Choke

More from Ryan's shelf. I had always been interested in reading some Chuck Palahniuk, as I really enjoyed Fight Club, even if it is a little played out by now. Choke carries over that heavily cynical tone Fight Club employed and reminded me a lot of the intro where the unnamed narrator becomes addicted to support groups. Addiction is a recurring theme in Choke- the protagonist Victor and most of the characters are sex-addicts in a 12-step recovery plan who have no interest in actually recovering. Palahniuk makes a good point about addiction- if it's new and exciting, it's glamorized, but if it's old hat then no one really cares. Reminds me of how you can't turn on the tv without seeing Hoarders or something similar. Along the way Victor becomes a con man to pay for care for his dieing mother- he feigns "choking" on food in restaurants to get people to save him, and out of an odd sense of responsibility these people keep sending him money to make sure he stays on his feet. Victor's relationship with his insane mother causes Victor to have some major issues with women, likely the cause for his sex addiction. Whether the book is taking a feminist or anti-feminist stance (men aren't as fortunate as women because they can't "create a miracle" (childbirth)) the themes certainly run deep. Another running subplot felt a lot like that movie Dogma- Victor receives some startling information that he may in fact be the son of god. At first you think "no chance, not even in the context of the book does it make sense" but along the way the parallels between this foul-mouthed asshole and Jesus become more and more clear and the possibility opens up. There's no "Tyler Durden is the narrator" type of twist here to wrap things up, but plenty of smaller ones along the way that kept the book fresh and interesting throughout. I'm slowly making my way down one of Ryan's bookshelves, and I don't think the next Palahniuk book (probably Fight Club itself) is far off- I'm looking forward to it.