This was my first introduction to Chuck Palahnuik.
Hello Chuck.
I'm one of your followers on goodreads.
I'm not as weird as any of your characters but maybe one day you'll not write about self-help groups and instead will write about online book groups.
After all bookishness is kind of an addiction too right?
Or maybe it's a compulsion?
Or a bit of both?
Just take a look around goodreads.com...
Like facebook for the literate.
And immoderate.
And insane.
I think there's scope.
Let me know what you think.

A weird place to start given that I probably should have gone for Fight Club, his best loved, most vaunted and money spinning work to date. Anyway, it was a good introduction none the less. Odd, off kilter views of a world which most people never really think about generated out of the random scenario sequence generator:
sex addicts + pioneer town historic re-enactment + god complex mum + choking = viable income for main character plus story.

Umm I think I just summarised the plot there. Still not entirely convinced how choking in public places generates a decent yearly income though... and is it tax exempt as a donation rather than actual earnings? All I can say is that no matter what the net choke income is per annum, it's probably still more than I earn as an archaeologist!

Choke, Chuck Palahniuk

Choke follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child.

He had grown up moving from one foster home to another, as his mother was found to be unfit to raise him.

Several times throughout his childhood, his mother would kidnap him from his various foster parents, though every time they would eventually be caught, and he would again be remanded over to the governmental child welfare agency.

In the present-day setting of the book, Victor is now a man in his mid-twenties who left medical school in order to find work to support his feeble mother who is now in a nursing home.

He cannot afford the care that his mother is receiving so he resorts to being a con man.

He goes to various restaurants and purposely causes himself to choke midway through his meal, luring a "good Samaritan" into saving his life.

He keeps a detailed list of everyone who saves him and sends them frequent letters about fictional bills he is unable to pay. ...

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و یکم ماه ژانویه سال 2019میلادی

عنوان: خفگی؛ نویسنده: چاک پالانیک؛ مترجم: رضا اسکندری‌آذر؛ ویراستار: ساقی قاجار؛ تهران: نشر هیرمند‏‫، 1397؛ در 340ص؛ شابک9789644084935؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 21م

چاک پالانیک، درباره ی رمان خفگی میگویند: (دفعه ی بعدی که کسی داشت خفه میشد و خواستید نجاتش بدهید، اول خوب نگاهش کنید.)؛

نقل از متن: (اگر میخواهید این داستان را بخوانید، خودتان را به زحمت نیندازید؛ پس از خواندن چند صفحه، دیگر دلتان نمیخواهد اینجا باشید؛ پس فراموشش کنید؛ بگذارید بروید؛ بروید و تا بلایی سرتان نیامده، خودتان را نجات بدهید؛ احتمالاً تلویزیون برنامه ی جالبتری دارد، یا از آنجا که به اندازه ی کافی وقت دارید، شاید بتوانید کلاس شبانه بردارید، و دکتری چیزی بشوید؛ چیزی از خودتان بسازید؛ خودتان را به شام مهمان کنید؛ موهایتان را رنگ کنید؛ جوانیتان دیگر قرار نیست برگردد؛ چیزی که اینجا اتفاق میافتد، اولش حسابی اعصابتان را به هم میریزد و بعد، همینطور بدتر و بدتر میشود؛ چیزی که اینجا میخوانید، داستانی احمقانه درباره ی یک پسربچه ی گیج است؛ یک داستان مسخره ی واقعی درباره ی کسی که اصلاً دلتان نمیخواهد ببینیدش؛ پسرک خل‌ و چلی را تصور کنید، که قدش تا کمرتان می‌رسد، و یک مشت موی بلوند روی سرش دارد، که یک‌وری شانه شده؛ این توله‌ ی کوچولوی نچسب را، با دندان‌های شیری یکی‌ در میان، و یک دندان بلوغ کج‌ و معوج در نظر بگیرید، که دارد توی عکس‌های قدیمی لبخند می‌زند؛ او را با آن ژاکت مسخره‌ ی راه‌ راه آبی و زرد تصور کنید؛ همان هدیه‌ ی تولدش که اتفاقاً سوگلی لباس‌هایش هم هست؛ در سن و سالی مجسمش کنید، که ناخن‌ها و سرانگشت‌های صابمرده‌ اش را می‌جود؛ کفش‌های مورد علاقه‌ اش مارک «کدْز» و غذای محبوبش «کورن‌ داگ» زهرماری؛ یکی از آن عقب‌ افتاده‌ ها را مجسم کنید، که بعد از شام، مادرش او را سوار یک اتوبوس مدرسه‌ ی دزدی کرده، و بدون اینکه کمربند ایمنی‌ اش را ببندد، می‌گازد؛ یک ماشین پلیس جلوی مُتل محل اقامت‌شان پارک کرده، و برای همین هم مادر با سرعت یکصدوده کیلومتر بر ساعت ویژژژ از کنارش می‌گذرد)» پایان نقل

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 25/04/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

This is by far the funniest / dirtiest book I've ever read. Enjoyed the plot twist which you come to expect from Palahniuk. If your ever having a bad day, pick up this book.

“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”
― Philip K. Dick, VALIS



I really liked this book. In a lot of ways it may be my favorite Palahniuk novel (so far). You can tell CP is leaving a lot of his own emotion and blood in the narrative. Do I think it is autobiographical? Certainly not, but I think it may be built out of stones that Palahniuk has lifted. He is able to weave many of the themes he will visit again and again into this novel. The struggle of addiction, the struggle to be human in a dehumanized world, the explosive need to not conform to what is being sold is all here.

There is a period in modern life when you wake up and realize that YOU are the beakless chicken destined to spend the rest of your life in a battery cage so small you cannot even stretch your wings. Society will continue to feed and water you as long as you keep pumping those eggs out. Most of us wake up to this existence and either pray or beg for it to end quickly. We might seek to muffle our existence with drugs, or religion, or sex, or exercise, or some other form of mental escape. We all grab for some opiate of the egg farm. Palahniuk is one of those rare writers, one of those rare birds who won't sit still in the cage. He is a chicken that seems fully prepared to burn the farm DOWN.

فایت کلاب , واژه ی گویایی نیست .اما اولین چیزی هست که به ذهن میرسد.
ایضاً رجوع شود به : به رضا اسکندری اذر
ایضاً رجوع شود به : گنگ محل
ولی اشتباه نشود . هرچقدر هم ازار دهنده باشد و یا سعی کند که ازار دهنده نشون بدهد نمیتواند به پای گنگ محل برسد
اما خوب هدف ازار هم نیست

پ ن : از میزان سانسور نسخه ی ترجمه شده اطلاعی ندارم . اگر اطلاع دارید مارو هم مطلع کنید

As with every Chuck Palahniuk book I've read so far I really enjoyed Choke.

This book had a lot going on for one that was a mere 159 pages (on the Nook). I just want to say that this book was amazing. If you're one of Chuck's fans I am guessing you will love this, since it's got his usual satire, style, humor, and repetition. Also, great writing of course. There are some great messages in Chuck's books, some are less obvious, some are hidden completely, some are in your face, and some are crammed down your throat. This book makes you take a look at your life and in an odd way I felt inspired. What I always take from Chuck's work is the feeling of "get off your butt and do something!"

Those who pay attention to my reviews know that I have a pretty short attention span, and tend to enjoy the faster paced books. This doesn't mean they have to be short, just fast paced. Well this book is both, but it still made me feel like I was reading something with substance and meaning.

We start off meeting our main character, Victor. Victor is a guy that is constantly changing to try to be what everyone else wants him to be. He lets the world define him, while he takes pressure off everyone he meets by taking the blame for everything that bothers him. The word doormat isn't the right term, but it's the first thing that comes to mind.

The story jumps back and forth between current day and the flashbacks he has from childhood. As an adult he is supplementing his income by choking on food at fancy restaurants to have his saviors feel a bond with him in life that causes them to send him money and help him with his imaginary bills he can't pay. He does this to help with the costs of his mothers stay at a hospital, and he is searching for answers from his mother about his identity.

At the same time he is also sleeping with lots of girls which I would normally find sickening had it not be for the fact that they use him just as much or more than he uses them. He meets Dr. Marsall who he has tried to sleep with, but can't.

I really enjoyed Victor's relationship with Denny. Denny is possibly more messed up than Victor, but he is such an amazing friend. He always takes the time to ask about Victor's recovery and remind him about seeing his mother.

The ending was a complete shocker, and I loved it! Finally, this book has some really great humor. The part with Victor and Gwen really had me laughing out loud. There are lots of "wow" moments as well as some "wtf" moments.

Choke also made me want to inspect everyone in my life and try to find out what their addiction is. Some are obvious, some are hidden very well. I know what mine is. It's not nearly as interesting as Victor's, but this book made me think that everyone has their own little addiction that helps them cope. This is a book you can really lose yourself in. Better yet you could also find yourself in it too.

Definitely recommended, and a new personal favorite by Chuck Palahniuk.

“Because nothing is as good as you can imagine it. No one is as beautiful as she is in your head. Nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.”

And no book written by Chuck Palahniuk is as fucked up as you've imagined beforehand - usually, they're more. Choke is no different. In this story, much less gross than Haunted, we find ourselves following the steps of Victor Mancini. Victor is a dropout med student who is also a conman and a sex-addict, who sounds like a great character, right? Kind of. To be honest, I liked his complexness, even though I still don't know how to feel about him -which is probably one of Palahniuk objectives with this novel and his writing in general.

“What I want is to be needed. What I need is to be indispensable to somebody. Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention. Somebody addicted to me. A mutual addiction.”

As on his other works, Palahniuk gives an antihero with an almost gruesome honesty who says whatever he is feeling. The deep secret desire inside so many people in society. How important it is to feel good, to be needed, to find a meaning for life. Through the pages of Choke, Victor goes on a painful Via Crucis looking at his true self and realizing what he really wants.

“We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it's our job to invent something better.”

A controversial book by an even more controversial author. Great reading for anyone who likes shocking books, stories and fucked up readings, aka Palahniuk work.

“For the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel peaceful. Not happy. Not sad. Not anxious. Not horny. Just all the higher parts of my brain closing up shop. The cerebral cortex. The cerebellum. That's where my problem is. I'm now simplifying myself. Somewhere balanced in the perfect middle between happiness and sadness. Because sponges never have a bad day.”

"Inimmaginabile" non è la parola esatta, ma è la prima che viene in mente

"E se invece Gesù avesse passato la giovinezza a commettere errori?Prima di azzeccare il suo primo miracolo?"
Divertente, brillante, delirante, vorticoso.
A partire dall'incipit:«Se stai per metterti a leggere, evita.
tra un paio di pagine vorrai essere da un'altra parte. Perciò lascia perdere. Vattene. Sparisci, finchè sei intero.
Salvati. Ci sarà pure qualcosa di meglio alla tv. Oppure, se proprio hai del tempo da buttare, che so, potresti iscriverti a un corso serale. Diventare un dottore. Così magari riesci a tirare su due soldi. Ti regali una cena fuori. Ti tingi i capelli.
Tanto, ringiovanire non ringiovanisci.»
Palahniuk è un maestro nel capovolgere gli eventi; le sensazioni stesse che il lettore prova per i suoi personaggi vengono ribaltate senza sforzo, seguendo il corso naturale e bizzarro degli eventi.
Il protagonista, Victor Mancini, sessodipendente che vive di espedienti cercando di mantenere la madre in fin di vita, vuole trovare una ragion d'essere, snocciolando critiche sulle miserabili vite degli altri, comprese le nostre:« È pazzesco quanto una donna può fraintenderti se per sbaglio, mentre le affondi il muso tra le chiappe morbide, dici: ti amo. Dieci volte su dieci, l'uomo che pronuncia quelle parole intende dire: amo quello che stiamo facendo.»
Il suo amico di sventure, Denny, vive nel suo strampalato mondo dove tutto ha una logica, alla disperata ricerca di un progetto da realizzare..In un film verrebbe definito come la "spalla" del protagonista, in realtà alla fine della storia, anche il suo ruolo si inverte. E nel frattempo ci regala le riflessioni su cui inciampa durante i voli pindarici della sua mente: «A volte è come se fossi io a voler essere picchiato e punito. Va benissimo anche se Dio non esiste, però qualcosa da rispettare lo voglio lo stesso. Non mi va di essere il centro del mio universo.»
La madre di Victor, una donna che vive da anni in un nichilismo cosmico, e che ha cresciuto il figlio impartendogli regole di sopravvivenza dalla validità assoluta:«-L'unica frontiera che ci rimane è il mondo dell'intangibile. Tutto il resto è cucito troppo stretto.-Per intangibile la Mamma intendeva Internet, i film, la musica, le storie, l'arte, le voci che corrono, i programmi per computer, tutto ciò che non è reale. Le realtà virtuali. Le simulazioni. La cultura. Perché la realtà non arriva mai al grado di perfezione cui può spingersi l'immaginazione. Perché soltanto ciò che è intangibile, le idee, i concetti, le convinzioni, le fantasie, durano. Le pietre si sgretolano, il legno marcisce. La gente, bé la gente muore.»
E poi vi rimane il resto del libro, un carosello di personaggi sbandati, disillusi o troppo creduloni, ma pur sempre umani.
Se vi aspettate un linguaggio formale e pulito, avete sbagliato libro. Ma anche in questo Palahniuk è costante. Le espressioni sboccate, il sesso ovunque, la degradazione al massimo livello, son tutti elementi che se all'inizio fan storcere il naso a chi non è abituato, di pagina in pagina diventano elementi indispensabili della storia. E la rendono completa: l'ennesimo ribaltamento del libro.
La stellina mancante, è dovuta al fatto, che ho finito di leggere il libro ieri, e come ogni lettura intensa va digerita prima di poterla sigillare con un giudizio definitivo. Però una mezza in più gliel'avrei data volentieri, anche a caldo.
Un consiglio, non seguite l'avvertimento dato nell'incipit. Continuate a leggere: ne vale la pena.

Fairly standard transgressional fiction, full of paranoid social deviants, conspiracy theories abound, femmes fatales, a twist ending…you get the idea. Choke is not drastically different from Palahniuk’s earlier (and better) novel, Fight Club. In fact, it’s far too similar. In Fight Club the primary metaphoric device was underground street fighting. In Choke, it is sexual addictions. Author works hard to shock the reader with graphic descriptions and sometimes funny slang, but the (intentionally) limited vocabulary of the narrator tends grates on the nerves due to incessant usage of the same childish slang terms, over and over again.

Author has an irritating penchant for starting his chapters in medias res. The problem is, the combination of his fragmented writing style and the bizarreness of his scenes result in a mess that is more frustrating to the reader than intriguing.

Author also loves to create metaphors and revisit them throughout the story. Much like the “I am Jack’s raging bile duct” from Fight Club, here it is the hourly bird calls from an alarm clock in his “mother’s” extended care bedroom, or medical school mnemonics, or various other rhetorical devices. But the author is not above the more tired metaphors, such as a character fiddling with a jigsaw puzzle while trying to uncover the “puzzle” of the narrator’s life. Yawn.

Occasional flashes of insight aren’t enough to carry this novel. It’s not surprising that Palahniuk has moved on from this limited genre.

Una spugna di mare non ha mai giornate no

Pulp (e folle e sardonico)
pop -porno
-non è la parola esatta ,ma è la prima che viene in mente - :)

Soffocare come modo per ottenere affetto e considerazione dagli altri
di sicuro è un modo singolare e sghembo...ma forse nemmeno il più assurdo

E non esistendo la possibilità che si verifichi una catastrofe vera,un rischio vero,ci è preclusa anche ogni possibilità di salvezza vera.
Ebbrezza vera. Eccitazione vera. Gioia. Scoperta .Invenzione.
Le leggi che ci permettono di vivere sicuri sono le stesse che ci condannano alla noia.Se non possiamo accedere al caos autentico,non avremo mai autentica pace.Se le cose non hanno la possibilità di peggiorare,non miglioreranno.
Tutte cose che la mamma gli raccontava. Gli diceva:"L'unica frontiera che ci rimane è il mondo dell'intangibile.Tutto il resto è cucito troppo stretto." Ingabbiato da troppe leggi.Per intangibile la mamma intendeva Internet,i film,la musica,le storie,l'arte,le voci che corrono,i programmi per computer,tutto ciò che non è reale. Le realtà virtuali.Le simulazioni.La cultura.
L'irreale è più potente del reale.
Perchè la realtà non arriva mai al grado di perfezione cui può spingersi l'immaginazione.

If I could give it negative stars, I would. So many things I didn't like about the book...here's a few in list format!

1. No paragraphs...only phrases. It's hard to feel like youre reading a complete thought, when....you're not.
2. I know using the word "Dude" is addictive, but oddly enough, it's even more annoying to read it over and over than to hear/say it.
3. The way he always (and when I say always, I mean every time, every other page) referred to his penis as his 'dog' was nausiating. Really. Disgusting.
4. I never gave a shit about one single person in this book. Not a single one!
5. There's a chapter at the very end about having sex on planes. It's the most descriptive and comprehensive chapter in the book, and I can't figure out how it has anything at all to do w/ the plot. I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote this chapter 5 years before even thinking about the plot of this book, and didn't know what else to do with it, so he just stuck it in there. Or, on the other hand, maybe he revolved the entire book AROUND this chapter...like it was the egg and the book is the chicken.

And the so-called 'clencher' your hear about in reviews...not so clenching.