A collection of lectures by novelist Prose (Blue Angel, 2000,
etc.), part of a series on the Seven Deadly Sins commissioned by
the New York Public Library and Oxford Univ. Press (see Joseph
Epstein's Envy, p. 892). Sandwiched between pride and lust,
gluttony never really had the cachet of the other deadly sins,
states the author. It was at once prosaic and perverse, conjuring
up images of bedridden gourmands salivating over entries in the
Michelin Guide Rouge. But Prose observes that gluttony, while no
longer to the fore of our religious conscience, is very much alive
as a moral failing in a nation where diet has become an obsession
and young women tell pollsters they would prefer to suffer cancer
than obesity. The author attempts to trace the origins of our
attitude to the vice, beginning with a fairly facile exegesis of
the Old and New Testaments, where feasting is seen as both a divine
blessing and sign of human corruption, and going on to a
consideration of the precepts of the Church Fathers, who also
ranged widely in their attitudes. As Prose notes, the connection
between lust and gluttony was established very early on, with many
of the commentaries on the Genesis account of the fall of man
stressing the role of gluttony (i.e., the apple) and some even
speculating that it was because Adam and Eve broke their fast that
they succumbed to carnal relations and were exiled from Eden as a
result. The historical experience of the early Christians living in
decadent Imperial Rome (whose aristocrats feasted while lying on
couches) is also touched upon, as is the medieval cycle of
widespread and recurring famine, during which people ate
voraciously whenever they had the wherewithal to do so. The
author's treatment of contemporary attitudes (bulimia, fast food,
surgical diets, etc.) is a stale rehash of anecdotes we've all
heard before. Pretty meager fare, even for a canape. (Kirkus
Reviews)
Part of a series of highly entertaining books on the history of sinning. Eating too much is one of the Western world's greatest problems, but relatively few people would consider it a crime against God. Yet even as gluttony has ceased to be an evil, food and dieting have become a cultural obsessions, with millions of pounds expended on mortifying the flesh with punishing diet and exercise regimes. This brief history of gluttony traces the changing cultural attitudes towards food and pleasure, scarcity and abundance. It reveals how notions of saintliness and purity have helped form modern views of enjoyment, self-mortification, and ultimately nutrition. Restaurant-goers and readers of gourmt magazines rationalize their pursuit of too much food in many ways, but does a slight tinge of guilt makes your meal taste that much better? This book provides the answer, throughly exploring humankind's attempts to quell its chief survival strategy - eating.
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