[3.75] Historical fiction is most satisfying for me when an author constructs a vivid reimagining around a truly unique person. One can’t get more unique – or more fascinatingly grotesque – than the Glutton of Lyon.
I never recall hearing of the Great Tarare, a French peasant who lived at the end of the 18th century and became a sideshow performer, stunning audiences with his insatiable appetite for virtually anything in sight. Suffice it say that this distasteful tale won’t inspire many readers to hit their hometown smorgasbord joint in between chapters. Blakemore’s status as an acclaimed poet is evident as she guides readers through a cacophony of colliding emotions in the very same vignettes. Disgust. Sympathy. Sadness. Even occasional moments of levity. Yet there were huge chunks of Blakemore’s second historical novel that seemed to drag, becoming bogged down by the author’s word wizardry (As Gloria Estefan once crooned, “Words Get it In Way.”) Still, “The Glutton” is a unique book that creativity explores how an individual who is denied love can develop unsavory appetites. ( )

This was beautifully written, but featured some horrendous scenes. It's not for weak stomachs. I should have looked more closely at the book's description as I am in fact one of those weak-stomached types.

I was also pleased to pick up more than a dozen new words! I love to learn new things, so that was a treat. ( )

A haunting book that wallows in the contrast of the beautiful and the disgusting. But I think it's the sense of loneliness and sadness that will stay with me. Blakemore depicts a world of ingrained pain and cruelty; the expectation of those things has become their own response. In place of sympathy or love, there is only disdain and frustration. There is no mechanism for comfort in Tarare's world; hunger is the synecdoche for his pain, and it is a pain that his world will not salve. ( )