Choke

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant isn't the right word...
Review: ...but it's the first that comes to mind.

The problem with Chuck Palahniuk novels is that they do not lend themselves well to reviews. Reveal too much information, and the fragile twists and turns of the plot are destroyed, robbing the reader of the thrill one receives upon discovering these intricacies for themselves the first time. Reveal too little, and a coherent review is almost impossible, leaving the reader with a false impression of complexities and tangles which are insurmountable.

Choke is the fourth novel written by Palahniuk, a master at angry, adult male angst. Our narrator is one Mr. Victor Mancini, a med-school drop out with a mother suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and an addiction to sex. Like other novels such as Fight Club and Survivor, we are exposed to the dirty underbelly of a society we don't want to acknowledge exists - from prisoners who go to sexaholic meetings for sex and kinky masturbation tips to the problems bending over in the stocks of a colonial theme park creates.

However, unlike the dry sarcasm of Fight Club or the biting satire of Survivor, Choke returns to the humorous yet heart-felt writing of Invisible Monsters, and exposes us to a more humorous side of Palahniuk's nature. From Tanya and her string of plastic balls to Gwen, who insists Victor wouldn't know how to rape a woman if he tried, Palahniuk presents us with incredibly memorable characters and scenes that will have you laughing long after you've closed the book.

" 'Why do I do this? Why do I always pick the guy who wants to be nice and conventional? The next thing you'll want to do is marry me.' She says, 'Just one time, I'd like to have an abusive relationship. Just once!' " (Page 175)

Humor is not the only factor in the story of a man who is led to believe his origin is divine. Victor is most likely one of Palahniuk's most complex characters today, a man who is trying to be anything he is not, who is rebelling against a psychotic mother's abuse while he drops out of law school and takes a job at a Colonial Williamsburg-like village in order to pay for the necessary care and treatment of his ailing mother. A man who believes strangers saving him from choking in a restaurant is not only a financial resource but an expression of love and sainthood, Victor is wonderfully human and am incredibly sympathetic character. While we may not be able to validated all of his choices, his is a character we can understand and perhaps even respect.

Palahniuk manages to dazzle and amaze with his ability to turn pithy little quotes into personal mantras and catch phrases, which once read, cannot be burned, pushed, hammered, or flooded out of one's short term memory banks. The same way you will always remember that the first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club, you will remember that "this" or "that" isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind.

The martyrdom of Saint Me.

What would Jesus not do?

However, Palahniuk's novels are about more than catch phrases and plot twists that would impress Rod Serling and Alfred Hitchcock. Choke is a very funny, very sad tale of a man who professes to love the wrong choices, while exposing to the reader the very humane side that even he cannot see.

Imagine your friend is beating his sexual addiction by collecting rocks, with which he builds a castle. Imagine being a sex addict and unable to have sex with the one woman who desperately wants to have sex with you. Imagine discovering the complexity of the Mile High Club, and what it means to "ride the circuit." Imagine telling school children about the black plague while giving tours of colonial buildings in clothing so authentic, you can smell the dirt on them.

Imagine yourself in the life of Victor Mancini, and you'll never see life the same way.

Rating:
Summary: 5678
Review: Choke is basically about Victor mancini and the ways he gets by in life. He lives with one of his friends, Denny. He used to go to school but he figured it wasn't for him besides that he didn't have enough money to pay for it, so he dropped out instead. He doesn't have enough money to pay for his mother's medical bills, she's in the hospital for Alzheimer's disease so she cant even remember her own son, and because he has a very low paying job, he works as a servant in an old fashioned theme park, so he doesn't have enough money he goes to restaurants orders meals and makes himself choke on the meal until some stranger can come up to him and "rescue" him having them pay for the meal feeling sorry for victor, then through out the years they send him checks because they feel that they are victor's saviors. He has tons of people sending him checks even people he cant even remember at all, some come up to him in the streets and start talking to him knowing him but he just has a blank look because he cant remember them, when victor isn't at work he is attending meetings for people who are addicted to sex just for the fun of it, even though he is one of those people. There he meets women who are just like him. One day when he went to visit his mom he found a young woman by the name of Paige. She introduced herself as a worker and later on she and victor start to spend more time together. She seems like the perfect girl for him until she starts talking nonsense to him and he later finds out that she's a patient there, she's crazy, and that she just has on the same wardrobe as the workers so she can feel like she works there. Later on victor starts to build a church and has all these news reporters around him and he tells the truth about everything and there are people with rocks and he's there with Denny then Paige comes and eventually everyone leaves and that's the end of the book. I thought this was a very interesting book although I didn't quite understand the beginning but I later understood what everything meant and it turns out that it starts talking about his childhood. This was a really great book, although some people have their own opinions, because it explained every point of victor's life. I really recommend this book to people who like someone's "action" life because it has everything in it.

Rating:
Summary: A glimpse into the mind of an addict!
Review: Chuch Palahniuk has captured the true essence of being a sex addict. He accurately describes the mental games and justification of all sexual acting out. What's more he explains how the addict got that way. A true treasure to read.

Rating:
Summary: Not Palahniuk at his best
Review: Chuck Palahniuk has written some great books over the last few years. In Choke his skill with narration is still top notch. Choke is a quick read full of hilarious and gross moments. The main character Victor Mancini is a con artist that fakes choking spells to capitalize on people's generosity and finds sex by going to sex addiction anonymous meetings. The characters that Victor encounters along the way are just as depraved.

There is no doubt that Mr. Palahniuk keeps coming up with clever ideas, but Choke lacks the intriguing story lines of his previous works. Even so the writing is good enough to make the book enjoyable. Choke is required reading for all Palahniuk fans, but for those trying to introduce themselves to his writing there are better places to start.

Rating:
Summary: Few can survive on premise alone
Review: Few books can survive on a clever idea alone. Palahniuk is probably the only author I know who can pull this off. This is not to say that the rest of "Choke" is not clever--it is--but the premise alone is good enough. Victor Mancini is a con artists of mega proportions. By day he works in a colonial theme park and when he's not doing that, he goes to restaurants and diners and fakes "choking." This, in order to get cash to help his mother who is a nursing home.

I thought the writing in this novel was simply brilliant and can't wait to tackle all of Palahnuik's works. Bravo

Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: First and foremost if it wasn't for the movie fight club i would have never heard of Chuck Palahniuk. Now I have read several of his books. His original writing and story telling are for a lack of a better word awesome. Choke is a story of a young man who is broke from keeping his mother in a nursery home. He goes to Diners and fakes choking and whoever saves his life is forever in debt to him, so he constantly asks for cash. Between that and his job at a colonial fair he couldn't have a worse life, or could he?

Rating:
Summary: This novel cannot be ignored.
Review: From what I've read of these reviews, many did not enjoy this novel, at least not as much as they liked, say, Survivor. Well, you can like Choke, or you can hate it with a fiery passion, but this work cannot be dismissed. Palahniuk writes satire, and he does a very good job of it. His writing style is intoxicating and original, witty and dark. Choke is not for everyone, to be sure, but that doesn't mean it's not well written.

Let me start off by saying that by definition, this is "a guy book"... more so then Chuck's debut work Fight Club. I am in fact a girl, but that didn't stop me from enjoying Choke. There was really nothing I could relate to in this book, and maybe that's why I love it so much. I love it because it's from a different world... it's raw, it's sexual, it's bitter. It centers around addictions... addictions that I have never, and probably will never, be faced with. So many concepts of this work were alien to me, and because of that, I was forced to revalute my own life, and how I look at it.

Chuck Palahniuk continues to amaze me, as does Choke. Love it or hate it... but it will not dissapoint.

Rating:
Summary: Lather, rinse, repeat.
Review: Have you read any of Palahniuk's other books?

Great. You don't need to read this one.

If you've read more than two or three, you know already that the fundamental plot elements remain the same, and the situations the characters get into become more drastic as he struggles to wrap new plot lines around the same broad plot as Fight Club (you have to hit bottom, subvert society, say a bunch of "shocking" stuff, etc. etc.).

This is a really bad book. If you've read one Palahniuk book, you've read them all- at least stay away from the later ones, which are just sort of pathetic.

Rating:
Summary: Chuck's Absolute Best
Review: I know many of you like Survivor, as is your due. It is a rockin' book. However, I am sticking with Choke as my favorite Chuck book. The rampant honesty about sex expressed in such a shameless way as only Chuck can write is freaking hilarious. The fact that he categorizes sex-addicts as losers and demonstrates the sad lengths to which they go to get off is perfect tearing down of the glamorized image of sex that American culture seems to defend.
Similarly his use of colonial settings for the other half of his novel tears into another aspect of American culture, our over-glorified history. The actual choke plot of "Choke" is incidentally pretty minor. Rather than parodying events in recent history as in Survivor, he turns his eye to two major facets of American culture, our addiction to sexual activity and our fantasy of a perfect and pure historical origin as a country. The whole time he is never preachy, he shows rather than tells. This is my favorite Chuck book. There, I've said it.

Rating:
Summary: Definitely Not Anything Different
Review: I think the concept of 'Choke' is really interesting and definitely had potential to be a great book. You'll find remnants from previous books, leftovers he thought were sharp and witty, among plots that are very far-stretched.

I read another review in which the reviewer found the characters very empty, impossible to relate with. I agree with this, but to an extent I think this was almost Palahniuk's intent. He's an amazing writer but his ideas are carbon-copies of previous books. Throw in a slightly different setting, change professions and names, and add actions that are "out there" or disturbing, and you've got yourself the same book you read last year with just some different names.

I don't consider the book a waste of my time. (In fact, only one short story has earned the right to be considered such in my book.) As far as I'm concerned, Chuck is a one-hit wonder who was glorified through an excellent movie. Because of that, every book he writes will eventually bear "National Bestseller" on its cover. His abilities as a writer have yet to be proven through any of his writings I've read. You want writing that has the attitude and grit of Palahniuk, but is far more original novel-after-novel, pick up Alex Garland. It's definitely much more worth it.