Blegh. Well, that isn’t entirely fair… I liked a fair amount of the book. But the last quarter of it just wasn’t up to snuff. Not Chuck Palahniuk’s best work.
It was very average…have you read all of his books? Anyone know when the next one comes out?
I haven’t read all of them, yet. Actually, I’ve only read Fight Club and Choke, but I’ve read a lot of his essays and shorter stuff I’ve found floating around.
The thing that got me with Choke is that I felt like he skirted around his point for most of the book, and never really got around to saying much that wasn’t said in Fight Club. Specifically, the line “we are a generation of men raised by our mothers” (from FC) summed up just about everything of interest in Choke.
Finally, the whole “Dr. Paige Marshall” thing was just ludicrous. I mean, come on. “ooh, look! A twist!!” What really gets me is that I loved the first 3/4 of this book. I was really, really getting into it, and then it just fell flat. Sigh.
wow,thats kind of weird I just read that book and was thinking of posting on this forum about how it was not that good of a book.I Liked Fight club and survivor alot but choke was a real dissapointment it didnt seem to have a real plot the book just didnt really go anywhere,and nothing really exciting or interesting happended in the book.
Then don’t read “Invisible Monsters”…the plot twists are 10x as bad…and you won’t like “Survivor” much either…
His essays are cool though…the one about fighting people when he worked at a gas station, the one about taking a cycle, and the one about working in a hospice are good. Ever notice how all of his books contain a reference to anabolic steroids!!!
I thought it was his best work since Fight Club. BTW, Fight Club was his second book. He wrote it after getting pissed that Invisable Monsters was rejected initially. His next book is a horror story called Lullaby.
READ SURVIVOR excellent book,you’ll like it if you liked fight club,choke was just a bad book.
He’s way over-rated as a novelist. His work is essentially an outline for screenplays, where his use of violence, erratic plot twists and general shock value go over much better. There are plenty of other better novelists out there who write about sex, drugs and violence on a much more sophisticated level than Palahniuk does. Maybe Palahnuik’s books are “cool”, but they’re not deep whatsoever. Read Don Dellio’s Underworld (of anything else by DeLillo for that matter), Billy the Kid or Coming through Slaughter by Ondaatje or anything by Dostoevsky for novels that are brilliant as well as “cool”. Sorry if I sound like a snob, I’m a lit student.
Actually quite a few people prefer “Survivor” over any of his other books. Although doubtful it will be made into a movie after 9/11. Pahlnuik is great but I beleive he needs to change his style a bit and move on. His next book will probably be a bit of a departure from what his usual writing.
Invisible Monsters was probably the lamest of the bunch IMO. I enjoyed Choke personally - however Survivor and Fight Club still remain his better books. I definitely picked up on his numerous references to steroids in his books. Hadn’t realised he had actually tried them before.
It was interesting to me that he implied in his essay on steroids that they would cause one’s penis to get larger.
Yeah, there’s actually a Chuck P. website that suggests other books in his vein and DeLillo is one of the suggested authors. I still dig all of his books, even if they’re not “deep” or whatever. BTW, I have a degree in English, so there!!! BTW part2, its not my only degree!!!
the new one comes out in september, the beginning I think.