This book is something else. It’s so quirky, strange and unsettling, but also insightful and intriguing. Set in France, 1700’s. Protagonist is the son of nobles but they’re foundering from debt and his parents in fact starve to death. He’s orphaned and doesn’t even realize what’s happened, sitting outside in the mud eating beetles when a passing aristocrat sees him, makes inquiries, and takes an interest in his fate. He’s sent to a school for the children of destitute nobility, as it were, and then a military school. Makes some fast friends in his boyhood, then again gets singled out for attention by wealthy people, so via marriage and other fortunate events, gets accepted into the artistocracy and his life takes many different turns. He really just wants to live peacefully in his chateau, focused on his family and taking care to improve his lands (although his attempts to remedy things and ease starvation among the peasants sometimes backfires and they hate him all the same). I liked the first part of the story, with the childhood waxing and waning of friendships, his unfolding interest in girls (to be expected) and the excitement and confusion of hunts- both those he just tagged along on, and later ones he participated in actively- far more interesting to me than the later politicking, weaving in and out of social positions, and involvement in France’s battle with Corsica. Even the later chapters where he visited the king’s menagerie, brought home ailing animals to his own care, and gradually built up his own collection of exotic beasts (including a blind pet tiger that was allowed in the house) didn’t quite grip me. I admit I was skimming some in the middle of the book.
But it held my interest for the quality of the writing (probably because the last few books I read were a bit flat and bland) and because I don’t think I’ve ever read a story about the French Revolution from the viewpoint of an aristocrat, before. What really downgraded this book for me: the details of sensuality was just too much. Although I appreciated that the protagonist did his best to be faithful to his wife, he had plenty of dalliances before and after being married. (I could far better stomach his descriptions of the people living in sumptuous luxury, yet lacking basic sanitation, so everyone just went around ignoring the smells of bodily waste and trash). What really intrigued me, the thread that made this story so unique: this character was fascinated by how things taste. From the opening scene where as a five-year-old he was eating beetles and worms out of the dirt, to his experiments cooking anything he could catch as a young man- cats, dogs, snakes, etc- to trying anything strange and exotic when as an adult the world opened up to him. Pickled wolf’s heart. Flamingo tongue. Breast milk. Even strange plants, insects, lice, tree bark, dung (ugh). There’s recipes that sound like something out of Tasting History (a show I watch sometimes with my husband). It was very interesting, though sometimes disgusting too. And the ending scene, I didn’t really see that coming until the last few pages, but wow it was so apt. I actually liked the ending.
I was so taken with the writing style, at the beginning of this book I was already wondering what else the author has written. But after the middle part I realized I probably won’t like his other works, and glancing at more titles yeah, they’re probably not to my taste at all. That’s too bad, because he really has an excellent way with words.
Borrowed from the public library.
