Rating: 
Summary: A great pleasure indeed
Review: My recent second reading of one of my favorite "dark" novels was every bit as rewarding as the first -- perhaps more so because I was privy to the "secrets" of the book. Ostensibly a narrative cookbook, this novel quickly metamorphoses into a rambling memoir that jumps almost randomly from one event to another in the narrator's life. And little by little, the reader begins to realize that something is very wrong here.
I don't want to give away any more than that, because the fun of this story is in the unraveling of the whole twisted tale. But I will say that the character of the narrator -- whose name we barely know -- is one of the most fully realized portraits of someone who is completely insane that I have ever encountered in fiction, and as readers we are permitted to fully enter this wacko's strange mind. Indeed, because the guy is telling us the story, and because he is so full of self-delusions, the only way we can get to the truth is through the little hints he drops, the occasional omissions in his tales, the gradual realization that he is deceiving us and that the other characters see him very differently than he portrays himself.
This book is both a work of genius and loads of fun -- subtle, dark and delicious. And if you're at all initerested in food or cooking -- as any civilized person of course must be -- there are quite a lot of interesting rambles on those subjects here, as well.
Rating: 
Summary: The Debt to Pleasure is a pleasure itself
Review: I love reading about food - whether it be a description in a novel or a book specifically written about food. This is somewhere in the middle - a novel which is a parody of the foodie memoir.The narrator Tarquin is a self-important snob, travelling from the UK to his home in Provence. He shares his thoughts on food and recipes, and also fills in the reader about his past. We learn that not only is he deluded about his own ability and living under the shadow of his world-renowned artist brother; but slowly we discover he is a very devious character as well. This is a well written, funny story, and has the requisite yummy food writing (highly inspiring!) but it loses a star because of Tarquin's long winded philosophical discourses. I know it's a parody but....
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: I enjoyed this book more as I got further into it, for obvious reasons. As a lay person reading this book that was given to me by a friend, I found it at first very hard to get into. But as I learned more about Tarquin, the more I became fascinated with his psychological dichotemy. Looking back at the beginning of the book after finishing it, I could see the progression of the character in a more revealing light. Definitely worth the first (and second) read. I only docked it a start because, as I mentioned before, I think the casual reader may be turned off in the beginning of the book and miss out on this wonderful narrative by not pressing onward.
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