Strangled by formula
CHUCK PALAHNIUK IS feeling confident these days. With three ripping yarns to his credit (Fight Club, Invisible Monsters and Survivor), he challenges the reader at the beginning of his new book, saying: 'If you're going to read this, don't bother.' You know, and he knows, that you're hooked.
This time the protagonist in the author's monochrome vision of Middle America is Victor Mancini. A lonely, detached soul, he has serious problems with his mother. For one thing, she is wasting away at St Anthony's (where 'you could do just about anything anywhere, and they could wipe it up'). But more than that, it's the nature of his bond to her that is bothering Victor.
She was a god-like urban terrorist who used to kidnap the young Victor every time she escaped a secure institution. She would do this so she could teach her son that everything in this world is regimented and boring and we need to wipe the slate clean, creating new rules and words for it. However, Victor rejected his mother and chose a safe life - one that is suffocating him until he is, literally, choking.
That's the main thrust, but as with all Palahniuk books, it's the alluring vignettes that put meat on the bones. We have Victor going into top restaurants and pretending to choke so that someone can save him by performing the Heimlich manoeuvre. 'You gain power by pretending to be weak. By contrast, you make people feel so strong. You save people by letting them save you.' And those who save him send him cash: 'It's that old Chinese custom where if somebody saves your life, they're responsible for you forever.'
Fundamentally though, Victor is a sex addict. Again, typical of Palahniuk, it takes a sudden twist in the plot for Victor to realise the error of his ways and to rectify his mental state. And this is where the author fails. The twist is too weak, leaving Choke bearing the weight of its formulaic style. While in Fight Club we find a searing mandate for the mid-20s male, in Invisible Monsters we have a clever play on identity and in Survivor there's some blinding imagery, there is nothing to distract from Choke's obviousness.
For one thing, Palahniuk cannot write sex, it just doesn't work, and this is a big shortfall in a novel about a sexaholic. Most upsettingly, the monotone narrative voice becomes grating.
Instead of bringing the caustic observation of previous efforts, it tends towards cliche. With the success of his previous work Palahniuk had to try the formula one more time. In places he pulls it off, but he needs to find a fresh, new voice, clear his throat and move on.
Choke
by Chuck Palahniuk
Doubleday $250
