“Choke” Chuck Palahniuk Book Review

doi:10.4236/als.2013.12005

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Advances in Literary Study

2013. Vol.1, No.2, 16-18

Published Online April 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/als) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/als.2013.12005

“Choke” Chuck Palahniuk Book Review

Çağrı Tuğrul Mart

Ishik University, Erbil, Iraq

Email: [email protected]

Received February 26th, 2013; revised March 25th, 2013; accepted April 17th, 2013

Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the

original work is properly cited.

Victor Mancini, the protagonist, did not have a happy childhood as his mother was constantly committing

crimes; therefore, she was mostly in jail. Victor was mostly brought up by other families so he grew up

without family affection. Today Victor is in his twenties, but he has got problems. Victor feels lonely and

he cannot forget his past. He tries to forget his loneliness and has become sex addicted. He intentionally

chokes while eating in expensive restaurants, and there is always someone who saves him. A close rela-

tionship between him and his saver starts. His saver even sends him money. But Victor is not doing this

for money. Another problem he has: Victor thinks he is Jesus Christ and he likes this idea because this

will help him to realize he could be a nice guy. Victor never means to deceive other people. He does all

these things to get attention of people. He is searching for love, he is seeking for affection.

Keywords: Choke; Loneliness; Affection; Attention

Introduction

“Victor, his name unironic, emerges winningly from his or-

deals and sets off on a quest for personal meaning. And there’s

your allegory. The world of Choke is like a jaded adolescent’s

version of our own; Victor, an Everyman struggling to find the

true path. He’s not a defined character but an angsty blank for

readers to “relate to” (Patterson, 2001).

This study tries to reveal that Victor is not someone who

manipulates people, but a nice guy who needs love and affec-

tion of people. His being sex addict, his choking on his food,

his thinking that he is Jesus Christ is not to deceive people.

Victor who has been looking for happiness, is in need of love.

He is looking for a warm embrace. He is looking for a tender

look.

Choke: Deceive or Affection?

The protagonist, Victor Mancini, is between his 20s - 30s. He

is a dropout from medical school and works at a park (at a tour-

ist attraction where Victor teaches children about 18th century).

From the beginning of the novel Victor complains about his

mother and the way she has brought him up. Victor’s mother

had lots of troubles and her life was full of crimes. “After I was

born, my mum just stayed put in the States. Not in this house.

She didn’t live here until her last release, after the school bus

theft charge. Auto theft and kidnapping.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p.

37) and Victor knows about her personality. “It’s a safe bet they

don’t know about her obscenity conviction, her attempted mur-

der conviction, her reckless endargerment, her animal harass-

ment.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 37) Victor’s mother has never

showed him real affection. She has spent most of her time ei-

ther in jail or mental hospital so she has never been a caring

mother. Today Victor is a young man but he doesn’t have hap-

piness because he cannot forget the past. He cannot forget how

her mother treated him.

Victor Mancini is a sex addict who attends the meetings to

get over his problem. Victor does not make love with girls be-

cause he likes it. All he needs is attention of people. “For the

next I don’t know how long, I’ve got no problems in the world.

No mother. No medical bills. No museum job. No jerk-off best

friend. Nothing. I feel nothing. Just for these minutes, I don’t

feel lonely.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 10) Victor continues to look

for attention through sex, Victor feels alone so he is seeking for

something to be happy. Sex is a way for him to forget his lone-

liness.

Victor Mancini’s mother stays in a hospital because she suf-

fers from Alzheimer and she has become very forgetful. She

doesn’t even recognize Victor. Victor does not have a strong

relationship with his mother. Victor cannot forget how she

brought him up. He does not appear to like her but he feels he

has to look after her so he needs to pay her hospital bills. Victor

has found a way to pay for his mother’s hospital bills by pre-

tending to choke on his food in expensive restaurants. When he

chokes on his food someone rescues him from death. By saving

him, his saver feels sorry about him and he carries on looking

after Victor. His saver sends Victor cards, letters and even

money.

Victor Mancini is in search of love. He has been always ne-

glected by his mother. As a child, he was saved by a man when

he choked on his food and Victor became very happy when

people showed him affection. Victor has never seen this kind of

fondness from his mother so he cannot forget the past. “You

know the old phrase ‘Those who don’t remember the past are

condemned to repeat it?’ Well, I think those who remember

their past are even worse off.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 99)

“The story exists mostly in the present but also flashes to

periods in Victor’s past when he remembers his mom doing

strange things. These flashbacks allow the reader to discover

Ç. T. MART

that Victor’s mom was a sort of radical in her day, and the

reader slowly uncovers some of the mysteries in Victor’s re-

lationship to his mother, as well as her bizarre teachings.”

(Early, 2010)

Throughout the book Victor always remembers his past and

he blames his mother for every problem he has in his life. “The

story explores Victor Mancini’s journey through life from the

time he was a child, to present time. Piece by piece Palahniuk

reveals some of Victor’s past providing insight to Victor’s cur-

rent life. From his dysfunctional love for his mother to his rag-

ing sexual addictions, the past brings light to the present.” (Joe,

2008) Once his mother made him stand half-naked in the snow

when he was a little kid. “Don’t look. Don’t move a muscle or

you’ll ruin all my work, Control yourself, damn it. Hold still or

you’ll ruin all my work.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 3) His mother

was very harsh against him. Victor was freezing in snow and

his mother did not care about it at all. His mother even threat-

ened to hit him. “This will be worth a little suffering, so hold

still, and don’t make me spank you.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 4)

The way his mother treated him shows how much she loved

him. At present Victor is looking for love in different ways.

Because Victor did not have loving care and attention in his

childhood, he chokes intentionally in search of compassion.

“Somebody saves your life, and they’ll love you forever, it’s as

if now you’re their child.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 24) He misses a

nice family atmosphere because he never had his own family.

His mother was in jail and he was with different families so

they were most of the time far from each other. Victor is look-

ing for a warm embrace. When they were together his mother

never gave him real family happiness. Victor thinks he is a like

a family with those who save him. “But I can build my own

family.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 38)

Victor chokes on his food intentionally but when being saved

by somebody else he wants to save somebody else which shows

there is something nice inside him because he thinks of other

people. “And it’s funny when somebody saves you, the first

thing you want to do is save other people. All other people.

Everybody.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 19)

Victor Mancini, though the way she brought him up, likes his

mother. He dropped out of school to look after her. He thinks

he has to find a job to take care of his mother. “Despite the

misery she put him through in childhood (revealed in an in-

creasingly horrific series of flashbacks), he wants to be a good

boy and take care of her.” (Zaleski, 2001)

Victor has been working too much. He needs to pay for his

mother’s bill. He feels responsible for his mother. “Victor is so

busy because he’s out every night, literally killing himself to

pay her bills for constant care. That’s three grand each month

just to break even. Maybe that’s why Victor left school. I say,

just for the sake of argument, that maybe Victor’s doing his

frigging best.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 22)

Victor constantly visits his mother in the hospital although

mostly she does not recognize him. Victor always asks doctor

whether she is getting better. Victor really cares about her and

asks the doctor to do her best to recover her. “If there is any-

thing you can do to save her and you don’t, you’re killing her

with neglect.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 55) His taking care of his

mother shows that Victor is a nice guy.

Victor always remembers his past and accuses his mother

because she has never been an affectionate mother to him. He

has never received attention from his mother and blames his

mother’s bringing him up for his problems. “All my life, I’ve

been less my mother’s child than her hostage. The subject of

her social and political experiments. Her own private lab rat.”

(Palahniuk, 2008: p. 56)

But Victor cares about his mother and he does everything to

save her from her sickness. He really wants her to get better. “I

just want one person I can rescue. I want one person who needs

me. Who can’t live without me.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 56)

Victor loves his mother and he does not want to lose her. “I

am terrified of losing her.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 56) When his

mother died in the hospital Victor was very sad of losing her.

His relationship with his mother has never been close but he

feels downhearted when he has lost her. “Because now I’m an

orphan. I’m unemployed and unloved. Because my guts hurt,

and I’m dying anyway, from the inside out.” (Palahniuk, 2008:

p. 133)

Victor’s mother used to keep a diary and Victor thinks there

is some secret about him written in it, but the diary is written in

Italian. Dr. Marshall, his mother’s doctor, says she knows Ital-

ian and translates the diary of his mother to Victor. Dr. Mar-

shall says his mother thinks Victor is Jesus Christ. Victor likes

this idea and he thinks he might be a nice guy. “This becomes

challenging when Victor is seduced by a strange hospital worker

calling herself Dr. Marshall, who shows him his mother’s diary;

it describes her self-impregnation by a holy relic she believes to

be the foreskin of Jesus. This has a profound effect on Victor,

who is stunned by the possibility that there may be some good

in him after all.” (Zaleski, 2008: p. 2001) Victor looks for hap-

piness so he accepts the idea that he is Jesus Christ. Victor now

tries to be a nice guy.

After Dr. Marshall told him that he was Jesus Christ, Victor

Mancini has started to realize that he is a good-hearted person

and started to ask people around him what they really think

about his personality. “You don’t think I’m a good hearted

person, do you? You don’t think I’m really a secretly sensitive

and Christlike manifestation of perfect love?” (Palahniuk, 2008:

p. 77) Victor often asks his best friend Denny if he thinks Vic-

tor is a nice guy or not. “I’m not good and kind and caring, you

don’t really think I’m anything like Jesus Christ, do you?”

(Palahniuk, 2008: p. 80) The idea that Victor is a Jesus Christ,

is a manipulation of Dr. Marshall. In spite of the fact that Victor

has been manipulated by Dr. Marshall who tells him he is Jesus

Christ, he wants to believe her very much. Victor has already

started to reveal the nice guy inside him. He does not want to

repeat his previous mistakes. “From now on, I want to try and

be a better person. Choking in restaurants, fooling people, I’m

not going to do that kind of thing anymore. Sleeping around,

casual sex, that kind of thing.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 113)

Victor wants to change and always asks the same question to

himself before he does something wrong. “What would Jesus

not do?” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 85) Victor changes his mind

when he was about to make love with his mother’s doctor, he

did not rape the girl although she asked Victor to do it. For the

first time Victor actively changes his life. He refuses sex and

tells Nico (his sex partner) he needs to move to the fourth step

of the sex addict program which shows he is getting better.

Victor realizes the nice guy inside him and has the ability to

control his life and manners now. Victor has always suffered

from deprivation, he has been always deprived of love and af-

fection by his mother and now constantly looking for attention

of people. He uses his being sex addict, his choking on his food

in restaurants, his accepting the idea that he is Jesus Christ to

receive attention of people.

Ç. T. MART

“Victor himself is an interesting character, if not for the fact

that he is kind of predictable. He’s a man stuck between the

ideals of absolute perfection and absolute corruption. He’s in

the height of his ‘complete perfection’ beliefs and he’s actually

a pretty good guy.” (Early, 2010)

Victor loses his mother. He has found out that he is not Jesus

Christ and was manipulated by Dr. Marshall. He has given up

choking on his food in expensive restaurants. He is not sex

addict any more. In the end all these experiences he had, made

him realize the nice guy inside him. Victor has got rid of his

problems and for the first time in his life he is happy. “For the

first time in longer than I can remember, I feel peaceful. Not

happy. Not sad. Not anxious. Not horny. I am simplifying my-

self. Somewhere balanced in the perfect middle between hap-

piness and sadness.” (Palahniuk, 2008: p. 133)

Conclusion

As a child Victor suffered a lot because his mother did not

show much affection to him. She was not compassionate for

Victor. Victor was in need of a fond embrace. “At heart, Victor

is a compulsive liar-since he feels he can only be loved by ly-

ing.” (Gregg, 2010) He had to drop out of school to look after

his mother who is ill. He chokes on his food on purpose in ex-

pensive restaurants to look after his mother. But Victor does it

because people show him affection when they save him. They

really like him. The attention he receives from his savers makes

him very happy. Victor forgets his deprivation when his savers

rescue him. Victor is also a sex addict. Both his choking and

sex addiction are ways of looking for attention. Throughout the

novel Victor struggles to find happiness, he is in search of love

and affection. Victor who has been in search of love throughout

the novel realizes the nice guy inside him.

REFERENCES

Early, C. (2010). Book reviews: Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk.

http://www.helium.com.html

Gregg, C. (2010). Coke analysis.

http://www.dramas-based-on-books.com.html

Martin, J. (2010) Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, Choke.

http://recommended-fiction.suite101.com.html

Palahniuk, C. (2008). Choke. New York: Anchor.

Patterson, T. (2001). Choke (book review). Entertainment Weekly, 597,

Summary of books by Chuck Palahniuk (2010).

http:// www.pubpages.unh.edu.com.html

Zaleski, J. (2001). Choke (book review). Publishers Weekly, 248, 37