Sounds strange, coming from the man whose characters usually end up disfigured at the end of each novel. Chuck elaborates a bit on this change in tone with Victor Mancini's mother, Ida, who during her younger days had committed herself to a life of random mischief; think of a kinder, gentler version of the Project Mayhem Space Monkeys from Fight Club.
         "I wanted to have a Tyler Durden character that tears things down – and that's Ida Mancini – who realizes that her entire life of rebellion and anarchy has been fun, but boy, she never did take that next step of actually standing for something. So I wanted to make Victor the generation that would move beyond attacking constantly to creating something."
         But does it make a difference if the thing being created has a concrete function or purpose? Not at all, says Chuck. "I really like causes that are not about doing something to fulfill a need. Nobody said if we get to the moon it's going to do anything. Getting to the moon was a huge romantic gesture. It was about all the things that we discovered along the way, while trying to get to the moon, all the things we had to invent, in order to do this useless thing. It's not like we were going to bring back gold. It was not doing something in order to obtain something. It was doing something just for the doing of it, and it generated so much union, and so much mutual cause, and so much identity, and so much pride, and so many beneficial things along the way. Now it seems like we've lost that ability to just do these seemingly pointless romantic gestures that are not about achieving something; they're about the process itself, and what the process brings us. I know people who will write a book. The book may never be published, but it's all of the joy that they've had, all of the things they've learned about themselves and the world, all of the ways they've had to be vulnerable, and meet people and know other writers; everything along the way has changed their lives. So it's almost superfluous about whether or not the book gets published, it's about what this task is going to teach us. I love that part of writing. Once there's a cover on it, it's really dead for me."
         It seems that the transition from destruction to creation plays a larger role in Pahlaniuk's novels than I assumed. Perhaps that's why the most significant issue tackled in Choke is religion. From Tender Branson (The Book of Very Common Prayer) to Shannon McFarland ("Sorry, God"), all of Chuck's novels address religion in some fashion, but the allusions in his previous novels pale in comparison to the ones in Choke. Judging from the startling revelation that occurs halfway through the book, it's apparent that the church has had a major impact on Chuck's writing. Curious about God's influence on Chuck, I ask him if he thinks religion is a benefit or a detriment to society.
         "I think it's a benefit in that serves a real social purpose and it brings people together in spiritual inquiry," he says. "That, in and of itself, is incredible, just to bring people together in the face of mystery. It's something I really have against what was done in the Vatican II, with the Catholic Church. By taking the mystery and the pageantry out of Catholic mass, by putting it in English, by making it accessible, we create the impression that we can actually understand and comprehend God. Which is not the point – the point of faith is that it is incomprehensible, and it is an act of faith. It's not something you're supposed to be able to understand, and therefore believe in. It's something that you can never understand, and yet believe in. By making God understandable, and putting God in our terms, and making God our best friend, you no longer require faith if you know God. In that way, bringing people together in inquiry about this completely incomprehensible thing – that's the glory of religion. In a way, the conference this weekend had that same energy of bringing people together – not so much about my books, but about ideas, and about a lot of ideas presented, and having people in inquiry and discussion about the concepts of reinventing mythology and the concepts about violence, or materialism. Just having people together, talking about these ideas, excited, talking about these ideas. This is not something that happens in the world a lot. So that's what religion does best."