Choke
Ratings260
Average rating3.5
I saw a tweet today which stated:
honestly PINK FLAMINGOS is such a potent depiction of the difference between transgression and edgelordiness
My forth Palahniuk book read and he still upholds the shocking and capturing style and concepts that are present through his repertoire.
The back and forth between contrasting elements of the main character's life kept me engaged and reading more and more, although sections of the novel where our protagonist recited in the third person I certainly enjoyed less as palahniuk's style tends to sit more uneasy in a third person perspective
I found each element of Victor's life to be interesting and amounting to his turmoil and misunderstanding within life, whether engaging with his sex addiction, working in the 1800s with his best friend, his dying mother and troubling love interest, they all collaborated to create a full scope of the tragedy within our protagonist's life whilst encouraging motifs, symbols and themes throughout that keep consistency within palahniuk's distinct style.
One element that pleasantly surprised me that I feel palahniuk often struggles with is finishing such scaping ambitious works, with this ending though being loose and as sudden as others works, it felt more complete and fulfilling than other works I have read of his thus far.
Great book, though still sits 3rd out of the 4 of his I have read as of now. Chuck never fails to impress and surprise.
Really weird book. That twist at the end really got me though! Respect to chuck for refusing to write any sex scenes sexily and instead making them all sound gross
Interesting premise and has themes similar to Fight Club, but there's not a lot to this book.
After the set up of the various sub plots, some scenes of Vincent interacting in the various subplots, comes the revelations and very little actually happened. Any consequences of his activities are not part of the limited story.
Some of the scenes are amusing; a lot more are lewd due to the sex addict subplot. If you're squeamish about bodily fluids of all kinds, possibly consider skipping this one.
It's not my idea of “subversive” as most of the criticisms of society and convention are overtly stated.
It was mildly entertaining but although it seems to take on heavy topics (addictions, the medical care system, child abuse, finding meaning in life, etc.), Choke is lightweight.
Settling herself on the towel, Gwen shakes her head and says, “Why do I do this? Why do I always pick the guy who just wants to be nice and conventional? The next thing you'll want to do is marry me.” She says, “Just one time, I'd like to have an abusive relationship. Just once!”
“Because nothing is as good as you can imagine it. No one is as beautiful as she is in your head. Nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.”
“We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it's our job to invent something better.”
“It's creepy, but here we are, the Pilgrims, the crackpots of our time, trying to establish our own alternate reality. To build a world out of rocks and chaos.”
Oh Chuck, how the f**k do you do this? Reviewing a Chuck Palahniuk book is like trying to explain how a rainbow looks like to a blind guy! To begin with it's a story about how a guy fakes choking to death in posh restaurants, just so that he could earn some quick cash and support his mother, who's dying in a hospital. The characters are quite interesting, especially Dr. Paige Marshall and Denny, who collects rocks from the street and treats them as new born babies. The plot is weirdly vague, just like his every other novel. But Chuck still manages to blow off your mind with his masterpiece of a plot twist. Literally, the climax of the novel was just like Chuck putting a shotgun to my head and painting the walls with my brain! The book is so thought-provoking and profoundly charged that it's almost impossible to put it down! It's a plethora of fascinating aphorisms and epigrams.
It's very difficult to explain or review the book. The best you can do it, read and experience it yourself.
As Chuck says in the book, “It's pathetic how we can't live with the things we can't understand. How we need everything labeled and explained and deconstructed.”
It's the best book I've read after Fight Club, in this genre!
I might have enjoyed reading this book's reviews more than the book itself. It's kind of funny how they're all over the map. Controlled chaos, minus the control, seems to be the name of Chuck Palahniuk's game. Anyone who thinks that Choke isn't preachy couldn't have read the same book I did. It's the same story with different words and different people, and it's getting old.
