Choke

Although the movie Choke isn’t being released until August, I finished the book within a couple weeks as I could not put it down. The book: Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club.

I will not ruin anything for those who might chose to read this book. The most inspirational thing for me was concerning his writing style. It is not the average book that fits into the ‘normal rules’ of writing, if you will. It seems similar to that of older literature (Kafka comes to mind) from the late 1800’s and/or early 1900’s where for example; one word -if used properly- could be an entire sentence to describe an event, person or what have you.

His humour and overall feel of the book are honest, bold, dark, and dramatic. The main character, along with some secondary characters, gives you a range of feelings from frustration, anger, disgust and empathy. They are those people we don’t think much of in life that often surprise us in the end. Palahniuk implements time shifting and leaves the reader in the dark until the moment to let you in is ideal. Description is key and as a good author he enables you to envision what your imagination believes the scene looks like as opposed to over explanation or attempting to force a specific image in your mind.

But I think what really spoke to me was Palahniuk’s ability to write openly and honestly no matter the subject. And from reading other things he has written like ‘Guts’ it truly seems -to me- that his underlining message in some of his writing is that the majority of people hide from things even if it is put directly in your face where you will turn and ignore it. Many will criticize that it is merely a way of shocking to be shocking. Although some of it is shocking -especially Guts- I truly don’t see it that in Choke.

Basically the idea with the honest and open writing style I sum it up this way; humans ignore discussion or will not face things, let’s call them ‘taboo’ in ‘polite society’, which exist b/c of the way we have been taught over time. We were told to react to these issues, like sex, or being to embarrassed to get checked for colon cancer or masturbation just for a few examples, in a certain way, yes this is to help with development, protect us and respect others which is all good, but can shape our mind and make us withdraw.

So when it comes to a book like this it is nice to read something that does not hide from things that might make us blush. Essentially we have all experienced the same or similar things and he merely uses extreme cases to make the point that we can not ignore what we all experience, "Tyler and I just gave it a name."

The negative issue for me was an overwhelming feeling, in certain parts of the book that made me think it could have been called "Sex Club" and been in a series with Fight Club. Only b/c there are similarities in characters and overall feel. Which -from my experience- most authors have generally an ongoing feel to their books b/c these characters are those they relate to.

The other thing was that it left me wanting more. But this can quickly be seen as a positive b/c I didn’t feel that the book was unfinished because he ran out of creative juices but actually b/c I just liked it so much.