Rating: 
Summary: An Enjoyable Book You'll Want To Read Twice
Review: Having read all of Chuck Palahniuk's other books I eagerly anticipated Choke. After getting the book I sat down and over the course of only a couple of nights I breezed right through it. Chuck's text flows so well, and the story is so engaging, it's really hard to put the book down. But in a quick read it's so easy to miss what makes Choke so great. The gems of this book lie in the nooks and crannies of the story. The main thread of the book is a wonderfully twisted story of a guy (Victor) who fakes choking at restaurants so people can save him and then eventually help him pay for his mother's care. But what you'll catch the second time around are these amazing moments - everything from a how-to guide for the mile high club, to scenes with Victor in his mom's retirement home taking the blame for senile patients' long unresolved conflicts. Every Chuck Palahniuk book has something new and refreshing to offer and Choke follows that thread well. I definitely recommend Choke, and as with many of Palahnuik's books, you've got to read it at least twice!
Rating: 
Summary: CHOKE--see also:a must read.
Review: I've read all of Chuck's books and this one by far exceeds the boundaries of creativity and satire I thought were possible given the laws of thermodynamics, the speed of light, and what unique understanding I posess of the human psyche and the usefulness of chocolate pudding. On that note, CHOKE tells the agonizing story of Victor Mancini, a man who has spent his whole life trying to measure up to the unrealistic expectations of a demented Italian mother whom he now supports in a rest home through a clever pyramid scheme. This has forced him to drop out of medical school and put his life on hold. He lives a meager existance working in the equivalent of colonial Williamsburg (a backward world that is more real than his own), where he works with Denny, his bald, pathetic best friend and codependent sex addict. Victor uses sex and women in order to avoid the pain of seeing the truth about himself, that is he has become more pathetic than Denny, who has got to be at the sub-zero level of self-esteem. Chuck brings up his unconventional humor on relationships, hitting rock bottom, the twelve step program for addiction, and the political correctness of masking our words in order to protect the public from any stress or panic. There may come a time when it's necessary to yell fire in a theatre but we are far from it. If this doesn't make any sense, then that's a good thing, because it's hard to get a handle on it. The joy in reading this book, outside of the fact that my jaw hurts from laughing so hard, is that Chuck makes you wrestle with his characters and Victor is no exception. He puts alzheimer's patients at ease by ingesting the blame for every way they have been wronged, much like christ absolving one from his sins. VIctor in many ways paints the truth to other people as they would like to believe it truely exists, filling them with a false sense of satisfaction that thay are more than happy to reciprocate upon. That is, he fakes choking at restaurants, allowing people to step up to the plate in a safe environment with no danger of failing themselves. Victor makes people the hero they desperately are seeking to be in their own lives.What Victor fails to realize is you can only take this so far before you become the victim of your own deceit. Chuck's books are lathered with the painful aspects of seeing things for what they are, not how we chose to see them. The messages are profound and his insight into obscessive-compulsive behavior should be a must read in every abnormal psychology class. Unfortunately, that's about as likely as CHOKE being put on Oprah's BOOK CLUB list or Rosie O'Donnell joining the N.R.A.
Rating:
Summary: "perfect" isn't the right word, but the first I think of. .
Review: Palahniuk outdoes himself with this fourth installment of his usual style.I wish I could write this well. I read Choke in one night and was blown away. His plot emerges from underneath a barrage of dead-on imagery and belly-laugh satire. Some of the lines in this book I found TOO profound to underline. I enjoyed this novel even more than his last outing: Survivor. I'm not going to give away the plot, but this is definitely not for the sqeamish. Sex addicts, alzheimers, and the Heimlich all fall prey to Chuck's vicious wit. If you've read any of his other work and enjoyed in the least, you owe it to yourself to investigate Mr. Palahniuk's adaptation of today's real world.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but no fight club.
Review: Another excellent novel by an excellent author. After reading 2 of the first 3 (haven't gotten to Survivor) Palahniuk novels I was excited to read Choke. What I found was the typical character in a typical Palahniuk novel. Not that this a bad thing mind you. As the story progresses you can see hints of Palahniuk's standout Fight Club strewn throughout from the macho attitudes of the main character to the down right lunacy of some of his behavior. You can see hints of "Joe"from fight club and Shannon from Invisible monsters. "Joe" is seen in the self help sexual addiction meetings and Shannon is seen in the self destroying behavior of choking onesself as she did with popping pills. I'm sure Palahniuk is tired of the comparisons to Fight Club but they are inevitable and well justified. You can't write a novel like that without leaving the reader addicted to your literary style/genre. Choke feeds this addiction well and leaves the reader wanting more of this author's fantastic works.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and sick-- what else would you expect?
Review: The only reason I found myself laughing while reading this book less than I did when I read Fight CLub was because of the fact that I read the majority of this book at work and didn't want my coworkers pestering me about what I was reading, because of the graphic sex. The chapter where Chuck first introduces us to the Colonial village was genuinely hilarious. The bathroom chapter concerning the meeting in room 234 was sick and twisted and just over the top. I really hate to say anymore because I don't want to ruin anyone's enjoyment of this. I hear Chuck's next book, Lullabye, is a more serious work. I'm sure he'll manage to inject enough of his observations to keep it from being a somber po-faced piece.
Rating:
Summary: a fulfilling return from the author of Fight Club
Review: This may prove to be Palahniuk's breakthrough novel, following as it does the success of the film Fight Club. Critics of the movie may cite the shortage of character development and seemingly superficial responses to the complex and compelling problems of the contemporary American male. But no one can say that Victor Mancini, Palahniuk's newest protagonist, is not a nuanced and well-drawn young man. A sex addicted med school dropout with a pencant for pretending to choke on food at restaurants to solicit the help (and, eventually, the money) of his fellow restauranteurs, Mancini's mother seems to hold a dark secret about his identity. Unfortunately, she's dying of Alzheimer's. Meanwhile, Victor and his best friend work in a Colonial Williamsburgesque seventeenth century Living Hell. This is probably Palahniuk's funniest novel to date, and also his saddest. It's this accomplishment, mixing the depressing monotony of middle-class suburban life with the hilariously tragic ways we try to escape our existential crises, that makes this novel stand out from the library of absurd, sardonic American fiction. (see also: Tom Robbins) The prose itself shows more literary marksmanship than even Palahniuk's popular Invisible Monsters, and Victor's imprecise grasp of the language (Choke is largely a first person narrative) is wonderfully evocative of a 20something finding his way. Again and again, he can't find the exact word for a feeling, and settles for "the first word that comes to mind." Brilliant isn't the right word for Choke, but it's the first word that comes to mind.
Rating: 
Summary: The Things We Do for Love
Review: The book begins with this warning: "If you're going to read this, don't bother." This book "is a stupid story about a stupid little boy." And many should follow that advice. The book revels in sexual addiction, fantasies, and mental illness in a way that few will find a happy experience. The story itself is very self-indulgent, because the core theme of the book did not need to be so filled with unpleasant scenes and language. I graded down the book for the degree that this takes place in ugly thoughts and deeds that were not essential to the story's development. On the other hand, the character development of Victor Mancini, the anti-hero in Choke, is masterful. Mr. Palahniuk has taken on quite a challenge, and pulled it off very well. As someone who loves character development, I was impressed. If you enjoy the type of humor in the book, savage parodies of our sex-symbol-filled society, you will find yourself laughing aloud in many places. My favorite was the section about hypnosis. The novel evolves through an alternating combination of flashback and narration of what is occuring in the current time. Obviously mixed in with the currrent narration are fantasies of an extreme nature, usually involving sexual relations. The flashbacks relate to a little boy whose Mother moves erratically in and out of his life. Victor Mancini is a drop out from medical school who now works at Colonial Dunsboro where he pretends to be an Irish indentured servant from the 18th century. His Mother, Ida, is in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's, and Victor is her guardian. Since the $6 per hour he makes at Colonial Dunsboro doesn't pay for much nursing home care, he supplements his income by pretending to choke in restaurants. He does this with great panache until someone saves him. The grateful hero often wants to stay in touch, often sending some money to help Victor out. Do this often enough, and you can pay for nursing home care. However, it's complicated because his Mother doesn't quite recognize him any more, and she's stopped eating. What should he do? Much of the story development will strike you as needless repetition, yet it is all carefully calculated . . . so be patient. If you make it all the way to the end, you will like the book and the story much better. In fact, you may find that you will want to read the book a second and third time to rethink what you believed during your first reading. Pay close attention as you go. After you read this story, you definitely should think about why you do what you do. How much of it is simply a cry for love? Can you find better ways to earn and enjoy love? Perhaps. It's worth exploring. May you enjoy even more love than you give. Be generous!
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: pages of good writing about uncomfortable subjects
Review: Chuck Palahniuk is a great writer, but I found Choke to be an "uncomfortable" read from beginning to end. In Choke almost every character is physically or mentally disturbed but described carefully and perfectly. The protagonist is a sex addict, written about in such detail that you many never want to have sex again. Based on his upbringing you understand why he is the way he is. YOu understand too much. His best friend is prob. the most disgusting character ever written about (the protagonist is runner-up). Their mucus, filth, smell, dirt, blocked bowels, release of blocked bowels, are described in full glory.
The plot of the book involves the main character faking his death by choking in various restaurants around town. The people that save him, pity him and want to help later by sending him checks to subsidize him. I had a problem with this. I would think that someone doing the saving would be the one getting paid back, not the other way around.
The ending of the book has a decent twist, but I was on the fence whether it was interesting or convenient for the author.
The book as stated before was very well written, but not for me at this time. I can understand the range of ratings Choke has thus far received.
|
