SMBC Comics Forum

So, I recently finished Choke and Snuff. I really enjoyed Choke (too lazy to italicize now), but I didn't care for Snuff. It just wasn't that good to me.

But now I've purchased and subsequently started Pygmy.

Frostbite wrote:So, I recently finished Choke and Snuff. I really enjoyed Choke (too lazy to italicize now), but I didn't care for Snuff. It just wasn't that good to me.

But now I've purchased and subsequently started Pygmy.

I haven't read Snuff, but it is farther down the list of his stuff for me. Choke was my least favourite of his thusfar. I need to give Pygmy another shot sometime, but that won't be for a while, as it is a difficult read.

I feel like he wrote it in English. Threw it into an English to Chinese translator online. Then put it back through into English again. Then published it.

Frostbite wrote:I feel like he wrote it in English. Threw it into an English to Chinese translator online. Then put it back through into English again. Then published it.

Exactly. Really difficult to start. Once you are a few chapters in it gets a little easier, but still a difficult read.

It is very interesting though, all difficulties reading it aside.

Lethal Interjection wrote: Choke was my least favourite of his thusfar.

I thought Choke was good, it certainly was a bit more readable than Lullaby. It gave the background characters a bit more humanity than is normal in his novels, and it had that Palahniuk element of being inside the head of someone in complete break down mode but still being able to sympathise. My head always feel twisted in ten different directions about three quarters through each of his novels

carbonstealer wrote:

Lethal Interjection wrote: Choke was my least favourite of his thusfar.

I thought Choke was good, it certainly was a bit more readable than Lullaby. It gave the background characters a bit more humanity than is normal in his novels, and it had that Palahniuk element of being inside the head of someone in complete break down mode but still being able to sympathise. My head always feel twisted in ten different directions about three quarters through each of his novels

I understand what you mean by "humanity" but I also found him to be one of the least sympathetic characters I have read from Palahniuk. It might just be that he was more "action" and raw humanity, which I just don't identify with, as I am a rather controlled person.

I thought the deal was he wasn't supposed to be that sympathetic. At least not until the very end.

He is everything we try not to be. Secretly, somewhere, we're all like him. We just have better control

Kind of like how there's a Tyler Durden in all of us, except that only sometimes he starts just doing shit on his own?

Dude, I hate it when I'm looking for Tyler Durden and it turns out he is me.

Anyways. Yeah, except the guy in Choke is an on purpose social reject. Who takes advantage of people, but makes them heroes. And it's complicated. DON'T ASK ME.

Is it like the "an hero" type of hero?

I don't know. Sure. I'm going to go read Pygmy in bed now.

LordRetard wrote:Is it like the "an hero" type of hero?

Kind of? Here are some spoilers (kind of... this isn't much more in depth than you'd probably see on the cover).

He's a med-school dropout who trolls for sex at Sex Addiction groups. His mother is in a home with Alzheimers, and to pay those bills he purposefully chokes himself on food at restaurants so that he will be saved by other patrons. Those people tend to have a certain dedication to him, so he bilks them for money in various ways. He alienates almost everyone around him, especially the women.

That's a brief description, but that alone doesn't really give it credit. The way Palahniuk has written this guy, I just want to punch the bastard in the throat every few pages.

He doesn't really bilk them for money per se. He makes them feel like a hero, and so they decide they have some obligation to help support him.

I honestly didn't really hate him.