Customer Reviews

Debt to Pleasure

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John Lanchester gives us a study in pretentiousness, self-denial and deranged envy that would sit proudly on any psychologist's bookshelves, while keeping the reader gripped in this most unusual novel.

Part travelogue, part diary, part recipe book... wholly entertaining. All that and elements of a whodunnit turned on its head make this one of the most interesting books you'll read for a long time.

What starts off, apparently, as the snobbish diary of a nobody becomes compelling very quickly in ways the reader certainly doesn't expect. The dark humour is perfectly observed and often laugh-out-loud funny; the meticulously-concocted (and utterly convincing) recipes make for mouth-watering platforms of action and opinionated soap-boxing by the main character; the hints at a murky past leave you curious to find out just what is going on as Tarquin Winot travels south on what appears to be some sort of quest; the plot drives forward through unconventional means until you're utterly engaged by the insane thoughts of one of modern fiction's most devilishly intriguing creations.

The Debt To Pleasure is not a conventional novel. The narrative does not develop along conventional lines. The fascination is not always for what happens next but rather for what is going on in Tarquin Winot's mind, and how to unravel his deluded understanding of his past, his relationship to those around him and his philosophy of life from what might, by the rest of us, be called 'the truth'. The story is written in the first-person, and that person is clearly bonkers.

An easy read, it works on many levels, entertaining, enthralling and inviting us into the mind of a man who can't distinguish invention from reality, or even right from wrong. The past, desires, hatred, envy, unfulfilled ambition, sibling rivalry and the amorality of a psychopath are used like ingredients in a dish that leaves you with a very satisfying aftertaste.

Tarquin Winot, the speaker of this wickedly entertaining novel, is an artist, a dedicated gourmet, and a brilliant and thoughtful philosopher. He is also an intolerant and arrogant snob who foists his lofty opinions upon the reader as he travels from Portsmouth to southern France. In sometimes long-winded sentences, Winot comments on effete subjects, such as the erotics of dislike, the aesthetics of absence, and his disinterest in the idea of interest, while simultaneously creating deliciously sensuous descriptions of the perfect bouillabaise, lamb with apricots, or pike in beurre blanc.

Winot is so waspishly nasty, so full of condescension, and so unsympathetic a character that I almost gave up on him and the book, thinking both too rarefied to be interesting. Then the author "hooked" me with a few details that made me think that Winot might not be all he seemed to be--that he might be far more fascinating than I had previously suspected. As Winot takes the reader through a series of elaborate seasonal menus, he casually drops hints about his past, piquing the reader's interest and inspiring him/her to figure out exactly what kind of man Winot is and what, exactly, he has done. This strange, unwinding backstory becomes the compelling "plot."

Carefully crafted and (ultimately) coherent, this novel of intrigue is a delight to read, filled with sumptuous imagery, wickedly dark humor, and a series of mysteries that depend on the reader's ability to read between the lines and draw conclusions. Both cerebral and sensual, this is a literary entree one cannot help but savor. n Mary Whipple

The Debt to Pleasure is John Lanchester's first novel. He uses the ingenious conceit of a gourmet recipe book - some of the writing in here is splendid epicurian commentary on the pleasures of food. The style and narrator ape the high art - Nabokovian, almost, the author trying to turn his life into an art form. Lanchester falls short of Nabokovian standards (he is English, after all), but the scholarship and Francophile references, similar to the other great Francophile author of recent decades, Julian Barnes, are impressive.

The plot, which slowly infuses into the narrative, like drizzles of the finest truffle oil, is perhaps a little strained and lacking in profound impact. But certainly Tarquin Winot: epicurian, snob, traveller, is revealed to be much more than the self indulgent gourmand he seems to be at the beginning.

I can rarely really get into a book if I don't like the main character, and in this book the main character is pompous and self indulgent, and as a result (as he's the narrator of the story) the writing style is intelligent, but self-consciously so.

It's redeeming feature is a hefty dose of black humour, but it wasn't enough to make me really like this book