indefinite articles

In August of 2001, I went on vacation with my parents to Hawaii. For some reason, my parents’ itinerary focused mostly on towns and shops, rather than taking in God’s green-blue earth, and since most Hawaiian towns seem to consist of the same six stores repeated ad nauseam, I was a bit bored. So, I ended up spending the trip reclining on hotel balconies, eating Goldfish crackers and reading.

I finished four books over the course of the vacation, and their character gives some indication of what a moody bitch I was that week: American Psycho, The Monk by Matthew Lewis (one of the original Gothic novels), Notes from the Underground, and Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke. Basically, I was being a little dick, and I was proud of it.

I was in high school when the movie adaptation of Fight Club came out, and I’m ashamed to say that I got really into Palahniuk in the aftermath, just like everybody else. I listened to all four special edition audio commentaries, picked up Palahniuk’s Survivor and Invisible Monsters, and basically thought the man was the cat’s pajamas all around. I ran into my chemistry teacher at the local Borders, a man who prominently displayed his hemp cereal on his desk and with whom I shared a bizarre camaraderie, and tried to sell Palahniuk to him as “Vonnegut with a twist.” The whole situation was a catastrophe.

I only really remember one thing from Choke: the narrator’s claim that ears bear a strong resemblance to vaginas, and that all men secretly think this but don’t talk about it. The passage comes across like something Palahniuk is pretty proud of, like he’s loosing the gag on open sexual discussion for the first time, the only author to ever be edgy. Most of his work reeks of this insecurity, his obnoxious need to be extra hardcore.

Ear or vagina? You decide.

In Palahniuk’s short story collection, Haunted, a young man discusses his ever-advancing masturbation techniques: starting with shoving shards of candle wax up his urethra, and ending with accidentally having his intestines inverted by a pool filter and nearly asphyxiating while stuck in the deep end. Palahniuk chose the story for pre-release promotional readings, and it caused some audience members to faint. Hell, I even got light-headed.

The trailers for Choke are a bit off kilter in comparison to the novel’s tone. It looks oddly flippant, like a light-hearted sex comedy romp, akin to Along Came Polly or a Farrelly brothers movie. As much as Palahniuk annoys me to no end these days, it’s a bit disappointing to see all of his signature bathroom-stall nastiness completely removed. If the movie did seem like it was going to be a faithful adaptation, at least then I could safely ignore it, kinda like a Tool video. Now, it has to nag at the back of my head, yet another bland comedy that looks little better than My Best Friend’s Girl, the kind of movie you try to ignore but simply can’t.