Choke

"Entertaining" isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind.Although I thought Fight Club, the novel, was much more edgy, entertaining, and compelling, I still believe Choke is worth reading especially for ANY fan of Palahniuk's style.Chuck Palahniuk has a style that captivated many through his novel Fight Club. Choke, like Fight Club, deals with the problems of one man. The story is told from his point of view so you get his opinion on everything. Choke, however, is less about physical and mental destruction and more about one mans semi-fight to stay sober as he is a sexaholic.Victor Mancini, the sexaholic, attempts to attend numerous meetings with others that have the same affliction, but he fails as he is usually side tracked in some closet with a female sexaholic. When Victor isn't working at the Colonial Historical Park he uses his spare time to "earn" money in a very unique way. Victor must use this money to pay for his mothers $3000 a month hospital bill as she is somewhat sick and confused.Many twists and turns makes this a good fiction read for most who are looking for something different. On the other hand, Choke is a must for fans of Palahniuk's special style. I'm definitely looking forward to his next novel.Oh yeah, and about Victor being the next coming of the Messiah...

First things first...It takes a long time to read Choke because the laughs slow down one's normal reading speed. So, don't let the novel's size deceive you. Second, this is not a frivolous book. As is true with quality comedy, the obscured underlying "message" is deadly serious. Ostensibly, Victor Mancini is working (Choking) in fine restaurants for the purpose of reaping financial windfalls that will enable him to purchase for his mother, Ida, a feeding tube. In the novel, Victor recounts life with Ida, the "Mommy," and describes himself as the "gullible" or otherwise diminished "kid." Ida is a criminal; her crimes are petty, but intended toward one goal: creating chaos and unpredictability in a world which, she says, suffers from a surplus of organization (everyday a "cruise ship"). She goes to a pharmacy and mixes up hair dyes, placing blonde in the red-hair box and so on. She wants, not to uncomplicate her life, but to uncomplicate herself. She is not alone. Also seeking a meaning in unpredictable and seemingly trivial actions is Denny, the "hey dude" friend of Victor. He collects rocks to celebrate his sobriety. Victor, Ida, Denny, the nursing home "doctor," Paige: all are pilgrims in the new world, trying in their modern way to build Johnathan Winthrop's "city on a hill." Addicted to drugs, sex, delusional, these and other characters in Choke are trying to find direction and meaning in a world that would rather avoid even such discussions. I could not bring myself to find convincing the image of an adult Victor Mancini who remains impressionable after a volatile, unprotected childhood of trailing his wily mother in and out of courts, foster care and the modern legal system generally. A small complaint in the overall scheme of things. Reading Choke and you're in a cool hypnotic state, a self-contained world where you can laugh out loud as you ponder what drives the characters of Choke to their extremes and why, by the way, are we not similarly driven.

Selected this book as there is a debate in Florida on appropriate books for Middle and High Schoolers and this has been removed from School libraries in local County under push back from those who believe that action is censorship.The very people who mock the idea of Banned Books, believe this Choke should be on school shelves.As a fully cooked adult, parent and grandparent, who is an active reader of a wide variety of tomes, Choke falls into the category of cheesy smut for a select group of adults who seek out pornographic reading for solitary thrills. I made it to page 24, trying to sort out the value of reading further and realized that there is none.This book is not worthy of being passed on to a friend, a local library Resale or a freestanding Library House in the neighborhood.It instead wound up in the trash barrel

Very funny and approachable to casuals and veteran readers alike.

Another in an alt-world filled with extremes of unnormality of Chuck Palaniuk. No one acts or reacts as expected. Useless (or useful) facts scattered around. Never a dull moment!

This book is deep and hilarious at the same time. Palahniuk at his best. Had an absolute blast reading it.

I really wanted to like this novel and I think the concept is amazing. I never have an issue reading Chuck because he is a genius writer. I wanted to love this so bad. It had so many things that I like. I think that there might have just been too many things going on

I read one other book by this author years ago; of course it was Fight Club, don’t be silly. Honestly, I liked the movie more. So with this book (literally over a decade later), was hoping to redeem the author in my mind. And…I won’t even go into the story too much, since a lot of it is just bat**** insane. My main complaint involves the cast of this surreal drama.Some parts of the narration I did get into, but most of the characters were just too obnoxious, and/or too one-dimensional. This wouldn’t be too big of an issue if the main character could carry the game, & he certainly tries, but somewhere past the halfway point, he goes from being a lost but still somewhat functional adult with some legit insights into the seedy underbelly of life, to an immature knob who just muses all day long while trying to justify his own crappy behavior.The twist at the end did help things a bit, as it was truly unexpected & got my attention back, but the actual ending was pretty ambiguous. To be fair, that’s probably done on purpose, to keep things open-ended, but yeah, not gonna lie, probably wouldn’t read this twice.

It's ok. I like the way he writes like the character is thinking to their self. I don't always like the language. Cursing doesn't bother me, but he tends to use idioms popular with middle schoolers at the time, yet writes adult characters. His books tend to be caught somewhere between YA fiction and I don't know what. Adults who make poor decisions? Adults who still think like teens? Palahniuk always has a pretty good ending though, and I liked this one. He doesn't give people a happy ever after, he leaves enough to imagine their lives after. Not happy, not tragic, just life.

One crazy read. My preference is an edgy, gritty novel: bold language, absurd creativity, preposterous characterization, wrapped tightly in a strange story. Choke has it all in multiples, almost to the point of bad taste. At one point, about Chapter 8, the ludicrous characterizations of geriatrics humor began to wear on me and careened off into the ditch of crude and poor writing judgment.So, I put it aside for a couple of days until curiosity won out. Glad it did. Once past that Chapter 8 mudhole, I began to figure out the brilliant complexity of the story. The humor is very good, strong visualizations, certifiable protag. It became a fun read.The format, ‘first person present tense,’ is masterfully done. The present tense for an entire novel can get tedious. It needs a great writer to pull it off. Palahniuk does it to perfection. The to and fro on the chronology... a little fatiguing.Beware, the subject matter is highly graphic and requires a stout constitution. Bingo. On to the Fight Club next. I’m stuffing Palahniuk into the same envelope as Cormac, Woodrell, Pollock, Lansdale, etc. He's in good company.

I ordered this book after reading a plot synopsis and being intrigued, coupled with the fact that the author also wrote Fight Club, one of the most original and compelling movies I’ve seen. It has elements of borderline pornography, so if that bothers you look elsewhere, as the protagonist is a sex addict.In addition to being sexually impulsive, Victor must support his delusional mother in an assisted care facility, at a cost of $3,000 per month. How to raise that kind of money on a menial, minimum wage job? Victor trolls through area restaurants, staging choking incidents, compelling patrons to “save his life”. Having done so, he finds they subsequently feel responsible for his well-being, sending him money from time to time. The story cycles through choking incidents, sexual encounters, visits between Victor and his Mom (past and present), Victor’s job as a colonial reenactor and his relationship with his best friend, Denny.The story is filled with other characters, just as “damaged” as Victor. This is certainly original and initially quite entertaining, but though short, it runs out of steam well before a nice plot twist near the end.

My third book by Palahniuk. His versatility of thought and theme reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. HIs descriptions of items gross and foul are much better than those that Steven King writes. He writes dirty thoughts that I thought only I had imagined. I would rate his later novels Doomed and Damned higher, but it may be that I read these first. Once introduced to a new author, I prefer to read through his/her earlier stuff. I'm working my up to reading Fight Club which I'm sure is better than the movie. I bought this on Kindle for about $8 . I regret a little bit spending so much for a book that I consumed in a week.

Choke is an interesting (if slightly derivative) take on addiction, art, and heros. There are many similar elements to Fight Club, but you get the other side of Fight Club's philosophy. Choke delves into the very basics of human desire, the want to be loved, to be remembered, to be a hero.One of the things that draws me to Mr. P's work, time and time again, is the fact that at some point in the novel, you get these little gems of insight on society, or philosophy at large. One of my favorites in this novel is this: "The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it's only intangibles, ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create."If you ask a fan of Chuck Palahniuk's work what his or her favorite book is by Mr. P, Choke will often be at the top of the list (or near the top). I agree that it should be close to the top, but, in my opinion, it is not his best work. (Although 'Choke' is representative of the period in Mr. P's work, where the writing is still fairly cohesive and the originality is in the substance, rather than the execution.)

I'm not an avid reader. At all. I'm one of the guys who saw a movie and wanted to pick up the book to compare and be able to finally tell people "Yeah, the book is bla bla bla compared to the movie." Maybe this will give me a point in credibility to my hipster friends.I must say that I'm glad to have picked this title up. The movie isn't for everybody. The book isn't for everybody. This is because the story isn't for everybody. If you are like me and enjoy dark humor with a psychological twist and are not easily offended then this story is for you. For more detail about what this story is actually about then read the amazon review or one of the many other reviews.To get to the book specifically (while catering to those who are like me and admittingly do not read often), I will say this was a great casual read. It was fun flipping through the pages with the movie in mind and comparing mental notes about accuracy and placement of the story. Since I was going into this book with very little care to the translation from book to film I wasn't disappointed. In fact I felt it was a great supplement to the movie. Yes, some charactors aren't portrayed exactly alike. No, the ending isn't the same, it's quite different. But what a great ride it was. Plus, for a casual reader such as myself the fact that the 304 page book is broken up into many chapters averaging 4 to 7 pages, makes it a great "pick up, put down" or "toilet read."This book sparks my interest enough to actually start reading more books, and of course starting with another title by Chuck. Maybe Fight Club, but I would like to read another title that isn't accompanied by a movie. I'm curious to see what goes through my mind without the mental images a film director and actors already fed me.Pick it up. You'll know if you like it just by clicking the "look inside" option anyway.

'Choke' is my first Palahniuk novel, though I am familiar with his story 'Fight Club' because it is one of my all-time favorite movies, which I have watched at least a dozen times. I was in the mood for something dark and though 'Choke' did scratch the itch somewhat, it certainly has its faults.Meet Victor Mancini, a gullible sex addict who grew up traveling from one foster home to the next because his mother was seen as unfit to raise a child. This doesn't stop her from stealing him away from his foster parents (numerous times) though. So, Victor had a screwed up (though adventurous!) life growing up so it's understandable why he's a bit screwed up in the head as an adult. Aside from sex addiction Victor likes to create heroes out of every day people by fake-choking in restaurants and allowing patrons to 'save' his life. This is how Victor makes some cash on the side. Some people almost take him in as another child or family member and send him money on occasion. Get enough people to do this and you can make a living, though not a very good one. Victor has problems though. His mother is 40+ years older than he so she is growing old. She suffers from dementia and she harbors a secret. She doesn't even know her own child when she sees him; she (typically) believes he's her defense attorney. Victor is struggling to make enough money to support his mother, and really, he doesn't seem to care all that much for her anyways.This novel had me going for awhile. I love the gritty, grimy world that Vincent lives in. This book definitely has the same feel as 'Fight Club' - I could almost hear Ed Norton's voice narrating this novel. The problem is that this book can become quite repetitive at times, dedicating entire chapters to something that could be said in a paragraph or two. Also, about 60% in it started becoming a bit weird with religious ideas that felt really tacked on. I understand Victor is gullible, but it gets a bit ridiculous towards the end. It's as though Palahniuk ran out of steam and had to think of *something, anything* to finish the novel.I liked this book just enough to explore Palahniuk further. The next book by Palahniuk I read will be 'Fight Club' because I love the movie. I'm sure the book will be great, but with 'Choke' already feeling so much like 'Fight Club' atmosphere-wise that has me worried that Chuck is a one-trick pony. I'm still craving something really dark though, maybe Ellis will deliver with 'American Psycho'.

I feel the need to add in the same warning I saw on another review - THIS IS NOT A BOOK FOR CHILDREN! IT'S ALSO NOT FOR SOMEONE WITH A WEAK STOMACH OR SOMEONE WHO GETS OFFENDED EASILY!I recently finished reading the novel Choke by author Chuck Palahniuk. If you're not familiar with his name, you're definitely familiar with some of his work - this is the man who wrote Fight Club and countless other novels. Someone at work recommended him for something to read that was interesting and "out there" so I decided to download some of his stuff to my Kindle and give it a shot.Choke is definitely an interesting concept. The main character, a drop-out medical student named Victor Mancini, is a sex addict working as an Irish indentured servant in a colonial reenactment town. His mother, Ida, is in a nursing facility; she is addled with dementia after years and years of drug abuse. His upbringing was definitely NOT your traditional childhood, and, as a result, his view on society is very skewed.How skewed? He goes to expensive restaurants and makes himself choke on his food. Why? So some unknowing stranger will be forced to perform the Heimlich maneuver to save him. His idea is, after saving his life, the stranger feels protective of him and wants to make sure he's okay for the rest of his life.Like I said, the concept of the book itself is very interesting but very weird. You are invited into Victor's world through the glimpses he gives of his normal activities. With his days spent supposedly giving historically-accurate reenactments to school children and tourists; and visiting his mother at St. Anthony's, where he meets an intriguing young woman named Paige Marshall, you get glimpses of how twisted this man's view of the world is. His nights are consumed with finding as many sexual conquests as he can - normally at Sex Addicts' meeting.While the concept was interesting, the writing itself was very confusing and slow in my opinion. I can normally read a novel in less than an evening, and I kept finding myself unable to keep up with this one. I kept putting it down for days at a time but always returning to it, determined to get through it. The dialog in parts was very contrived and did not flow well for me.Palaniuk does know how to flesh out his characters though. By the time the book ends, he has given birth to a tragically wounded, confused young man who you come to realize is only looking for a place to belong. Through the glimpses of Ida given as Victor remembers his childhood, you start to get to know this outrageously vivacious drug addict with very strange views on the world; and she tries to impart these views on her son. And while seeming just a minor character in the Mancini universe at first, Victor's best friend Denny is a well-matched complement to Victor's refusal to combat his vices and addictions.All in all, I'd have to give this book a 2.5. It's not something I'll probably read again, but it was worth a read once. It seems to have enough of a following that, like Fight Club, the book has been turned into a movie (starring Sam Rockwell as Victor Mancini.)

If you don't come prepared for Choke, it will definitely drop your jaw. Chuck Palahniuk is not afraid to throw every disgusting and disturbing thought you've ever tried to supress right back at you.When I started this book, I came in with my critics hat on. I thought, "A sex addict? Really Chuck? Maybe you're just trying to shock us some more so we won't notice that this book doesn't measure up to Fight Club." But the shocking nature of this book was necessary, and completely effective. In my opinion, it was just as good as Fight Club, if not better.The main character is a guy with mommy issues and a sex addiction who creates heroes by having fake choking attacks in the middle of crowded restaurants. He takes you through past and present to discover a sad and surprising reality. I can honestly say that it's the only book I've ever read that made me want to throw up, but still kept me reading.

If you've read anything by Palahniuk before, you should know what to expect from this novel; it has an (almost) unbelievable twist ending, the protagonist is out of sync with society, the protagonist has women-issues - oh boy, does he ever...well, you get the point... But just because the guy is a little formulaic doesn't mean he's not a brilliant author, and just because we might have been here before doesn't mean that this isn't a great book. One thing Palahniuk has going for him is his energy - you can feel it come across the page and slap you in the face. If Jackson Pollock had been a writer instead of a painter, or Vonnegut was a little grittier, or Bret Easton Ellis was a little more clever...well, that would Palahniuk. The male characters in this book are emasculated - kind of like in fight club - and, same as in that book, it is not their fault. A great deal of Palahniuk's work tends to focus on the emasculation of the male; how there is no place in society anymore for an everyday guy to be a hero, or a cowboy, or a Knight-in-shining-armor, or much of anything at all, because the world has become so safe and consumer-friendly. The Inner dialogue of the main character, Victor, explores his addictions and chick-issues yes, but also gravitates around the fact that he doesn't want to be soft and mushy; he wants to be a jerk, and in the end, both fails and succeeds at the task. If your male and ever had to deal with the expectations of your mother, all of this will seem strangely familiar to you... This book is a page turner; the dialogue may be a little stilted, but hey, what do you want from the guy, this is the way people actually speak in our `modern times.' Besides, the prose is so visceral and beautiful it gos a long way towards raising the value of his words. If your into cynical, subversive, humorous, and clever books, you'll probably enjoy novel.

I picked up Chuck Palahniuk's Choke after seeing the movie preview for the same title a few weeks ago. The movie preview made absolutely no sense, was hard to follow, and tough to summarize - as Palahniuk's novel would turn out to be. But the preview was intriguing enough for me to go out and buy the book, and I'm glad I did... sort of.There really isn't much of a story line to Choke. The book centers on a drop-out med school student, Victor Mancini, who works at a colonial theme-park; fakes choking in restaurants to ultimately pay his mother's institutional bills; and is a raging sexaholic. In a strange twist, he also may be a direct descendant of Jesus Christ.That pretty much sums up Choke.The book doesn't so much present a linear story line, as it is a tale of self-discovery for Victor, who is trying to figure out his ancestry as well as why he is the way he is. Along this path, Palahniuk describes detailed sexual situations, gruesome medical conditions and creepy mental disorders that follow Victor from scene to scene. Palahniuk's descriptions are so vivid, in fact, that you'll start to wonder, "Could this ever happen to me...?" And you'll then quickly pray that it does not...On the plus side, Choke is certainly interesting, moves quickly, and is very funny in some parts. You can knock this out in a long weekend or two, and it's an easy read, especially after trying to absorb The Unbearable Lightness of Being, as I did previously.But along the same lines, there are better options out there if you're into books about 20- to 30-somethings looking for answers on the road through life.

Victor Mancini is a $exaholic who dropped out of medical school to care for his psychotic mother, now in an assisted living facility. The story, told in first-person by Victor, begins with a warning not to read the rest of the book.Victor then accounts the tale of his life, liberally interspersed with flashbacks to the times his mother broke out of prison or asylums to steal him back. Victor's best friend is a self-abuser who collects rocks to keep him in recovery. They both work in a Colonial-Era theme park, playing roles of servants and nobodies who more often than not wind out in the stocks at the village center.Victor finances his mother's care by pretending to choke in restaurants. Once "saved" by a fellow human, he has found that people will offer money to keep him on his feet. He keeps an account of the names and dates from which different people "saved his life", and occupies his spare time sending thank-you notes to the hundreds of people he has scammed this way.A strange relationship develops between Victor and his mother's doctor, Paige Marshall. Of course, Victor will discover that Dr. Marshall has extreme oddities of her own.'Choke' is filled to the brim with oddities. One could almost describe it as having "too much information", but Victor is relentless in his descriptive narrative of comparisons and discoveries. From $exaholics to the insanities of the "nursing homes", old-people's diseases and hallucinations, behind-the-scenes accounts of the recovery meetings, and Victor's own recollections of his childhood, 'Choke' is one messed-up book.Dude, if you like the bizarre, the psychotic, the deranged, the loony, the batty, and love to cheer for the lunatic protagonist, then you will love Palahniuk. 'Choke' is an amazing stream of meanderingly meaningless and subtly delirious mind-farts from the twisted brain of one Victor Mancini. And if you think he's bad, wait till you meet his mother.Enjoy!