Review: Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery

Gourmet Rhapsody [2000/09] – ★★★★

Muriel Barbery rose to international fame with her bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a quirky novel that revolves around one Parisian apartment block and its concierge Renée Michel. But, before The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Barbery published her debut Gourmet Rhapsody, which is as unusual an offering, and would also delight fans of extravagant, charismatic narrators. Pierre Arthens is a world-renowned food critic, but is now on his deathbed, craving that final forgotten taste that eludes again and again. He looks back on his life full of culinary discoveries and pleasures, as people he once knew also have their say on the man and his place in their world. With the economic ingenuity of a sumptuous three-course meal in some upscale French restaurant, Barbery delivers a different perspective and much food for thought within each of her elegantly presented short chapters.

Multiple perspectives

French literature understands that, more often than not, you do not need a plot in your life – you need a soul laid bare, a feeling, a thought you can relish, and turn round in your head for days. The finest examples of modern French literature and cinema are a testament to that, including certain fiction of Mathias Énard, Patrick Modiano and Annie Ernaux, and films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie, Delicatessen). What straightforward, linear plot is there in those works? Or what ordinary characters? The feeling and ambience are everything. It is also perfectly fine to draw on caricatures or absurdities, because the core truth of a matter, especially when one’s inner life is concerned, is often outrageously absurd.

Muriel Barbery builds on those sentiments, too. Our caricatured to absurdity main character is the “greatest food critic in the world” (self-proclaimed). After the popularity of animation Ratatouille, we may picture him as someone like Anton Ego, “the Grim Eater”, the most feared, but also the most worshipped restaurant critic around, whose scathing reviews and cold demeanour are his trademarks. Pierre Arthens is “an encyclopedic esthete who is always one dish ahead of the game—but always one heart behind” [Barbery/Anderson, 2000/09]. He is a genius, perhaps, but is also pompous, arrogant, egotistical, and has always been emotionally distant with his three children, Jean, Laura and Clémence. The multiple narrative voices, from Arthens’ daughter to his cat, work well in Barbery’s story. Everyone has their own truth in this world, their own history, as well as their own take on, and stake in, the events. Each perspective is perhaps written too similarly to pass for a truly different person, but it is all still convincing, and we become privy to each narrator’s hidden thought and feeling (see also my list 7 Unputdownable Books Written from Multiple “First-Person” Perspectives). This also makes the story intriguing from the psychological point of view, and none of the voices is louder here than that of Pierre Arthens himself.

Food

“There is no great cuisine, without evolution, without erosion and forgetting. Invention must constantly be invoked upon the countertop, and past and future, here and elsewhere, raw and cooked, savory and sweet shall all be mixed, for it is this inventiveness that has made cuisine into an art…” Muriel Barbery/Alison Anderson [2000/09: 56].

It is always thrilling to read novels that revolve around peculiar obsessions. In Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby or Perfume, obsession is taken to an extreme, and its blind pursuit hides and then reveals danger and catastrophe to come. Everything is much quieter in Gourmet Rhapsody, but the story still delves into one deep, life-long obsessive pursuit of the finest cuisine. Arthens has dedicated his whole life to finding, tasting and then writing about culinary wonders. The causes and symptoms of this obsession are being exposed to us in the course of the novel. “People don’t really know what desire is, true desire, when it hypnotizes you and takes hold of your entire soul, surrounds it utterly, in such a way that you become demented, possessed, ready to do anything for a tiny crumb, for a whiff of whatever is being concocted there beneath your nostrils, subjugated by the devil’s own perfume!“, Arthens confesses [Barbery/Anderson, 2000/09]. He tells us about his first introduction to fine ingredients and food in Morocco, his mother’s native land, and what tastes from his childhood moulded him to have such heightened sensitivity and natural discernment for good food. There are his thoughts on meat, fish, bread, mayonnaise, etc. The plot is a series of realisations, supported by first-person narratives of his circle of family members and acquaintances.

Final Quest

As in The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Barbery injects into her story a discomforting imbalance between the social classes, and scattered throughout are numerous evocative quotes on many things, from the nature of food and good cookery, to talent and love: “talent consists not in inventing shapes, but in causing those that were invisible to emerge” or “the real ordeal is not leaving those you love, but learning to live without those who don’t love you” [Barbery/Anderson, 2000/09]. And then, there is the ending. The narrator’s final “transformation of the soul” may underwhelm, and there will be no “Scrooge’s redemption” for those interested in being served with one. Barbery does opt for a rather easy way out of her suspense into the nature of food and Pierre Arthens’ complex relationship with his family by essentially ignoring the narrators’ “satisfaction” arcs and pleasing only one – Pierre Arthens. The story may feel like a dish that has been whisked away just as you were starting to enjoy it.

Muriel Barbery offers neither a strong initial narrative hook that makes you eagerly turning the pages, nor unknown depths to uncover on multiple readings. Nevertheless, while the story lasts – it is a true delight. There is a “delicious” prose to savour, dishes and ingredients to vicariously taste, and a mammothian personality to dissect. Translated from the French by Alison Anderson, Gourmet Rhapsody is a tragicomedy of sorts packed with much wit and insight.

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This post was written as part of the Women in Translation Month initiative.