I also love books.
So of course I adore Jim Crace's The Devil's Larder (available at the National Library, that is, when I return it)
I was a bit sceptical when I saw the blurb - 64 short fictions.
It's a very slim book - which was partly the reason for picking it up that day, the other reason being that I'd loved Being Dead - so how are 64 short pieces to fit in there, and be a satisfying read?
Well it is a very satisfying read. It is a collection of short pieces which need to be savoured slowly, like a fine bottle of red, or that DVD box set of your favourite TV show - watch too many at one go and there's nothing to look forward to anymore.
Crace's shorts range from hunting razor clams in the sand, to a chemical-laced bar snack that makes those who eat it laugh uncontrollably, to a woman with an allergy to aubergines but who just cannot resist eating them.
Just as you finish one story and turn the page for the next one, Crace takes your hand and leaps with you right into a different world to meet a grandmother who leaves out a piece of dough for the angels, so that her bread will rise.
This book is about food and it's also not about food. Food is ever present but it is used as a medium through which things are said.
My favourite piece at the moment is number 18, where the narrator is having backward-running dinner party on his 27th birthday.
Which ends with:
"I'm twenty-seven years of age today. Life is uncertain. Leave the soup till last."
No comments:
Post a Comment