Muriel Barbery: Gourmet Rhapsody (Une Gourmandise originally published by Gallimard 2000)
Many thanks to Geopen Könyvkiadó for sending me the book!
Pierre Athens is the world’s greatest gastronomic critic, who can decide on glory and fall with a single line draw of his pen. He can relentlessly judge whether or not to give eternity to the restaurant. But what is the power worth now that he has 48 hours left to live? What can one do who thought he holds eternity in his hands when the end is so close? He is not frightened by death, but to not remember the taste that defined his entire life, which he tasted before he learned to analyze food, that frightens him.
This man who has been chasing pleasures all his life and putting himself in front of everyone is now just lying and remembering. Not just the tastes, but the experiences he went through. Meanwhile, we can see him through the eyes of others: his family, his acquaintances, his lovers, his cat and the statue in his office also say goodbye to him.
Muriel Barbery’s first novel, like The Elegance of the Hedgehog, is about the search for the meaning of life. The two novels take place in the same private palace in Paris, only now we go to look into a different apartment (like another world).
You can read more about The Elegance of the Hedgehog here.
