Victor Mancini is a ruthless con artist. Victor Mancini is a med-school dropout who's taken a job playing an Irish indentured servant in a colonial-era theme park in order to help care for his Alzheimer's-afflicted mother. Victor Mancini is a sex addict. Victor Mancini is a direct descendant of Jesus Christ. All of these statements about the protagonist of Choke are more or less true. Welcome, once again, to the world of Chuck Palahniuk. "Art never comes from happiness." So says Mancini's mother only a few pages into the novel. Given her own dicey and melodramatic style of parenting, you would think that her son's life would be chock-full of nothing but art. Alas, that's not the case. In the fine tradition of Oedipus, Stephen Dedalus, and Anthony Soprano, Victor hasn't quite reconciled his issues with his mother. Instead, he's trawling sexual-addiction recovery meetings for dates and purposely choking in restaurants for a few moments of attention. Longing for a hug, in other words, he's settling for the Heimlich.
Thematically, this is pretty familiar Palahniuk territory. It would be a pity to disclose the surprises of the plot, but suffice it to say that what we have here is a little bit of Tom Robbins's Another Roadside Attraction, a little bit of Don DeLillo's The Day Room, and, well, a little bit of Fight Club. Just as with Fight Club and the other two novels under Palahniuk's belt, we get a smattering of gloriously unflinching sound bites, including this skeptical bit on prayer chains: "A spiritual pyramid scheme. As if you can gang up on God. Bully him around."
Whether this is the novel that will break Palahniuk into the mainstream is hard to say. For a fourth book, in fact, the ratio of iffy, "dude"-intensive dialogue to interesting and insightful passages is a little higher than we might wish. In the end, though, the author's nerve and daring pull the whole thing off--just barely. And what's next for Victor Mancini's creator? Leave the last word to him, declaring as he does in the final pages: "Maybe it's our job to invent something better.... What it's going to be, I don't know." --Bob Michaels
Books and Book Collecting
Books have been an undisputed favourite and a prominent source of information for individuals with a thirst for knowledge. Beginning with the advent of written language and the zest to document our history, books still are the first physical means of communication beyond spoken language and are synonymous with education the world over. Books act as a tutorial to millions around the world owing to the diverse subjects they encapsulate. Reading books quiet simply transforms a layman to a proficient speaker with an impeccable vocabulary and fairly good general knowledge skills.
Book collecting is a hobby thats passionately pursued by voracious readers, or as their famously termed ‘bibliophiles and is constantly evolving as a trend. With libraries, bookstores and book sellers feeding this need to read; people now have an endless choice and can avail of books catering to different genres. One can find fiction, sci-fi fiction, mysteries, fables, biographies, documentaries, fairy tales and fantasy stories as categories to name a few. As readers involve themselves in the aspect of book collecting, they learn of different genres and tend to choose a niche most suitable to their reading pleasure.
With the advent of the internet, online booksellers and virtual book collecting in digital formats, the domination of book collecting is gradually fading in the background as people turn to quicker means of data acquisition. However, for many avid readers, the significance of book collecting is perpetual and will live through the ages. The exclusive element of possessing rare books is an exhilarating feeling in its own right.
Books are the core of information as they bring an array of insights and facts to the table and throw light on different genres. Depending on various genres, books can be used to suit many purposes. Book collecting gives people the opportunity and choice to acquaint themselves with knowledge from various spheres in life and broaden their horizons of understanding.
