Chuck Palahniuk's "Choke" (Choke - Chuck Palahniuk)

Member Name: jbsabbath

Product:	Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
Date:	07/12/08 (205 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written, amusing scenes

Disadvantages: Doesn't really go anywhere, exploitation more than anything

"There's an opposite to deja vu. They call it jamais vu. It's when you meet the same people or visit places, again and again, but each time is the first. Everybody is always a stranger. Nothing is ever familiar."

That is pretty much how I felt each time I picked up "Choke" from the bedside table, sometimes returning to it after more than a week or so and only slogging through it now and again when I could be bothered.

Certainly, Palahniuk's fourth publication didn't captivate me from the off and nor did it do so at any other point in the book, allowing me to stop reading and return to it much later without a trace of thinking I'd lost the plot.

Because really, I hadn't.

There is no substantial storyline here, as it is more a descriptive exercise of the lurid life and atmosphere swelling around a protagonist as he tries to cope with his existence and reason for being.

Victor Mancini had a troubled upbringing.

Deemed unfit to raise her child, his mother on more than one occasion kidnapped her son from his new foster parents and went on the run, only to be caught once more by the police.

She filled his head with strange, outlandish beliefs that have in later life turned him into an insecure twenty-something, whose job it is to impersonate an 18th century character in a strict historic reinactment, and who after work trawls sex-addiction therapy meetings for action.

By this time, his mother is in an old people's home and the health bills have scuppered his chance at completing medical school, so as well as his back-end job teaching kids what life was like three hundred years ago, he has become a con artist who fakes choking in restaurants only to be 'saved' by one of the other customers.

The idea is that the hero will be so concerned about Victor's well-being that they will send small monthly cheques to him, as well as postcards and letters, safe in the knowledge that they will be able to brag to their friends and family about that one time they saved a guy's life.

To Victor, he's doing a service, and while he searches for a meaning to his life, his mother is slowly withering away and with it his whole reason for being.

After reading and enjoying "Fight Club", I was ready for more of the same from "Choke" as I remember it being the second novel recommended to me by a good friend of mine - so I had high hopes.

Palahniuk as an author appears to enjoy degrading and often repulsive subject matter, from "Fight Club"'s turning surgically removed body fat into soap, to "Choke"'s lack of feeling brought on by sex addiction and detailed descriptions of illness and human biology.

"See also: Intestinal obstruction.
See also: Colorectal foreign bodies."

Palahniuk enjoys shocking and (sometimes) disgusting his reader, soiling a protagonist's already piss-poor life with further deviant activities.

And ultimately, in both novels, he doesn't really *create* characters but rather invent 'voices', some of which you might want to listen to and some you might not.

However, with this comes a lot of pretentious mumbo jumbo along the way, with ideas and theories sometimes listed in excruciating detail, making the novel often read like a seventeen-year-old revolutionary punk's essay on the faults of the system and the collapse of society.

It diverts from the whole 'beginning, middle and end' idea that is the backbone to most fiction and rather just throws you straight into the mess of the central character's head.

So while like "Fight Club" it uses the episodic style of writing, jumping back and forth from one event to the next, to several events ago, "Choke" shows little or no progression as it plods its way through near 300 pages, never pausing for a breather but never really going anywhere either.

But that's not to say "Choke" doesn't have its merits.

While the content and ideas might not be superb, the actual writing style is fluid and easy to read, which is a real bonus, and the great thing about this author is that he is able to skip between ideas and thoughts with seeming ease.

"You can't even hammer a nail with a phallus."

And while the subject matter might sound otherwise, the novel isn't all doom and gloom, and like "Fight Club" contains a lot of very dark humour including some genius descriptions of bewilderingly amusing scenes, such as a notorious 'fake-rape' set-up; explaining the 'subtleties' of 18th century life to school children ("Ask your teacher,"); and telling performing lapdancers to check out moles that might be cancerous.

Of course, dealing with a character who might himself be a sex addict, there are obviously going to be plenty of moments throughout the book when he is on the job, and these cover a number of different activities and situations and will never be for a reader of faint heart, following in Bret Easton Ellis' footsteps with a maniacal grin.

"Wednesdays mean Nico.
Thursdays mean Tanya.
Sundays mean Leeza."

These often feel like moments of escape and there to retain the reader's interest, never really adding to what is a thin plot, and rather extending a character we already feel to be worthless.

"I'm licking the sweat off her back for a nicotine buzz."

This novel could have been written in a diary format and it would still have got its point across.

Ultimately, it instills a sense of uncaring in the reader, as the protagonist has few, if any, endearing qualities.

After all, Victor hates his mother, preferring her to starve than be cared for, as well as being a man who is happy to exploit innocent strangers and step on anyone who has a glimmer of hope in their lives.

In the end, this is a novel you 'put up with' and I didn't really see much point in it - it never really told me anything, nor did it excite or enthrall with its storytelling.

In fact, the main problem here is in its lack of plot and the fact that nothing really happened throughout the novel - this is why I was able to give up on it and return a week later without forgetting anything.

There was never anything to forget.

Ultimately, "Choke" is well written but it achieves little, so it begs the question as to 'Why bother?"

When all is said and done, I don't know.

[The novel can be purchased from play.com for £5.00 including postage and packing (at time of writing).]

Summary: A 300-page description of Palahniuk's dirty mind