Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Aug 24, 2011

Lesley rated it:

If you loved _The Elegance of the Hedgehog_, you may be able to tolerate this. If, however you found yourself skipping major sections of the pretentious, florid prose and navel-gazing, you won't find this much an improvement. Originally published in 2000, but re-released after the success of _Hedgehog_, _Gourmet Rhapsody_ focuses on another resident of the swanky rue de Grenelle apartment house, Pierre Arthens, the illustrious, arrogant food critic. Dying of heart disease, Arthens tortures his m More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Nancy rated it:

I know this is my pre-teen, Nancy-Drew-loving self that is saying this, but I will say it anyway: I hope Muriel Barbery writes a book about EVERY SINGLE PERSON at 17 Rue de Grenelle. I loved _The Elegance of the Hedgehog_, and was enchanted to find this new novel by Barbery. This one which concerns Pierre Arthens, who makes one supremely unpleasant visit to the heroine of _Hedgehog_ before dying and leaving his flat vacant. Let me say upfront: He is unpleasant in this one too. But this tim More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Jennifer (aka EM) rated it:

I loved Elegance of the Hedgehog, primarily because Barbery created two characters who, although deeply flawed and often annoying, were so obviously vulnerable and sad that one (I) couldn't help but feel deeply for them. That story unfolded as carefully and precisely as an origami swan, revealing deeper nuance of character with each alternating chapter, bringing two very isolated and lonely characters together (through plot, character and symbolically). It also took broad and very funny swipes More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Jinny rated it:

"How ironic! After decades of grub, deluges of wine and alcohol of every sort, after a life spent in butter, cream, rich sauces, and oil in constant, knowingly orchestrated and meticulously cajoled excess, my trustiest right-hand men, Sir Liver and his associate Stomach, are doing marvelously well and it is my heart that is giving out. I am dying of cardiac insufficiency. What a bitter pill to swallow."

As soon as I read those words (which can be found on page two), I was h More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Scot rated it:

I really liked The Elegance of the Hedgehog, so perhaps I was expecting too much here. The French title translated more directly would be <The Gourmand</i>, and I don't know why the publishers didn't just use that, because it would have been more appropriate as the character of focus is a feared and arrogant food critic, now an old man on his death bed. What we have are a series of chapters of reminiscences by a dying gourmand, in search of that last sublime taste he covets, with each More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it:

This is just about as close to 4 stars as you can get without crossing the line. If you enjoyed The Elegance of the Hedgehog, you will likely enjoy this one too, but it really isn't nearly as good, so don't expect it to be.

Barbery uses a phrase in Gourmet Rhapsody that I think perfectly describes her style: a symphony of language. This is her debut novel, however, and I think we can easily see the orchestra is just practicing. She has a marvelous turn of phrase, and her insight is s More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Elevate Difference rated it:

Food has become a very controversial subject, many arguing that education levels, income, and race unfairly dictate the availability of fresh foods and vegetables in low-income American neighborhoods. Though Muriel Barbery (The Elegance of the Hedgehog) does not focus specifically on these issues in her recent novel Gourmet Rhapsody, the division between the working class and the wealthy as it pertains to food and quality of life is often glaringly apparent in the story.

The premise of More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Monica rated it:

I am the greatest food critic in the world. It is I who has taken this minor art and raised it to a rank of utmost prestige. Everyone knows my name, from Paris to Rio, Moscow to Brazaville, Saigon o Melbourne and Acapulco. I have made, and unmade, reputations, and at sumptuous banquets I have been the knowing and merciless maitre d'oeuvre, expediting to the four corners of the globe the salt or honey of my pen, to newspapers and broadcasts and various forums, where I have been repeate

More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Bookmarks Magazine rated it:

Critics found Gourmet Rhapsody less enjoyable than Barbery's Hedgehog, which features a charming 12-year-old protagonist and an emotionally compelling story line. Arthens, who brings to mind the dour, condescending food critic Anton Ego in Pixar's animated gastro-flick Ratatouille, is far less appealing. Only Salon thought that the weaknesses of Hedgehog -- including its literary and philosophical pretensions -- were strengths in Gourmet Rhapsody. Despite the comparison, most critics thought Rha More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Vickie rated it:

I hoped for better, having just read Elegance of the Hedgehog. I was charmed by a few of the vignettes of foods, but I can't say the personal reflections inbetween did anything but drive the story to a new understanding of the critic's personality clashing or complementing each food.

As for the final taste... it is possible, having never eaten the food, I am really missing something here, but I was unimpressed with the resolution - and not just as a food, but as a cathartic device. I More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Vicky rated it:

I loved "The elegance of Hedgehog"; I even read somewhere that the book had been prescribed for some patients of psychoanalysis instead of medication. I can not compare the two books ("Rhapsody" was the first one published by Barbery), they are completely different. This book is a poem, a song dedicated to food. It is a hymn of odaration for the delights and pleasures of eating. The story makes you dismiss any concept of diets and enjoy the butter, cream and rich cakes, to c More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Lolly LKH rated it:

While I didn't devour Gourmet Rhapsody as deeply as I did The Elegance of the Hedgehog, I still found it moving. It is true that it is full of food (the love of it, the search for that one taste that the unlovable food critic Pierre Arthen longs for on his deathbed) but Barbery's beauty is in the characters. Each character that speaks of Pierre and their hatred, fear or admiration of the man holds such conflicted emotions that Barbery writes of so well. Barbery's sentences always move me and ma More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 08, 2011

Lana rated it:

"Rapsodia Gourmet", publicada anteriormente en nuestro país con el título "Una golosina" por la Editorial Zendrera Zariquiey, es la primera obra de Muriel Barbery, autora que ha alcanzado el éxito con La elegancia del erizo.

Es una lectura de prosa exquisita y deliciosa, con palabras que evocan sensaciones y olores de una forma magistral, y unos pasajes que son dignos de leer una segunda vez por la asombrosa habilidad de la autora para hacer magia con las palabras. T More...

0 comments like

Sep 03, 2011

Jan rated it:

It's always interesting to read a book where the main protagonist isn't especially likable. Gourmet Rhapsody is the slim story of a famous food critic in his last two days of life. Lying on his deathbed, he tries to recall the one particular flavor he wants to taste again before he's gone forever. The chapters alternate between his recollections of the various and best things he's tasted throughout his life and the observations of the people whose lives he's touched - from the maid to his wife a More...

1 comment like

Aug 24, 2011

Laura rated it:

Yet again, Barbery has broken my heart with an amazingly sweet, simple story about people being people... in particular, food critic Pierre Arthens whose life has been lived describing and critiquing the so called 'finer things in life,' and has forgotten the simple joys of youth and true pleasure. I love that his family and acquaintances spend the book complaining about this man's inability to connect to them, while he spends his narration connecting to mayonnaise and whiskey!

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Dan rated it:

I enjoyed this book, its descriptions of food and flavors, but I felt that it lacked real characters. Hedgehog had real characters, some likable, others not so much. In Gourmet Rhapsody there are outlines or hints of characters. There are strong expressions of emotion but they didn't seem to connect. I believe that this was Barbery's first novel and in it you can easily see her potential as a novelist.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 08, 2011

Amanda rated it:

This book is a companion to The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I found this one rather hard to finish. I loved Arthens' descriptions of past meals and the beautiful language in which the book was written, but I was less fond of the outside perspectives. I felt that they did little to add to the book, mainly because through Arthens' own descriptions of how he lived his life are sufficient for the reader to understand his true character -- a man who valued food above human relationships. In his que More...

0 comments like

Aug 24, 2011

Carrie rated it:

The characters are less relatable than those in the Elegance of the Hedgehog, and the narrative can be a little harder to follow because of the near constant switching of perspective, even to completely unknown characters, and once, to an inanimate object. That said, the language in this book is amazing. The descriptions of food are lavish, and I spent the entire 160 pages starving.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2011

Maria rated it:

En el corazón de París, Pierre Arthens, el crítico de gastronomía más célebre del mundo, está a punto de morir. Admirado por algunos y odiado por muchos, Monsieur Arthens lleva años decidiendo el destino de los chefs más prestigiosos, destruyendo y construyendo reputaciones a su antojo. Ahora, en sus últimas horas de vida, su pensamiento se posa sobre algo mucho más sencillo: busca desesperadamente un sabor único, el sabor que un día le hizo feliz. Empieza así un viaje en el que Monsieur Arthens More...

0 comments like

Oct 06, 2011

P J rated it:

I no longer eat shark’s fin soup – delicious but totally morally unacceptable (unless we eat the rest of the shark). I do eat foie gras, which some people object to. I would miss anchovies, smoked haddock, lamb’s kidneys, mangoes, nectarines, black pudding, oysters and … oh dear. What would I really like to eat, above all else on my deathbed. This is dilemma faced by the central character of ‘The Gourmet’ a first novel by Muriel Barbery, and perhaps a novel which is difficult to imagine being wr More...

0 comments like

Aug 24, 2011

Julie H. rated it:

Gourmet Rhapsody is the most elegant book I've read in some time. Allow me to explain. The novel occurs in the same hotel particulaire in which Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog is set. That said, it is by no means necessary that one have read that book (although it's wonderful, so do yourself a favor and do read it) prior to tackling this one. Ostensibly, it's about one of the building's residents: internationally-renown food critic Pierre Arthens, who lies dying with perhaps only 48 h More...

0 comments like

Aug 24, 2011

MK rated it:

The perfect foodie book! Monsieur Pierre Artens, the food critic from Elegance of the Hedgehog, has been given 2 days to live and so embarks on a gastric search as he recounts the food - and people - that he's devoured in an attempt to find one last elusive flavor.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Shirley added it

Foodies would like this book. It's short and written in a similar style as Elegance of a Hedgehog (which is a much better book). Burbery's use of words is incredible but the main character isn't very likable. I may have converted to Jim's way of making toast however (butter before toasting). Here is the character's description of toast: "Why is it that in France we obstinately refrain from buttering our bread until after it has been toasted? The reason the two entities should be subjec More...

0 comments like

Aug 28, 2011

Dottie rated it:

Not quite as expected given how I fell in love with Elegance of the Hedgehog but then -- this book came first -- and well, it shows the spark which flamed into Hedgehog, in my opinion. It also happened to hit many right notes for me at this point -- the food commentaries running throughout just added to the overall sorting process of friends, family and the dying person reminiscing and reevaluating their relationships -- or not. And the yearning for that taste -- well, there's more to that tha More...

0 comments like

Aug 24, 2011

Geraldine rated it:

Tout commencait bien: l'alternance d'un chapitre a l'autre entre le personnage principal et ceux qui le cotoient, le ton, le cote lyrique et un peu naif de Barbery... On se laisse bercer au fil du livre, mais a mesure que le personnage principal prend de l'importance -et des pages- d'un chapitre a l'autre, on se lasse de lui. Au contraire, les chapitres de plus en plus courts attribues aux personnages secondaires et annexes a vrai dire, deviennent ce qu'il y a d'interessant dans ce livre, et mal More...

0 comments like

Aug 24, 2011

Barbara rated it:

This is a "strange" book that I probably would not have read if someone had not given it to me to read. It's about a Japanese wealthy, popular food specialist who is dying. The little essays are told in first person by Rue de Grenelle (dying man) and other people in his life, who share their perspective. In reading the essays one quickly realizes the sad character of Rue de Grenelle who only cared about himself, his work, his sexual activity outside of his marriage. The only "c More...

0 comments like

Aug 24, 2011

Aurora rated it:

Thoughtful, inventive, poetic - if you read Elegance of the Hedgehog and liked it, here's more!

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 23, 2011

Jose rated it:

Como muchos libros, este se puede leer y disfrutar en varios niveles. El primero, pero no el más importante necesariamente, es la prosa; exquisitamente y, yo diría, hasta poéticamente descrito. Una sucesión de sonidos, imágenes y sensaciones perfectamente amalgamadas.

La historia, esa segunda parte a la que me refiero, aunque interesante, emotiva, yo diría que hasta reveladora de la relación de este genio moribundo de la crítica gourmet con su entorno, aunque plasmada interesantemente, More...

0 comments like

Sep 14, 2011

Zeynep rated it:

I certainly loved the idea of this book. However, it was far too lyrical for me, so much so that it got in the way of the story and just became annoying. I also had a bit of a hard time really following who was who now and again. The author presumed a lot of the reader perhaps in diving into random thoughts from characters you hadn't even met yet then back to those of the leads so that at times I really wasn't sure whose views/thoughts I was reading.
That aside, it was a quick read with an More...

0 comments like

Nov 01, 2011

Juan (He who reads!) rated it:

Here I go again, sometimes I feel really dumb when I'm translating a text, so please if you see some serious errors and you go like “ God ¿how is he capable of publishing this?”, feel free to correct me :).

Degustar es un acto de placer, escribir ese placer es un hecho artístico, pero la única obra de arte verdadera en definitiva, es el festín ajeno. El almuerzo de Jacques Destreres era la perfección pura porque no era el mío, porque no se desbordaba en el antes y el después de mi More...

0 comments like

reviews