This is my sort of historical novel. Weird, vivid and occasionally gruesome, yet utterly compelling from the start. And surely one of the best covers of the year!

DNF @70%

Once again I don't know why I've kept reading until 70%. This was making me unhappy from the first 20%, persevering for so long must be a testament that I really tried to make the most of it. First of all the novel felt as a very English book set in France and not even that was evident, if it wasn't for the occasional French town name or the fact that they were sleeping outside. Therefore for a French myth, this really read very non French, so from that point of view the novel kind of disappointed. Secondly Tarare is suppose to be this poor, uneducated simpleton yet his speech and his musing are in such elaborate language that once again I had to wander and be annoyed at the author use of language. Yea, it's nice for an author to concern herself with language, but to use language for the sake of it and not take into consideration who your character is, it's just not on! Thirdly I've found the story very hard going, slow as a very hot summer day in France, for sure! The only bit I've really enjoyed was when he meets the vagrants band and joins them in mischief making. But that's very short lived and then we are back to the molasses of Tarare's story from which I've gain nothing....

Many thanks for the opportunity!

Tarare constantly craves food and will eat almost anything. It is 1798 and he lies dying in a hospice in Versailles (after eating a golden fork, he claims). He recounts the story of his life to Sister Perpetué, the nun who is tending him. His story is interspersed with her reflections on their encounter and the nature of morality and mortality.

Tarare is born to a young unmarried peasant on the day – almost at the moment – that his father dies. She defies village morality, showing courage and some initiative in his upbringing, but from his birth Tarare is an outsider. He is gentle, naive and open. After a horrific injury something changes and he becomes incessantly hungry.

Tarare falls in with a group of travelling players who are also outsiders in their way, amoral, free and contemptuous of the law. They turn his terrible craving for food into a business opportunity, encouraging him to eat increasingly grotesque items – from rotting flesh to metal implements – for entertainment.

Tarare’s story is relayed to us by an omniscient narrator, rather than his own words. This works well because the narrator is able to offer barbed and at times amusing commentary on his adventures. Village life is vividly drawn and the characters are rich and complex.

Blakemore doesn’t shy away from the horrors of violence and poverty but she shows that even at times of crisis there are gossip and petty grudges and fleeting pleasure. The players and the people they encounter articulate different views on injustice and revolution.

Tarare’s adventures are beautifully rendered. The Glutton is funny, dark, engaging and thought-provoking. Yet there are a few flaws.

The character of Tarare in the convent, approaching death, seems entirely at odds with the boy and man throughout the book. He is knowing, cruel, manipulative. There is no explanation of why his character might have changed. (It was so marked that I kept waiting for a twist that never came.)

Blakemore likes to throw in obscure words. This is mostly fine with me, it’s consistent with the heightened, playful narrative voice. Reading on my Kindle I can look them up without leaving the page so it doesn’t disrupt the flow. Sometimes, though, I felt they broke the spell – eg “polysaccharide” threw me into the world of gut-health podcasts and it took my monkey mind a moment to find its way back to 18th-century France.

I guess it’s the nature of a picaresque that nothing changes, there is no great epiphany or revelation or growth, but I do feel that the book peters out towards the end. I also feel that more could have been made of the resonances with revolutionary France. As it stands, apart from the obvious (trauma leading to insatiable, destructive desire) the historical setting feels more like a nice backdrop.

All of which sounds a bit negative, which isn’t my intention. I’m just trying to understand why I didn’t quite love The Glutton. It’s certainly original and entertaining and worth your time, so I’ll be interested to see what others make of it.
*
I received a copy of The Glutton from the publisher via NetGalley.

Thanks to Netgalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Blakemore’s writing is lively and electric – worlds of the past come to life in her words. The body physical and the body politick that are so often twined in literature on the French Revolution are here in lurid, human detail, as one might expect with the protagonist of the human digestion machine Tarare. This one suffered a bit in the pacing at final third. I preferred The Manning Tree Witches, but will Blakemore is certainly one I’ll read again.

Repulsive and disgusting in equal measure, this book is an exploration of bottomless hunger and so much more. Tarare, an unfortunate eighteenth-century French peasant, is left with an insatiable hunger after a beating from his stepfather that was meant to kill him. Disorientated and lost, he must build a life for himself and is exploited by various people for his dubious talents. His story leads him to some very dark places, expertly written but very challenging to read. A book to be endured rather than enjoyed, it's an admirable exploration and you are brutally confronted with some of society's last taboos.

Compelling, disturbing and written like a sensory assault, this novel tells of a real French peasant with a gargantuan appetite. How much of the original story is true… probably very little, and that gives Blakemore the opportunity to build this grotesque tale of body horror, wrapped in vividly poetic language. Tarare’s lack of worldliness makes him an endearing character even at his foulest, and the reader’s sympathies are firmly with him and the more downtrodden characters.

It’s not necessarily an easy read but it’s well worth it. Appropriately enough, I devoured it in a couple of sittings. Kindle and all…

Wow!! I am completely blown away by this book and it really solidifies A.K Blakemore as a favourite author for me.

I had never heard of Tarare but what an exceptional piece of history. The story takes us from cradle to grave of Tarare's life, from boyhood as a peasant in the French countryside to travelling, mythical showman, to a disgraced man destroyed by his insatiable hunger.

Blakemore marries disgust, the macabre, the uncanny with beauty so well!! Gorgeous but then jarring writing fills every page to the point where underlining becomes reductive. The fine line between beauty and disgust, the conflict between humanity and morality. Yep, it's all in here

(Thank you netgalley for the pdf arc!)

I found this to be very wordy in its execution sadly, which made for a bit of a long winded read for me. It was a bizarre and gruesome read but not for me.

This was a really odd book, that I'm finding difficult to review. I'm not sure the reader is supposed to like or even enjoy it, and, although Im not particularly squeamish, there were parts I chose not too read. At times it felt almost like a parody while at others the writer succeeded in drawing a clear picture of revolutionary France and the lives of the poor. Would I recommend it to others? at the moment probably yes - with a health warning.
Thank you to netgalley and Granta for an advance copy of this book.
3.5 stars rounded up to 4

This is the fictionalised story of the shocking life of a real person, Tarare. Not for the faint hearted, this is gruesome, gory and glories in the stomach churning details. If this were not based on a true story I would have said it was too bizarre to be real. Ultimately it wasn't quite my cup of tea, but I've read a our of glowing revies so this is definitely one to try, to see what all the fuss is about!

Having loved The Manningtree Witches, I had really high hopes for this book - and I'd heard good things about it, too. The prose is superb, as to be expected, but I struggled to get into this story as much, and also, it was quite gruesome and graphic at times. Certainly not for the faint hearted! It sort of reminded me of the latest Ottessa Moshfegh book, Lapvona.

Interesting and bizarre historical fiction novel, based on the life of Tarare the Glutton, who lived around the time of the French Revolution. At times gross, cruel and violent, not for squeamish readers!

A bizarre and sometimes macabre story of peasant boy Tarare in the mid 1700's. Brutally attacked and left for dead by one of his mums many lovers, he joins a group of travellers. Discovering he has an insatiable appetite he is exploited by Lozeau, the self proclaimed charlatan of the group.
We meet Tarare chained to a hospital bed telling his story to Sister Pepetué. Despite the sometimes gruesome descriptions of what Tarare ate, it's hard not to feel some sympathy for him. His upbringing and treatment by others is pitiful. It's a marvellous novel for fans of historical fiction and literary works.

It is September 1798, and, in a French hospital, a patient is dying. He is to be watched and so a sister takes the place of her fellow nun, prepared to keep watch through the night. When she hears a noise, she opens the door and a dialogue is opened, by which the patient relates his story to her.

Tarare is based on a real person – the Great Tarare, the Glutton Lyon, a peasant boy, born to a young woman on the day his father dies. A young boy with everything against him – his mother turns to prostitution, he is illegitimate, and who has a huge hunger. It is this which sees him become a showman in Revolutionary France.

The historical detail is fantastic, the author wraps up her story with sensations to help the reader feel the place, time and characters. There is, in fact, an abundance of sight, smells, tastes, touches. A glut of sensations, which are descriptive, but sometimes a little difficult to read. I think that is the one thing which stopped me giving this a higher rating – I just found it hard, and upsetting, in places. However, this does certainly put you in a real timeframe, and will be a good choice for reading groups.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review. Rating 3.5

This is one of those stories that really sticks with you. Tarare has a hunger that can't be sated, eating anything and everything he sees yet not getting much bigger.

I felt that the items Tarare was eating and his relentless hunger symbolised an emotional emptiness and longing to belong. Perhaps by causing revulsion in others by what he was eating, in some way he felt in control of what they thought about him. If he was under the impression people were discusted by him any way, at least the items he ate were a sort of justification to him and a way of eliciting that response at a time of his choosing.

Tarare witnesses all sorts of violence and evil and perhaps some of the more shocking items he eats are a way of dealing with that lost innocence and horror. These items may be a cathartic release to Tarare and a way of understanding what's happening around him, albeit in a very destructive and shocking way.

Superbly written and I devoured the words with the hunger of Tarare!

Thank you to the publisher & NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for honest review.

The Glutton follows the unfortunate life of Tarare, his awful childhood and his exploration of his insatiable appetite.

I DNF’d this book at 50%, I just could not get into the story, I just felt it dragged on with not a lot happening. The book itself is extremely descriptive and well written and it’s ratings speak for themselves, I just don’t think this book was for me.

It was only when I had finished the book that I found out that this was a fictionalized account of a real person, making the story even more fascinating.
The language and descriptions are equally beautiful and thoroughly disturbing. The story was rich and detailed, and the setting of revolutionary France added to the sense of impending threat and uncertainty. I hadn't read any of the other books by the author, but will seek them out now.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the e-arc.

The Glutton reimagines the bleak and bizarre life of Tarare.

Blakemore matches Tarare’s insatiable appetite with a glut of words and a feast of stomach-churning imagery, which makes this a very dense read. While the plot is interesting, based on the little we know of Tarare’s life, I struggled to wade through the repetitive prose which felt better suited to a short story than an extended biopic.

If you’re looking for a novel dedicated to the creation of atmosphere, this is it - and it’s very effective too. But as the punishing prose perfectly echoes the relentlessness of Tarare’s appetite and his miserable life, it doesn’t exactly make for an enjoyable read.

I read and loved The Manningtree Witches and The Glutton certainly has that uncanny, slightly off kilter vibe that made The Manningtree Witches so compulsively readable and fresh. Here in the tale of a young Frenchman, born into cruelty and indifference in a pre-revolutionary France, I don't think it worked quite as well, but it was certainly compelling.

Tarare is forever altered after his step father attempts to beat him to death. Whatever injury he sustained affects his appetite and he finds that he is perpetually hungry and can eat anything. Escaping death, he meets a band of travelling entertainers and becomes a star turn until misfortune propels him to a Paris being torn apart by revolution. Tarare's appetite is a good analogy for the violence and need of a country in uproar to turn in on itself and rip itself to shreds. This is clever, troubling writing that forces you to think about the world in new ways.

Poetic and evocative description immerses the reader in the world of this novel, where the bizarre story of Tarare is revealed in all its colour and squalor against the backdrop of a turbulent period of French history. A novel to be savoured for the beguiling precision of language.