Taking The Blame (Choke - Chuck Palahniuk)

Member Name: MykReeve

Product:	Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
Date:	06/09/01 (394 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written, Good dialogue, Some well observed passages

Disadvantages: Disjointed, Overall plot is obscured, Weak twist at the end, Short

Poor old Chuck. After the monumental success of the book, 'Fight Club', following David Fincher's film adaptation, the pressure's piled up on him to repeat the formula – to take another well-aimed swipe at modern culture, and make the reader think about their place in it. 'Survivor' was a great attack on the state of organised religion in America, 'Invisible Monsters' looked at the importance modern culture attaches to superficial appearance, and 'Fight Club' examined the position of males in modern society.

'Choke', however, is a far clumsier affair. The main message of the book is one that is overshadowed by Chuck's attempts to address largely unconnected aspects of modern culture. His main message, concerning the desire of us all to unburden our blame for our woes, is largely obscured by Palahniuk's flights of fancy through sexual addiction, hospital treatment of geriatrics and historical recreational theme parks. All of these tangential expeditions through modern culture are as well written, and indeed cynical, as you might expect if you have read Palahniuk before, but they are so separate from the main plot as to be distracting.

THE PLOT

The main subject of the book, Victor Mancini, seeks to make himself a scapegoat for all mankind – someone whom we can blame for all our wrongs, and consequently, someone who can improve the quality of our lives. Mancini goes from restaurant to restaurant pretending to choke on his food, and hoping to be "saved" by people, who then feel responsible for him, periodically sending him well-wishes and cheques.

Mancini is driven by a desperate desire to find the identity of his father, and attempts to tease this information from his mother, as she lies on her death bed in hospital. He works in a theme park, Colonial Dunsboro, where the employees have to accurately recreate life in 1734, and are penalised for anachronistic
infractions.

THE BOOK

"Portions of 'Choke' have appeared in 'Playboy", the text inside the front cover informs us. Evidently, while working on this book, Palahniuk couldn't refuse the opportunity to make a few dollars from writing a passage for the magazine. As you read the book, there are no prizes for guessing which passages have previously appeared in 'Playboy' and, to a certain extent, this process of writing explains why the book is as disjointed as it is.

The style of writing is unquestionably Chuck Palahniuk's own, however, there is a hint of self-parody about it – all the elements of Palahniuk's previous books are there, almost as though they've been ticked off a checklist.

The book is written in the first person. Check.

Elements repeated throughout the book. Check. [Failed medical student Mancini presents us with diagnoses of other characters throughout the book (e.g. "See also: Hypothermia"), and at choice moments, we are presented with items from the "if you do any of the following things, you may be a sexaholic" list].

Twist at the end. Check.

But, what's wrong with the book, fundamentally, is that there is no strong plot driving it. Yes, at times it is a very entertaining read – Palahniuk's account of the urban-legend-style actions of the members of the sex addiction group Mancini sometimes attends is particularly entertaining, for example. The overzealous governors of Colonial Dunsboro are a fantastic idea, and very amusing, although some might argue that Palahniuk really doesn't use them enough, and the theme park itself is certainly largely irrelevant to the story.

Mancini is a difficult character to empathise with too. Certainly he's less developed than the narrators of either 'Fight Club' or 'Invisible Monsters', and consequently less believable. Often, we cannot see t
he reasons for Mancini's actions, and they aren't adequately justified by his narrative. A lot of the blame for this can be pointed at the book's inability to stick to the plot, and wander off at irrelevant tangents. For example, large chunks of the book are taken up with Mancini's sexual exploits, which are clumsily written and filled with such phrases as "sleeved tight around my dog" or "bucking my dog against the front wall of her insides".

So, as to the main point of the book, Mancini's desire to improve mankind's lot by becoming a burden for all our sins... hmm... sound familiar at all? Yup, there's some heavy-handed religious symbolism in there, which is strengthened when Mancini first begins to suspect his father's identity. The "choking" technique to make people feel better about themselves by thinking they've saved Mancini's life is actually fairly incidental to the plot of the book, and doesn't form as larger part of the story as the plot description on the back of the book would suggest. Mancini's most obvious way to resolve people's problems is when he claims to each of the old people in his mother's hospital that he is the one person they've always wanted to confront – the person who killed their dog, or the man who raped them when they were a little girl. This is one of the book's saving graces, in that these passages are well written, and represent one of the few occasions when the prose adequately explains the main character's actions.

It's not revealing too much about the book to tell you that there's a twist at the end, especially since if you've read any of Palahniuk's other works, you're going to be expecting one. The conclusion of 'Choke' is almost guaranteed to disappoint, particularly if, like me, you'd already anticipated it. Perhaps I've read too many of his books and have grown to expe
ct the unexpected, however I doubt it. I think it's far more likely that Palahniuk has simply not spent enough time constructing 'Choke', and this is evident from the fact that his examination of modern society here is a lot less clear or unified than in his previous works. The book seems disappointingly rushed, as though produced to meet contractual obligations, rather than personal desire to express a message... which is surely Palahniuk's forte.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, despite my negativity, 'Choke' is a pretty good read. Some sections of the novel are very well observed and constitute an entertaining stab at elements of modern society. Dialogue is consistently well written and believable, even if the characters generally aren't. The prose flows well, and is easy to read, as with other Palahniuk novels.

However, 'Choke' is too disjointed to be a really satisfying read, with some sections of the book seeming as though they have been jammed in because they seemed like a good idea at the time, regardless of their irrelevance to the main story. The fundamental plot is therefore obscured by these, sometimes amusing, frequently unnecessary, tangents in a way that Palahniuk's books previously haven't, and I found that largely frustrating.

'Choke' is quite a short book too – under 300 pages of large print – so it's hard to justify the hefty £10 price asked for the oversized paperback edition.

The film rights to Palahniuk's next work, 'Lullaby', have already been bought by David Fincher – here's hoping Palahniuk doesn't rush that book to fulfil his contractual obligations, as he seems to have done with 'Choke'... and certainly, let's hope he doesn't write any passages for 'Playboy'.

Summary: