werkz advice: only for die hard fans.

I just finished reading ac copy of Choke that I'd given to my dad as a present some time ago. It's by Chuck Palahniuk, the writer of Fight Club, and like that novel, is a fast-paced, sometimes explicit look at a somewhat delusional protagonist. Overall, I found the book interesting, with a good twist nestled in, but not up to the level of Fight Club.

Palahniuk seems somewhat obsessed with the truth, or rather, the truth around us we are unaware of. The main character in Choke, for instance, is raised by a mother on short anecdotes which reveal the truth in society. He learns as a young child all the codewords for certain occurrences, so that if he's in a hospital, or a shopping mall, or an airport, and Mr. Jones is paged, or Nurse Annie is summoned, he knows what really is going on. It could be a fire, or a person needing sedation, or a terrorist, but the point is always the same: that most people have little idea of the world they are surrounded by. Only the main character, Vic, can understand it all.

Vic goes to sexual-disorder therapy sessions to pick up women. Vic fakes choking in restaurants to earn money to pay for his invalid mother's nursing home/hospital bills. Vic works part time at a colonial village in authentic eighteenth century garb surrounded by people as messed up as he is, also wearing costumes. It's twenty-first century theater of the absurd, limned on two-dimensional pieces of paper. Although partly shocking and partly vulgar, Vic's lifestyle begins to grow slightly annoying as the novel wears on. It's hard to have empathy for someone having sex in an airplane, a lavatory, basically anywhere, who then comes home to find his roommate piling rocks up all over the house. If this sounds strange: it is.

Eventually, the plotline involving Vic's dying mother begins to take precedence, which keeps the story fresh, but exposes one flaw: most of the characters, while unique, aren't all that interesting. Vic's mother is clearly the answer to all the secrets, to all the strange behavior, and Chuck manages to pull this feat off: the end of the book is quite good. Getting to that end can be a little weary or jarring, depending on your frame of mind, but with the right mindset and the right music, it's easy to crunch through the pages. Still, I know that I'm a fan of his style, and I think others might not cotton on to it quite so quickly. So I'm hesitant to give this a positive review. IF you're already a fan, buy it and sample. If not, I'd wait until the David Fincher movie comes out.