Resumo de Choke - Chuck Palahniuk

In Chuck Palahniuk?s novel, Choke, there is but one valuable lesson to be learned by all?there's a way back for every man.

We are introduced to Victor Mancini, a man with a world of
problems. He is a med student drop
out. He is a recovering sex addict who
regularly beds women in the building that his addiction meetings are being held. His mother, who had spent much of his youth
in and out of trouble with the law and was constantly kidnapping him from his foster
homes, is now rapidly deteriorating in a nursing home. He works in a colonial theme park where

everyone must rigidly play by the rules of the 18th century or risk
being banished (or fired) which leaves him with very little money?so he devises
a way to pay for his mother?s healthcare by pretending to choke in fancy
restaurants and then scamming his rescuers out of money.

And it only gets worse from there.

Victor?s life stems from his childhood. His mother, mentally ill and a fugitive,
regular comes back to claim her son at different intervals of his life. Along the way she passes along her truths in
life (?If you?re ever in a big hotel and they start to play Blue Danube, get

the hell out. Don?t think. Run.?), sufficiently making her son a basket
case until the very last day that she comes to get him?in a school bus, no
less.

As an adult, Victor finds himself in a pitiful existence. He spends his days working at a colonial
village, where his slow-witted friend Denny constantly finds himself in the

stocks for breaking the laws of space and time by unwittingly integrating the

current century with the 1800s. His
nights he spends either counting checks that come in from people who?d saved
him in various restaurants or having illicit sex with sex offenders who were
supposed to be attending the same meetings that he?s supposed to attend.

His life is turned upside down when he meets Page Marshall ?
the attending doctor (or so she seems) in the nursing home with his mother. She beckons him to have sex with her in order
to save his mother ? the idea being (and get this) to use the fetus to inject
new brain cells into her mother?s already deteriorating mind. Vincent finds himself faced with the decision
whether to impregnate Dr. Marshall and, thus, possibly cure his mother or let

her deteriorate into death and releasing him forever from his debt to her. Along the way, he finds himself unwittingly
setting the troubled minds of some of the nursing home patients at ease by
taking the blame for past crimes committed against them.

Chuck Palahniuk writes this story much like he does his
other tales. He has a terrific sense of
wit and character development that, despite some rather unbelievable
situations, allows the readers to suspend their belief enough to immerse
themselves in the story. His stories

read out more like urban legends than conventional stories and allow the reader
to escape into his own twisted world. As
we go through the story with Vincent, there is a sense of sympathy for the
character. He is completely aware of his
depravity, yet he constantly struggles (in many instances, unconsciously) to
redeem himself.

The beauty of this (and other Palahniuk novels) is that it
is an unflinching look into one man?s complete
life. There is no switching to the next
scene to save the reader from the shock of what is to come. There is no sugarcoating of any of the events
that befall Vincent. This is his life as
he sees it and he (much like Palahniuk) is unapologetic for the man that he is
throughout the novel?and the man that he becomes in the end.

While this story is definitely not for the squeamish, it is
a wonderful change from the good guy/bad guy formula that has plagued many
books that have come out in recent years.

Love it or hate it, Choke is
an excellent example of a change in the way stories will be told.

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