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4th out of 26 books
—
39 voters
The Debt to Pleasure
Winner of the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel and a New York Times Notable Book, The Debt to Pleasure is a wickedly funny ode to food. Traveling from Portsmouth to the south of France, Tarquin Winot, the book’s snobbish narrator, instructs us in his philosophy on everything from the erotics of dislike to the psychology of the menu. Under the guise of completing a cook...more
Paperback, 272 pages
Published
December 7th 2001
by Picador
(first published 1996)
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I wanted to love this book. It was highly recommended by a co-worker who is one of only a few passionate readers I know in real life. The writing style was elaborate and pretentious, the sentences overlong, rambling and wordy. Many passages were darkly humorous and the food descriptions were mouth-watering. The main character was clearly disturbed. If you are paying enough attention (I wasn't always), then you will find clues early on as to how disturbed he is. Yet, I am not interested enough in...more
31 likes · like · see review
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Not Your Typical Lad
This is an odd little book, but one that is hugely rewarding.
There is a trend in English writing towards "lad lit", by way of imitation of "chick lit".
Most chick lit that I’ve read (e.g., Kathy Lette – nobody does upwardly mobile English bourgeois quite like an Australian) seems to be at home in its genre, whereas most lad lit seems to me to be lost in imitation, as if the author was writing down to this level, while waiting to be discovered and offered the opportunity to wri...more
This is an odd little book, but one that is hugely rewarding.
There is a trend in English writing towards "lad lit", by way of imitation of "chick lit".
Most chick lit that I’ve read (e.g., Kathy Lette – nobody does upwardly mobile English bourgeois quite like an Australian) seems to be at home in its genre, whereas most lad lit seems to me to be lost in imitation, as if the author was writing down to this level, while waiting to be discovered and offered the opportunity to wri...more
25 likes · like · see review
One of my favorite books of all time - the writing is wonderful, as long as you are okay with a tendency toward the stream-of-consciousness style and the use of a lot of big words. As off-putting as that may sound, Lanchester never misuses words - I just had to mention it because a friend said this is why he didn't like the book. So yes there are some words you MAY have to look up.
I go back and re-read this book all the time. He gets the tone of the effete foodie just right.
I go back and re-read this book all the time. He gets the tone of the effete foodie just right.
6 likes · like · see review
Започнах да чета хартиено издание на книгата на английски ,но преминах на електронното на български.
Стилът в оригинал е тежък и преводачите са се справили доста добре.
Книгата е смесица от много тънък хумор, сериозна доза интелектуален снобизъм и безспорна любов към храната и douceur de la vie.
Много неочаквана, на някои дори ще се стори непоследователна и разпиляна.Краят идва като гръм от ясно небе.
Стилът в оригинал е тежък и преводачите са се справили доста добре.
Книгата е смесица от много тънък хумор, сериозна доза интелектуален снобизъм и безспорна любов към храната и douceur de la vie.
Много неочаквана, на някои дори ще се стори непоследователна и разпиляна.Краят идва като гръм от ясно небе.
I read about this book on the web as I was googling Iain Pears; what a lucky coincidence! This is an incrediby original and engrossing book; a monologue by one of the most colorful, eccentric and deranged fictional characters I have come across in a very long time. The narrator is a food critic and incidentally a madman, with an irresistible sense of humor, quite a combination. He peppers his life narrative with some interesting recipes and menus. Of course, as he gets caught up in his story, th...more
What a delicious, sick, twisted, and unique book this was. Let me try to describe: OK first of all, it is a work of fiction (I mean, I sure hope it is!!). It's a psychological expose, wrapped in a memoir, wrapped in a cookbook.
Got that?
It sounds like it makes no sense, but it all fits together once you get into it. The narrator thinks he's writing a cookbook, but he admits up front that there are liberal amounts of memoir thrown in there... stories about his childhood, his current life, his thou...more
Got that?
It sounds like it makes no sense, but it all fits together once you get into it. The narrator thinks he's writing a cookbook, but he admits up front that there are liberal amounts of memoir thrown in there... stories about his childhood, his current life, his thou...more
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If only some books were as lovely inside as they are on the outside. Granted, I only gave this book 40 pages (plus some flipping through the rest) so maybe magic would have happened at some point had I read the rest. If you want a good example of stream-of-consciousness writing, or how to make your verse drip arrogance and disdain, this is your text. I can see this guy talking dutifully into his tape recorder about how this or that food reminds him of such and such memory, oh and did you realize...more
This book is a mix of Babette's Feast & Like Water for Chocolate with a little dash of philosophy thrown in to bind it all together. And, yet, it purports to come across as a cookbook, too! ...albeit, an unconventional one. It's the story of a man's life, related through "...that most basic and sublime of human passions: Food." The fact that the main character is English just adds to the enjoyment since the humor is then very dry and he, himself, typically self-deprecating. He's inspired by...more
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lancaster was an accidental type of book. Something that you just stumble across. It’s not the type of book that you frequently hear being recommended, which is disappointing to me.
I guess I should warn you, the book is about food but it is also about horror. Two subjects I find that are often blended together. This is a revenge tale, but a beautiful one. Like a fancy cake that you are almost afraid to touch so as not to disturb the art and love that went into it.
I guess I should warn you, the book is about food but it is also about horror. Two subjects I find that are often blended together. This is a revenge tale, but a beautiful one. Like a fancy cake that you are almost afraid to touch so as not to disturb the art and love that went into it.
To...more
Честно казано, останах разочарована от книгата. Обичам храната и ми доставя истинско удоволствие да чета книги за храненето. Тази обаче ми дойде твърде претенциозна като стил. За храненето предпочитам да се пише простичко, но с отношение и любов. В тази книга несъмнено отношение има, а също и ерудиция и познания, но не и стил - поне не такъв, какъвто на мен би ми допаднал.
Само едно изречение от книгата:
"Когато размишлявам над този в същината си картезиански хедонизъм - казвам картезиаски, защото...more
Само едно изречение от книгата:
"Когато размишлявам над този в същината си картезиански хедонизъм - казвам картезиаски, защото...more
THE DEBT TO PLEASURE is a gastronomic journey that meanders from how to create a perfect menu to a number of eclectic topics, including the life story of the narrator, Tarquin Winot. Tarquin is a cultured, knowledgeable, rather pompous, yet charming food writer who regales the reader with his expert opinions on such subjects as the ideal Irish Stew to the ambiance of good restaurant to the erotics of dislike. His outre obsevations are wickedly funny and I found myself laughing so hard that I had...more
This is a truly satisfying & nutritious banquet of a book,rich in literary protein,packed with poetic vitamins & supplying plenty of earthy carbohydrates too! Its mostly French setting adds picquant flavours to the pot & Lanchester's authorial voice is spicy with humourous asides on life & its singularities; no two appetites are the same,no two tastes are identical.The plot,such as it is,revolves around a slow sojourn with a gourmand/gourmet writer,Tarquin Winot,English & ref...more
This book was extremely disturbing. It reads as part food essay/part memoir with a very sinister twist. The main character reads like an erudite, very francophile connoisseur (big snob) of food, art, interior design, etc. and is the final arbiter of good taste. His expertness and his perfectionist ego lead to some deeds I won't share as they are the key things that you ultimately wrestle with as the complete picture comes into view.
Quirky and inventive novel, which is well worth the effort of persisting with the pompous and irritating narrator. Tarquin Winot is a foodie and is not all that he seems. The blurb on the back of the book indicates that. Also anyone who changes hia name from Rodney to Tarquin does have identity problems. It is a sort of Mrs Beeton meets American Psycho.
The food talk is actually very interesting and Lanchester clearly knows his stuff (he ought to as he has been a restaurant critic for the Observ...more
The food talk is actually very interesting and Lanchester clearly knows his stuff (he ought to as he has been a restaurant critic for the Observ...more
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Imagine Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin (author of The Physiology of Taste) crossed with Nabokov's Charles Kinbote and you may come up with someone like Tarquin Winot, Francophile food editor and fabulously insane narrator of this deliciously evil little gem. I envy the aficionado of comic fiction who hasn't yet experienced its pleasures.
This novel really has an odd arc to it. It starts out as an almost plotless meditation on fancy food and cooking. Then it gradually, very gradually, becomes the story of a scary, diabolical sociopath. As someone recently more and more interested in fine cuisine and the culinary arts, it was challenging but not overly so to make it through the first 170 pages or so of the gourmet musings of the narrator. And then it starts getting really juicy, though still full of ever so erudite foodstuff trivi...more
Loved this book! Which is hilarious and surprising and full of the longest sentences you've read since grad school. The attitudinal narrator loves digression and starts many an assertion that is interrupted with clause after modifying clause, going on and on until when the object of the sentence finally arrives - as often as not I had to go back to see where it had begun, because by then I'd forgotten. If you find that sort of thing annoying, you'll probably hate this book. I liked it. And he's...more
The writing in this book is phenomenal: inventive, funny, weird, arch. It's really a delight, page to page, paragraph to paragraph, even, to read the way all this erudite culture is reassembled by the very talky narrator. It's really an accomplishment, and I'm sure people who are more familiar with writers in the high style can really identify who this writing is in debt to, but I very much enjoyed it, felt it sparkled throughout.
I was less taken with the plot, sort of the confessions of a socio...more
I was less taken with the plot, sort of the confessions of a socio...more
In the preface the author states, "This is not a conventional cookbook." And on the back cover The New Yorker called it "a novel masquerading as an essay masquerading as a cookbook ..." however it wasn't clear to me that it was any of these forms but rather an odd hybrid of all. I found the author to have a very rambling unorganized style which seemed based on his free association of memories from his childhood. The problem for me was it just flitted around too much and lacked coherency at times...more
Shamefully, I bought this book years ago and never got around to reading it but I'm glad now that I finally have - especially as I have honestly never read anything quite like this book. It's a satire and a memoir and a confession and a cook book, all in one!
The Debt to Pleasure is about Tarquin Winot, a gloriously self-indulgent foodie who quite simply thinks that he is the bees knees. The over-the-top writing is deliberately try hard from the very beginning but the information given is genuin...more
The Debt to Pleasure is about Tarquin Winot, a gloriously self-indulgent foodie who quite simply thinks that he is the bees knees. The over-the-top writing is deliberately try hard from the very beginning but the information given is genuin...more
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This intelligent, sinister novel includes some fantastic food writing. It also uses my favorite literary device of all time: the unreliable narrator.
Great if you like books with unlikeable protagonist/narrators. Who write badly.
The *author* is not a bad writer, and has been quite clever, piling conceit upon conceit. But the narrator's bloated pretentious writing style--though it informs the reader's understanding of his character--gets hard to take.
I did like some of the travelogue and food bits, even though I think we're supposed to end up uncomfortable with our own gluttony and hedonism in light of our distaste for the narrator and his. Th...more
The *author* is not a bad writer, and has been quite clever, piling conceit upon conceit. But the narrator's bloated pretentious writing style--though it informs the reader's understanding of his character--gets hard to take.
I did like some of the travelogue and food bits, even though I think we're supposed to end up uncomfortable with our own gluttony and hedonism in light of our distaste for the narrator and his. Th...more
A nasty little book about cooking and revenge. The ending is fantastic. Highly highly recommended.
This was tough. I didn't enjoy it because I found the lead character to be self-centered and noxious. That was, I gather, the whole point. Without giving anything away, it is quite a feat to get into the head of someone that disturbed and carry it the entire length of the book. Not a fun read but a incredible exercise. I saw the ending coming much too early, though, in defense, I don't think it was intended to be a surprise. The very point was building the event. Still, once I knew where it was...more
My friends will know, from my modest literary endeavors in the past, that I am the last person who should file a complaint about garrulous or verbose narratives. As much of a fan as I am of the haughty and rude character of this piece, there came a time when I bored of attempting to "figure out the story in the margins," while trying to dig through his over-indulgent, self-important ramblings. His pretentiousness eventually began to outweigh the story, occluding every ounce of enjoyment I felt I...more
At what point does a satirization of artistic vanity and overintellectualized nonsense itself become overintellectualized and nonsensical? I'm not sure, but The Debt to Pleasure crosses that line pretty early on. Reading this book reminded me very much of Nabokov's Lolita, for the comparable protagonists -- each book features a cunning sociopath bent on perpetuating a number of malignant ills, while self-justifying with an aesthete's solipsistic insulation from matters of real import. It also re...more
One of my greatest pleasures is eating, so I must cook. I savour, therefore I cook. I like tasty food made with fresh ingredients that address all four of our tastes – salt, sour, sweet and bitter – to create a complementary whole. Of course, there is now the fifth taste, unami, the expanding universe within soy sauce, that can amplify other inputs. I have just made an English pie, with chicken, mushrooms, a little diced bacon, seasoning and fresh herbs. It was moistened with stock and an egg be...more
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OK -- I'll show off for a second time. I'm actually in the middle of my third full-length Hebrew novel for my Hebrew book club (try as I might, I couldn't find the title on goodreads; just a bunch of German translations of the author's other books). However, I have to read that one slowly -- last time, I finished the book way ahead of the group and had nothing to say during the meetings because I couldn't remember it any more (we meet every few chapters or so, as opposed to regular book clubs wh...more
Oh yes. Loved this book.
For its craftmanship.
Such long sentences, but necessarily so, in order that you join with him on his train of thought which is not conveniently chunked up into easily digestible sentence length pieces.
And so very clever... subtly weaving in what are bombshells of information.
Like talking in the softest of tones whilst saying something horrendously harsh, it takes a second to realise the significance of what's just been said.
A couple of times I went to read the book while...more
For its craftmanship.
Such long sentences, but necessarily so, in order that you join with him on his train of thought which is not conveniently chunked up into easily digestible sentence length pieces.
And so very clever... subtly weaving in what are bombshells of information.
Like talking in the softest of tones whilst saying something horrendously harsh, it takes a second to realise the significance of what's just been said.
A couple of times I went to read the book while...more
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John Lanchester is the author four novels and two books of non-fiction. He was born in Germany and moved to Hong Kong. He studied in UK. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and was awarded the 2008 E.M. Forster Award. He lives in London.
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“Mere adequacy is never adequate.”
—
4 people liked it
“In all memory there is a degree of fallenness; we are all exiles from our own pasts, just as, on looking up from a book, we discover anew our banishment from the bright worlds of imagination and fantasy. A cross-channel ferry, with its overfilled ashtrays and vomiting children, is as good a place as any to reflect on the angel who stands with a flaming sword in front of the gateway to all our yesterdays.”
—
2 people liked it
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