DNF

Οκ ... το βιβλίο αυτό δεν είναι για όλους .
Ο Πολάνικ καταπιάνεται με εσωτερικές αναζητήσεις και ψυχολογικά προβλήματα χρησιμοποιώντας ως μέσο το σεξ ,τη βία ,τον εθισμό και ένα σεξ τοι που μοιάζει με κομπολόι . Ωμό , χαώδες , παρανοϊκό όπως ακριβώς περίμενα από το συγγραφέα του fight club .

Many themes in this book were enjoyable even if many of them were unlikely. The main character works at a medieval theme park and spends nights pretending to need the Heimlich maneuver because he claims that someone that saves your life has a need to continue taking care of you. I always thought that was the other way around and the save-y has to look over and protect the save-er. I most enjoyed the part where stones are beginning to fill the house and one character mentions that it feels as though they are living in the bottom portion of an hourglass; I believe this is an important commentary about hoarding in America and the American perception of possessions.

For the most part entertaining, if a tad long considering its one-liner and ironic techniques. Not really deep enough to be great satire, Choke did shed some interesting light on a few pressing American social issues: the tragedy of feeling unloved in a competitive rather than cooperative society, the tragedy of poor (well, insane) parenting, of abandoning our parents in old age, shitty jobs, sex addiction. Humor, although it makes these tragic topics bearable--and marketable--might not be the best way to get at why this country is full of human detritus--the homeless, the aged, the abused minimum wage slave, addicts of all kinds. Although I frequently laughed while reading the novel, I kept feeling like I should be crying, like I'd rather be crying. That, in itself, was perhaps the point. Still, where is the Of Mice and Men or Sister Carrie for the social horrors of modern America? Why are our contemporary tragedies always either ignored or played for laughs? I accuse the horror of marketing and communications as college majors, which have created at least two generations of self-interested bourgeois suburban elite by now--ascendent as a class by being the world's leading demographic. They sell themselves to themselves endlessly and even our books can now reflect them and their worldview only ironically.

Spoiler: The best bit was describing the stripper's shaved vagina as just another slot in which to swipe one's credit card. Pithy!

I hated this book - but I hate myself more for finishing it.

If you pick this book up, don't even bother looking at the back cover, what is written there cannot even begin to tell you what you are about to read. I picked this book up based off of a few different people's recommendations and hearing the author's name dropped by several of my favorite authors. I had been told over and over how absolutely hysterical this book is, so of course I had to read it.

First let me warn you this book is not for everyone... in fact it's not for most people, but there is a select group out there that this book is perfect for. In this book you will find addictions, depravity, sex acts of all kinds, death, pain, obsession, profanity, blasphemy, and enough repetition to drive an English major insane. But don't let that stop you from reading... this is actually a very strange yet disturbingly profound book.

Short Summary: Our title character is a sex addict who fakes choking in restaurants to make people feel like heroes... he's had a terrible childhood with a completely insane mother who kidnapped him on multiple occasions. She's now in a home and is fast approaching her end, while her son, Victor, attempts to deal with his past, his problems, and his future.

If you are looking for a book about redemption, this isn't it. Victor is a failed med student who is riddled with psychological problems raging from sexual addiction to severe childhood trauma. He wanders through life searching desperately for meaning, purpose and hope... all while fighting to keep from being a "good guy." The only truly multidimensional character in the story is Victor, and the book is told stream of conscious from Victor's point of view. Victor behaves badly and fights to mentally defend his behavior to both the reader and himself. We swap between the current day and his childhood, or actually his memories of his childhood which are told with a bitterness not toward his mentally unstable mother, but toward himself.

Victor is filled with a deep rooted self loathing that comes across clearly to the reader, however he constantly defends his actions and feelings but his defense is hollow. It is clear that he knows that his life is pathetic and his future is going to be devoid of true happiness should he continue on his current path. As a reader you follow his mental wanderings, excuses, and find yourself hoping that he latches on to something healthy.

I don't want to give too much of the plot away, although there really isn't much of a plot. This is more of a character study of an addict, and addict who knows that things should be different but rejects and rebels against society to the point that he cannot even comprehend a healthy existence. As I said this book will not be for everyone, it is harsh, gross, filled with bodily fluids, depraved sexual acts, profanity and bad choice after bad choice. Most of supporting cast is filled with stereotypes and one dimensional jokes, also the way that this is written is very repetitive and the style will be jarring to many readers. It is not an easy read to whip right through due to the way that it is written. I am glad that I read this book, but I don't really know who I know that I would recommend it to.

Oh, and yes, parts of this book are very funny... but on the whole I was left feeling rather sad for the people in it. Perhaps I'm just feeling sensitive today, but the hopelessness of the situations that these people put themselves into is a rather sobering idea. The concept that keeps reiterating itself through the book is the idea of reality and who we are, do we create ourselves or do we let society decide who we are... if we try to fight against society are we just dooming ourselves to unhappiness and ultimate misery?

Ne parlo qui: https://youtu.be/un1h95_IAXw

I originally had this one rated at a four but the more I stewed on it the more I realized it wasn’t fair to the other fours out there and that it needed to come down a star. The beginning was strong, the middle entertaining but the end lost my attention. I think the exact moment it fell apart for me was the mile high chapter. It had the “okay I get it, now please stop beating the joke to death” feel to it that always wears thin on my patience.

Nevertheless, his writing has that certain something that keeps me coming back for more so onward until I complete all the books he has written.

Definitely something. Didn’t hate it but it was far from being something I’ll remember. The structure was interesting and he’s definitely a talented writer. Can see how the author of this could also have come up with the plot of Fight Club

YouTube kanalımda Tıkanma kitabının da içinde bulunduğu kitaplık turu videomu izleyebilirsiniz: https://youtu.be/yf0me602lnY

Allah'ım sen bizi tıkama. Bu nasıl bir tıkanmadır arkadaşlar? Bu nasıl bir yeraltı edebiyatıdır? Bir kitap ismiyle bu kadar mı uyumlu olabilir? İnsanlar böyle tıkanmayı nereden öğrendi?

Kitabın ana karakteri, para ihtiyacını restoranlarda yemekleri bile bile boğazına tıkayarak tıkanmış numarası yapan, bu sayede kendini her zaman ezik bir biçimde gösteren ve aynı zamanda da onu kurtaran insanları sürekli ters orantılı bir şekilde kahramanlaştıran birisi. Bir özet olarak bunları söylüyorum fakat olaylar bunla sınırlı olsaydı keşke.

Öncelikle Palahniuk'u Dövüş Kulübü'nden tanıyorum fakat ilk kez bir kitabını okuyorum. Aynı bir Trainspotting ya da bir Requiem for a Dream gibi popülizm eleştirileri, endorfin kurbanlığı, erotizm saplantısallığı, televizyon dizilerinin, Amerikan rüyası ve kültürünün insanlara bir şeyin bağımlılığını pompalaması var. Hatta yaptığı net tavsiyelerle ve yazım üslubuyla Trainspotting'in kardeşi gibi bir kitap olmuş bu.

Kitap, bu kitabı okumak yerine televizyonda izleyecek daha iyi şeyler olduğunu söyleyerek açılış yapıyor bize. Bunu neden özellikle üzerine bastıra bastıra söylediğini düşünüp durdum. Yeraltı edebiyatının insanların dinlemekten, görmekten ve yaşamaktan kaçındığı şeylerden ibaret olduğunun farkına vardım. Televizyonda gösterilmeyen şeyleri yeraltı edebiyatında bulabildiğimizin farkına vardım. Şöyle bir denklem kurabiliriz aslında : Gerçekler acıysa, yeraltı edebiyatı da gerçeklerse yeraltı edebiyatının acı olduğunun farkına vardım.

Ana karakter olan Victor Mancini adının anlamının tam tersine kendini yüceltme isteğinde zerre kadar olmayan bir kişi. Victor galip demektir fakat adam zerre kadar galip olmak istemiyor ki hayata karşı! İnadına daha çok kaybetmek istiyor, kaybettiğinde ise kazandığı daha çok ruhsal tıkanıklık oluyor. Ezilmeyi ve insanları kahramanlaştırmayı, bu sayede de onları kendine bağlı hale getirmeyi seviyor. Aynı zamanda o ve annesi tam bir manyak. Tam tamına zararlı alışkanlıklar bağımlısılar. Bu tekil bağımlılıklara paralel olarak adam insanları da kendine bağımlı hale getiriyor, insanlar Victor'un hayatını kurtarmayla ortamlarda hava atıyor ve çocuğa bağımlı hale gelmiş oluyorlar. Yani tam bir bağımlılık tıkanması var meydanda. Kendine de her zaman "İsa ne yapmazdı?" sorusunu sormayı hayat felsefesi olarak edinmiş ve o ne yapmazsa eleman da tam olarak onları yapıyor. Öyle ki Victor da zaten bağımlıların yolun sonunda neyi beklediklerini bildiğini söylüyor. Biz herhangi bir şeye bağımlı olmasak bile yolun sonunda bizi ne beklediğinin farkında mıyız? Gerçekten her şeyin birtakım sürprizden mi ibaret olduğunu düşünüyoruz?

Bu olayları kendi hayatlarımızla bağdaştırabiliriz. Farkında olmadan biz de tıkanıyoruz günden güne. Etrafımızdakiler kendini yüceltmeye devam edip aradıklarını bulamazken belki de farkında olmadan diplerdeki güzellikleri kaçırıyoruz. Bunu somut olgularla düşünmeyelim. Ruhumuzun derinliklerinde kim bilir ne cevherler saklıyoruz. Acaba biz de tıkanık mıyız ruhumuza, nefsimize, benliğimize ve çevremize karşı? Hiç sorduk mu bunu kendimize? Kitap bize kendimizi tanıma uğruna ezik, fakir, mazlum kalabileceğimizi öğretiyor. Sonuçların belki de kendimizi yüceltmelerimizde değil de ezik kalmakta ve toplumun bilmek, görmek, duymak istemediği özelliklerimizde olabileceğini kanıtlıyor.

Kitapla ilgili değil de yazarla ilgili bir eleştirim var. Kitabı okurken Chuck Palahniuk'la ilgili küçük bir araştırma yaptım ve adamın bildiğiniz online mağazası var arkadaşlar. Yani bir insan net bir şekilde kapitalizm, Amerikan rüyası ve Amerikan kültürü eleştirisi yapıp da nasıl şöyle bir https://chuckpalahniuk.threadless.com siteye sahip olabiliyor, insan gerçekten hayret ediyor.

Chuck Palahniuk is one of the four authors listed as my biggest influences on my author page, the other three being Stephen King, William Shakespeare and Bret Easton Ellis. Like Fight Club, and Chuck Palahniuk’s other works, Choke contains numerous very quotable and sometimes quite devastating lines.

“At some point, your memories, your stories, your adventures, will be the only things you'll have left.”

While Choke may not have been as obvious an influence on Drug Gang as Fight Club was, the style, tone and content of Chuck Palahniuk’s writing in Choke still had its effect on me prior to starting work on The Drug Gang Series. It affected me both as an author and as a person, as his writing always does.

Choke is a dark, witty and intelligent work of genius. It is also absolutely not for the easily offended.

"Stupid" isn’t the right word, but it’s the first word that comes to mind.


See also: Nonsensical Shit
See also: Crap

Discovering and reading new authors' works is a gamble. You don't know if you gonna like the way he writes or what he writes about, and opinions about them and their works varies from one reader to another. Since people claimed that Chuck Palahniuk's a one hardcore author, I decided to have myself a Chuck Palahniuk challenge this year and yes, I bought myself a copy of Choke. Look, the cover page is an attention-catcher and demands the reader pick it up, oh pick it up! (especially people who studied Anatomy and Physiology like me). What's with the book? Does it talks about our body? Well, partly yes. It's about this medical school drop-out named Victor Machini (who I think is the author himself) who have himself working in a living museum and choking himself in every restaurant to earn money for his Alzheimer-afflicted mother's hospital bills at St. Anthony. He's also a sexaholic and an asshole. He's also a descendant of Jesus Christ (blasphemy!) and did I say he's an asshole? Well, yeah, he is.

Since it's my first time to read Palahniuk, I say this book is a let down. I DIDN'T LIKE IT. Halfway through the book, I want to rip it into two and abandon it forever. I got sick on everything—sex, sex, sex! And it's just another story of some long-time weak loser doesn't want to be labeled as someone who is kind and has a heart. I roll my eyes whenever he tells the reader that he is no Jesus Christ (of course, he's not), that he's an asshole. FINE, YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE. HAPPY? Just another story of an hopeless asshole who is hopeless and an asshole.

It's supposed to be a funny, satirical book, but it's not. I'm not grumpy, I don't find it funny. Rubbish.