Choke

Rating:
Summary: Still The Cutting Edge! - Don't Miss it!
Review: In literature today, Chuck Palahniuk is the man of the moment. No other new author in recent memory has made such an immediate and important impact. With the controversial "Fight Club" Palahniuk muscled his way into the spotlight and gave his readers an uncompromising look at the flaws in our sometimes over-glorified culture. Now with the no less controversial "Choke" Palahniuk continues to deliver.

"Choke" is an exploration of sexual deviancy, but the main theme of the novel, like "Fight Club," is the modern-day angst caused from the apparent purposelessness of our watered-down, machine assisted lifestyle. There is a certain desperation that can be felt behind the novel's sometimes witty, sometimes grotesque, always compelling escapades. More so than in any of his other novels, you can hear Palahniuk's own uncertainty behind the false bravado of his unfortunate characters. Essentially, "Choke" is a discussion on what is most important in life and a plea for some guidance as to how to achieve it. But by presenting this argument through a series of ill-conceived misadventures, the discussion is rendered light and compelling.

Palahniuk writes with a short, terse style that is always compared to Vonnegut but which also reminds me of Hemingway. He tries to write as people speak, and the often grammatically garbled, yet perfectly understandable sentences that result are given a very spontaneous feel as a consequence. The novel is obviously well conceived and well polished, but it is not tediously overworked, as most novels that try to sound literary tend to be. Although I would hesitate to call Palahniuk's style new, he does add a dimension to this sort of "free" writing that I haven't seen before and which is very refreshing.

"Choke" is a marvelous novel. If you have any interest in being on the cutting edge of where literature is going, this is the book you must read. Although many of "Choke's" themes are very similar to the ones found in Palahniuk's previous books, "Choke" provides them with a more personal touch. Palahniuk has matured, and perhaps grown more confident as a writer; he is bringing his readers further and further into his confidence. In addition to "Choke," another recent novel I picked up off Amazon -- that I really love, feel obsessive about -- is "The Losers' Club" by Richard Perez. It's hard to purchase (continuously "sold out") but pick up even a used copy if you can, this novel is great -- no BS.

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: 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: 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.

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: 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: Just didn't get it
Review: Palahniuk probably achieved his fame and reputation by writing the book that led to the movie that became the anthem for angry, young, white, middle-class men working in boring office jobs: FIGHT CLUB. And that right there probably explains why I didn't really like CHOKE. The main character is, again, an angry, young, white man -- not so middle class, this time -- who works days as living color in colonial "Dunsboro" and has a second job as the guy who almost chokes to death in a restaurant until some well-meaning person saves him. How does he make money from this? Well, he really does adhere to that adage that if you save someone's life, you're responsible for that person for the rest of your life -- and he makes his saviors adhere to it, too. And he thinks he's doing some good by giving these people a great story and a sense of accomplishment that they can dine out on for years to come.

The reason why this young main is so angry? Because his mom was crazy and was in jail a lot when he was a kid, and kept kidnapping him from his foster homes the moment she got released from jail, only to get locked back up shortly thereafter for some inane stunt or another. Now his mom is in a mental institution and won't eat, and he's become convinced that she conceived him by using the DNA of Jesus' foreskin -- in other words, he's the son of Christ. Whether that makes him the Second Coming or the Antichrist I could never figure out.

The reason why I didn't like this book? It's so aggressively male, even more so than FIGHT CLUB. The main character, besides being angry, is also a sex addict who spends his free time conquering and debasing every woman he comes across. There are no realistic female characters in this book, not even the woman he ends up worshiping to the point [...]. There are no sympathetic male characters, either. The whole thing seems designed to make the reader feel slightly sick in the stomach. But Palahniuk must be doing something right, because all my male friends who read this book loved it. Me? I just didn't get it, I guess.

Rating:
Summary: Great writing, never comes together as a story
Review: This is an unforgettable book, and that's why I found it somewhat disapointing. It's the story of Victor Mancini, a sex-addict developing a con scheme to pretend to choke in restaurants to pay for the medical care of his dying mother, and the author certainly pushes the envelope hard. Victor had a wild childhood which consisted of his mother escaping from prison or metal institutions to teach him important life lessons while engaging in reckless activities such as stealing school buses. Palahniuk creates a number of memorable scenes, especially those when he visits his dying mother. A few chapters about Victor's sexual exploits come across as Penthouse letters taken to the highest possible art form. There are numerous witty and scathing observations throughout the book.

The problem I found is that it never came together as a story. The characters are effectively without much further dimension than their various dysfunction's. Various scenes barely connect. It becomes hard to care about these characters with a plot that barely hangs together, and the slightly gimmicky ending has a muddled payoff. So as with Victor's countless sexual encounters, something is missing which prevents satisfaction at the climax.