Choke

Rating:
Summary: Not quite Fight Club...but still good.
Review: The movie Fight Club got me interested in Palahniuk, and I loved the book. Choke was next on my list, and although it wasn't as good as Fight Club, it still has it's shining moments. Palahniuk has a gift for time and place, and his characters weave through their intricate situations with grace.
I loved the main character, what with his sexual addictions and bizzare, if farfetched scams. I was quite caught up in his trials and tribulations, enjoying his reactions to the insanity surrounding him. Very entertaining!
It's true that Palahniuk is great with sardonic wit and dark irony, and his masterful use of those skills push Choke a step ahead of most modern novels. If you liked Fight Club I think you will like Choke as well.

Rating:
Summary: Jesus Christ Superstar
Review: Like most of his fans, I was turned on to Chuck Palahniuk through Fight Club, the movie not the book. I have seen it over 20 times, possibly over 30. It was a masterpiece to be sure, and made me - like so many others - want to read the book.

So I did.
And loved it.
I wanted more.

So I went to my local library, looking to pick up another Palahniuk book, and Choke was the only one on the shelf - the rest were all checked out. I opened it to the first page, and began reading it right there in the Om-Pl aisle of the fiction section. Upon reading the "do not read this book" opening, I was hooked. I could have stood there reading until the last page. One thing you have to say about Chuck is that he knows how to catch your attention quick.

Less than twenty four hours later, I had finished Choke. That was yesterday. I have to admit, I puzzled over just what to make of it. I unquestionably was entertained. Hell, I could have kept reading through an earthquake. But, I wasn't sure what Chucky was trying to tell us, what his message was, what we should learn from Victor Mancini. If anything. What could you learn from a sex-addicted man whose mother is in an insane asylum, whose best friend is a sex-addict that collects rocks to keep from masturbating? A man who goes to restaurants and pretends to choke in order to make money and who may or may not be the Lord and Savior?

Plenty, as it turns out. I won't tell you what my take on this is, because it will not be the same for you. As in Fight Club, everyone sees a different moral to the story. Some will see none, no redeeming qualities. It's up to you.

Just ask yourself: What would Jesus NOT do?

Rating:
Summary: A rewarding chore
Review: Chuck Palahniuk is a clunky idea stylist. I initially found the writing to be stilted and laborious but later warmed up to it. This is a quick read, even at near 300 pages. While the overall book does have some structure, most of it only becomes apparent after the 150 pages or so. Unfortunately, this makes the beginning feel like you're wallowing in misery along with the apathetic lead character - Victor Mancini.

Victor is like many people in that he's never really live up to his expectations. In fact, he's quit trying. He's a listless sex-addict with an addled mother in the hospital, a poor mindless daily job, a con-artist by evening, who has a friend with even less direction than himself.

Victor is happy to take the blame for other people's misfortune, even when he has nothing to do with it - a real sadomasochist. This story is about what happens when Victor's reality gets pulled out from under him and he has to come clean to everyone he's deluded - especially himself. It's also a story about inspiration and how it can be found in the strangest places. Stick through this one to the end. It's worth it. I would think that fans of Irvine Welsh would really like this book.

Rating:
Summary: choke is fight club for sex addicts
Review: Choke has much similarities with Fight Club. To some extent one could say that Choke offers more of the same, but the way Palahniuk creates his universe is so dazzling, sharp and funny, that it is hard to resist.
I saw David Fincher's movie first, then read the novel Fight Club and then the novel Choke.
I have only one request: please make Choke into a film, starring Edward Norton and directed by Fincher.
Because this could take controversy to a higher level!
Choke deals with issues not often used by filmmakers. The political issues, healthcare, the position of elderly, sex as a taboo, are just screaming to be put on screen...

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable Satire a la Chuck
Review: "Because nothing is as perfect as you imagine it."
That summed up Choke for the first 150 pages or so for me(at that point I would say 2 stars), but unlike Fight Club and Survivor(which started so strongly), Choke rallied in the latter half with Palahniuk's signature sardonic wit and biting humor accompanied with great soundbites and quotes worth writing down for future regurgitation.

Choke proved sadistically humorous with the ongoing masochism that pervades throughout the ripe pages of Choke - confinement to the stocks for Denny in Colonial Dunsboro, the incessant choking of Victor, the starving of "The Mommy", and of course the countless sex acts of Victor including the oh-so painful... All of this embodies their escape from both reality and confrontation into their ostensibly safe glass houses: a very deluded 1734, a mental hospital where all is not as it seems, a multitude of unsuspecting restaurants, and the innumerable sex spots for Victor - all of which provide a supposed safe haven from the heartless and cruel real world. Palahniuk advances many themes throughout Choke, not the least of which mandates not to escape from reality, but instead to create your own new reality. Because escape isn't as perfect as you imagine it.

Rating:
Summary: interesting
Review: .. i'm not going to give you a history lesson on how i got about to reading all chuck palahniuk's books but i just wanted to say it started off with "choke". yes, i was a little late to notice the genius, nonetheless chuck palahniuk is an amazing author who always keeps things moving and even has a message. any of his books are worth reading. this is a highly entertaining, very funny book with an interesting plot and not so predictable ending. definately worth buying..you'll probably want to read it again.

Rating:
Summary: All Choked Up
Review: "Choke" had very little to say on the real world issues threatening to blow the gentle political machinations of the Zambian aristocracy apart like a Russian MiG targeting a carvival sideshow stack of bottles. It's shameful that Chuck couldn't use his "novel" platform to better safeguard the future wellbeing of young Zambians. It makes me want to vomit.

Rating:
Summary: Achievement in love
Review: What can I say he did it again? This is Palahniuk's funniest book yet and more odd than any other, even "Invisible Monsters". I was taken aback by "Choke" because it is not the same as the others. It has a special additive of fantasy entwined in it, which captivates the reader. As usual the main character, Vincent Mancini with his numerous sexual encounters and hilarious moments, leads the story into a web of uncertainty, confusion, and explicit sexuality whether in another woman's bedroom, the mile high club, or in the hospital where his mother is dying. I loved this book and recommend it to any one looking for a bizarre story that has a tremendous heaping of humor in it.

Rating:
Summary: one more trip down the same road
Review: It's not that Chuck Palahniuk is overated. He deserves some, if not all the attention that he's been getting for being a truly inventive and amusing author. The problem seems to be that his books are never quite capable of pulling off a genuine interest and concern for the misled and troubled characters. Palahniuk's skewed view of the world his books take place in adds enormously to their cynical humor and biting sarcasm, but effectively keeps us from viewing the characters as basically good people, or even as true humans. This problem kept me from ever really enjoying the truly original ideas and complicated subplots.

In Choke, Victor Mancini is a sex-aholic who supports himmself and his hospitalized mother by going to resteraunts and pretending to choke on a piece of food until someone 'rescues' him. His theory is that once a person saves your life, they feel responsible for it forever. As in all of Palahniuk's books, multiple plot lines that seem unrelated pop up constantly, revealing facts about Victor's childhood with his sociopahtic mother, his day job at a colonial reenactment village, his best friend and fellow sex-addict, and a doctor at his mother's hospital. These all tie in to the ending, which was personally a let down to me considering some of the other great endings his books have had.

Choke has all the outward makings of a good book, but it lacks emotional depth and human interest, which prove vital in the end.

Rating:
Summary: My ears are bleeding from this great Mind-F#ck
Review: "A Bukowski and Braughtigan love child" isn't the right description for who I think Palahniuk is, but it's the first description that comes to mind.
Read this book.