The Discovery of Chocolate - Softcover

Runcie, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060959436 ISBN 13: 9780060959432

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2002

Synopsis

Diego de Godoy sets off for South America in 1518 with Cortes and the Conquistadors. During his travels he falls in love with Ignacia, a native woman who introduces him to the secrets of the most delicious drink he has ever tasted: chocolate. Tragically, their passionate affair is cut short by the chaotic conquest of Mexico.

Diego later discovers that his lover had secretly added the elixir of life to his chocolate. Unable to die, he lives on through history -- Paris during the time of the Revolution, Vienna in the 19th century, late Victorian England, and Hershey, Pennsylvania -- accompanied by his trusty greyhound, Pedro. All the while, he searches to recapture the magic of Ignacia's chocolate -- and to learn to love life just as fully.

Playful and intelligent, this is a romantic story about love and loss inspired by a very enchanting substance.

About this title

Review:

What delicious ingredients James Runcie has blended together in his first novel, The Discovery OF Chocolate--a picaresque, time-travelling journey of self-discovery. Told by the Spaniard, Diego de Godoy, accompanied by his faithful greyhound Pedro, Diego wanders the world, like Don Quixote bereft of his Dulcinea, in search of his beloved Ignacia--and the perfect chocolate.

In 1518 the 20-year-old Diego leaves Seville bound for Mexico where he joins Cortes's conquistadors and falls in love with the beautiful Ignacia. When Diego is ordered back to Spain, Ignacia gives him a parting gift: a chocolate drink, the elixir of life, and the promise that "If you are alive, then I am alive. Never cease in your search for me." But, returning to Mexico, he finds only her grave and so begins his wanderings, sometimes dictated by the forces of history, sometimes by his own whims. Through "an eternity of travel", he and Pedro reach Chiapas, the city of Ignacia's birth, where he discovers that time has slipped by a century.

Full of incident made more piquant by the introduction of significant figures along the way, Diego soon finds himself locked in the Bastille. It's 1788 and he swaps chocolate recipes with the Marquis de Sade. Then on to Vienna to create sachertorte. Fervent with questions, yet filled with despair about life's meaning, he begins his weekly visits to Freud. And all the while, his droll scrapes punctuate his slightly overdone gloom. On board ship to America, Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas solace him with talk of love and food. The early 1900s find him once more in Mexico, a man old in wisdom, but still virile in his ways.

Runcie's novel is a charming addition to the hunger for chocolate in all literary forms. This is storytelling whisked into a pleasurable mix but perhaps offers more instant gratification than lingering after-taste. --Ruth Petrie

Review:

"This enchanting novel takes up where strict histories of chocolate leave off, exploring the spiritual and emotional effects of chocolate and how these magical qualities have moved people throughout the ages. It gives a soul to the existing body of knowledge."--Nick Malgieri, author of "Chocolate and "Cookies Unlimited"The next time you place on your lips the final moist fragments of a Sachertorte or taste the dark nipple of a Hershey's Kiss and imagine the wickedness that gave us such marvels, turn to James Runcie. His treasure of a book, fantastic and delicious and dreamily erotic by turns, will transmute your yearning for the bitter water into a craving from which you will, quite happily, never recover."--Simon Winchester, author of "The Professor and the Madman"Runcie's provocative imagery transports the reader on a marvelous journey through centuries of chocolate fact and lore. The climax of the narrative is as sweet as the subject matter."--Marcel Desaulniers, author of "Death by Chocolate Cakes"James Runcie has whipped up a rare entertainment--a fable as richly satisfying as chocolate itself. This bittersweet tale, beginning with a conquistador's first magical encounter with the seeds of the cacao, tells how chocolate becomes the elixir of his life, extending his loves and adventures through centuries, across continents and into the lives of some very famous names. It is a confection of delights."--Timothy Findley, author of "Pilgrim"

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0060959436
• ISBN 13: 9780060959432
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272