The Glutton by A. K. Blakemore | Book Review
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Trigger warnings: violence, gore, child loss, war scenes, abuse (if I left out something I apologise it wasn’t intentional)
The Glutton by A. K. Blakemore* (UK edition) caught my eye a year ago actually. It was always at the edge of my vision, lurking, haunting me like a starving wolf would circle its prey. Then, as soon as I fired up my Libby account and added my libraries, it jumped out. Again. I had no choice, but to give in. I’m glad I did, because it was delicious. From beginning to end.
The Blurb - What is The Glutton about?
(no spoilers)
The Glutton is based on a real person, actually. Which, obviously, made the whole premise even more interesting. Tarrare, was born in 1772, in France, Lyon. His accurate date of birth and his birth name is not known. Even though there are medical documents left dissecting his condition. In the book by A. K. Blakemore, he is also known as Tarare, with one r. I’m going to refer to him this way, also.
The story starts with Tarere’s birth, which was not an easy one. He basically becomes fatherless very early on. His mother lives alone and has a hard time to provide for herself and for him as well. She does it in however way she can, regardless of the nature of the work.
Tarare seems to be a docile, kind and a naive person. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for his name. I don’t want to go into too much detail so as to not spoil the brilliant story of the author, but the real Tarrere’s tale can be found on wikipedia, if anyone’s interested.
Who Was Tarare?
In short: He was suffering from some kind of condition that made him have an insatiable appetite. Doesn’t matter how much he ate he was just never full. What was even more interesting, was that this huge appetite did not come with weight gain at all. He was rather skinny, with loose skin over his abdomen and face when he was not eating anything. He was said to not have any mental illness, and constantly gave out a foul odour which was hard to endure up close.
His story blooms out on the pages of A.K. Blakemore’s The Glutton* (US edition). The author gives the reader a nice rounded picture of what happened to this man. Beautifully wovens the factual details with fiction, where data and information was missing. As we are talking about a person who lived quite a few hundred years ago.
Historical Fiction is just Something Else
(No danger here, spoiler-free zone.)
Time and time again, historical fiction authors just show me how amazing their work, their style, their world is and I’m absolutely wowed and gagged by their prose. Honestly, my main genres are science-fiction, fantasy, translated and literary fiction. Then it would be horror and just THEN it would be historical fiction and crime or thriller. So believe me when I say, every time I pick up a historical fiction novel I happen to fall in love with the author.
This is what happened here with A.K. Blakemore. So much so that I have put her other book, her debut novel The Manningtree Witches* (UK) (US edition) on hold at my library, without missing a beat. Even more, this is one of those authors that I’m planning on buying the physical copies as well and follow her work from now on. Anything she writes I will buy it and read it, without question.
The prose is gorgeous, English being my second language I love when I can add more words to my vocabulary when I read. To broaden my literary horizons. I still feel a little bit shy and not confident enough to use the language the way I use my mother tongue, Hungarian, but I want to get there and reading books like these just makes me so happy on a language enthusiast level as well. Sometimes there were more than 5 words per page that I had to look up on its meaning. It was mesmerising. I understand that it can be put off to some, but for people like me, who love to learn something new when they read, The Glutton is a treasure chest.
Historical Fiction I’ve Fallen in Love With
I have put together a little list on bookshop.org both on the UK version, and the US version of the historical fiction that made me feel faint or fall into a swoon when I read it. Made me fall in love with the author. Hope you find something that you haven’t seen before.
Also if you have any recommendation on authors who have similar amazing styles like A.K. Blakemore please do not hesitate to jump on my insta page and leave a comment under my post.
Did I Like Tarare? (spoiler)
I was thinking about this the whole time I was reading the book. I mean the book is an absolute masterpiece, reads like a poem, feels like a fever dream. That is without a question, but do I like Tarare? The character, the boy with the unquenchable appetite?
Yes and no. Yes, because in the story he is relatable to a certain degree, and he ‘gets’ his condition unwanted and undeserved. He was basically thrown by fate from one person to another, from one city to another, without having anyone or anything that he can call, home. He was not vicious, he was not aggressive in any means. He was never the sharpest tool in the box, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve love and respect.
However, as life gets tougher for him, as he ends up being with more complex, more morally lacking people, who also probably went through similar hardships in life, he changes. And all the while, his hunger doesn’t go away. It just gets worse and more uncontrollable. The reader ends up pitying him a lot. On the other hand, he really does some things that should not be done, regardless how unlucky and cursed his life has been.
Again, this just shows how expertly the author built up Tarare’s character, including the side characters.
Dr. Jekyll and The Reader (spoiler)
There were 2 side characters that I found very compelling.
One of them was the Citizen-Doctor, Jean-Pierre Dupuis and the other was the nun, sister Perpetué.
In a way I associated both with the reader. Although,the doctor also gave a sense of being a father figure of Tarare, who was torn between his empathy and pity felt towards him. His moral compass pointing him in the direction that he could be a danger to others and himself.
The nun felt more like the quiet observer, the reader in a sense, who stumbled upon this fateful creature and now pulled into this heart wrenching tale, whether or not she wanted to have a place in it in the first place.
The other side characters felt more like companions to Tarare, including his sexual and love life, which was very interesting to see how Blakemore quietly smuggled some queerness into his character. Made him the loveable character he was from one point of view, and gave him softness and fragileness as well. The potential of gentle life he could have had if not for his condition.
Overall, I’m A Happy Reader
Absolutely beautiful novel. Master level of prose, story and character architecture. I recommend it to anyone who loves historical fiction. Especially for readers who enjoy reading about and around the 18th century of France. To anyone who would love to read something a little bit more elevated on the premise of prose. Want their literary brain to be tickled, pushed and pulled around the corners.
The Glutton is not a happy novel, it is not even bittersweet but I do think we, as readers, need to read these kinds of stories from time to time. What’s more, as far as I’m concerned, the author gave justice to this historical character.
I’m picking up her other novel as well, after finishing my current reads. She absolutely bought me with this one, so from now on I’m reading anything she writes. The Glutton is severely underrated, it’s a true literary gem. I cannot recommend it loud and frequently enough.
What’s Next…
My next read is another manga series that I’ve started this year; Haikyuu!! in English this time. It’s about a high school boys’ volleyball team. Absolute banger, glues me to the page.The review will be posted next week, at the latest.
P.S. If you are an author or a representative from a publisher’s marketing team and would like me to review a book, please email [no************@***il.com] with “Novel for Review” in the subject line.
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