as generic Neanderthals who only appreciate literature if it is as graphic as it is simple. I'm not knocking Chuck, for like I said, I like him, but as an avid reader (and a male) I find it rather insulting that this is the literature we are expected to enjoy the most.

for more information click here

I don't get it.

Like others, I saw the film Fight Club but had not read any of Palahniuk's books before. This book had been sitting on my TBR shelf for a while, and with the upcoming release of the movie I figured it was time to give it a try.

The word "sick" seems to occur frequently in reviews of Palahniuk's work. After reading this book I understand why. Many of the images in the book are quite disgusting, but "sick" is also a good word to describe the world as Palahniuk portrays it. Despite the high gross-out factor, this book is at times laugh out loud funny - indeed I could not decide if some of the scenes were for shock value or attempts at dark humor.

The protagonist Victor behaves in an appalling manner, but because the book is written in first person we can almost understand why and feel sympathetic towards him. However, whenever Victor starts to become likable, Palahniuk quickly does something to make us gag or laugh again. What a strange book.

for more information click here