The Debt to Pleasure - Softcover

Lanchester, John

3.74

2,981 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330344552 ISBN 13: 9780330344555

Publisher: Picador, 1997

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A gorgeous, dark, and sensuous book that is part cookbook, part thriller, part eccentric philosophical treatise, reminiscent of perhaps the greatest of all books on food, Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Join Tarquin Winot as he embarks on a journey of the senses, regaling us with his wickedly funny, poisonously opinionated meditations on everything from the erotics of dislike to the psychology of a menu, from the perverse history of the peach to the brutalisation of the palate, from cheese as "the corpse of milk" to the binding action of blood. --Sue Sheph Tarquin Winot, voluptuary and supercivilized ironist (and snob), sets out on a journey of the senses from the Hotel Splendide, Portsmouth, to his cottage in Provence, his spiritual home. With his head newly shaved and his well-thumbed copy of the Mossad Manual of Surveillance Techniques safely stowed, Tarquin elegantly introduces his life, itself a work of art, through the medium of seasonal menus. 'Coruscatingly, horribly funny . . . a cunning commentary on art, appetite, jealousy and failure. Tarquin is a splendid creation, genuinely learned (the scholarship is dazzling), poisonously bigoted and wholly mad' John Banville, Observer 'A fully achieved work of art . . .a triumph. You have to salute the real thing. The Debt to Pleasure is a major work, a supreme literary construct that's also deliriously entertaining. Even the recipes are gorgeously seductive; several pages of my copy are flecked with stains of ragu and ratatouille to mark the moments when I could stand temptation no more' John Walsh, Independent 'Reading between the lines to discover what Tarquin is up to is enormous, sinister fun . . .dazzling, languidly brilliant, his verbal flourishes are irresistible' James Walton, Daily Telegraph 'The chilling, deluded Tarquin is the best character to come out of an English novel since Charles Dickens put pen to paper' Cressida Connolly, Tatler

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Review:

" The Debt to Pleasure has no flaws. It is witty, frequently hilarious, and wicked." -- "The Boston Globe"

From the Publisher:

Witty, elegant and bestselling journey of the senses
Tarquin Winot, voluptuary and supercivilized ironist (and snob), sets out on a journey of the senses from the Hotel Splendide, Portsmouth, to his cottage in Provence, his spiritual home. With his head newly shaved and his well-thumbed copy of the Mossad Manual of Surveillance Techniques safely stowed, Tarquin elegantly introduces his life, itself a work of art, through the medium of seasonal menus. This is John Lanchester's first novel. "Corruscatingly, horribly funny...a cunning commentary on art, appetite, jealousy and failure. Tarquin is a splendid creation, genuinely learned (the scholarship is dazzling), poisonously bigoted and wholly mad" John Banville, Observer; "Reading between the lines to discover what Tarquin is up to is enormous, sinister fun...dazzling, lanquidly brilliant, his verbal flourishes are irresistible" James Walton, Daily Telegraph; "A fully achieved work of art...a triumph" Independent

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