The Glutton by A.K. Blakemore | Book Review | Granta

 

From the moment I found out about it, I knew I wanted to read The Glutton by A.K. Blakemore. It's surprising to then try and put into words why. As someone who doesn't read much fiction, when I do, I need it to be absolutely up to my high-horse standards: after all, when you read fiction, you read beautifully made-up lies. Beautifully made-up, but lies nevertheless. (Am I too negative? Perhaps.) And yet I had no doubt about it: The Manningtree Witches, Blakemore's previous novel, I found to be pretty much flawless too. 

The Glutton is a grotesque story, set in late 18th century France, where the terrors of war and economic depression influence every aspect of life, public and private. 'The price of bread rises,' chimes the menacing refrain. It's a haunting shadow throughout the book, as the plot develops, and masterfully widens the scope of its main focus – that is, Tarare: the boy with a strange name, the bastard, the great, the terrible. 

It's a tale in a tale, as dying Tarare narrates his life in the convent hospital where he came to die, to a curious nun, in the night. He is repulsive, not one bit endearing: that's what makes this an outstanding performance in the grotesque, because one's curiousity is instanly piqued. We want to know why. How. Whether. It's his story, from a violent birth through violent childhood and, to finish things off, a violent adulthood – though perhaps that's too strong a word, because the dying Tarare is only twenty-seven. The characters revolving around him are colourful and repulsive in equal measure: his salt-smuggling stepdad, his band of bandit brothers, his whore lover. 

Blakemore leans into the disgusting, seems to relish it and yet somehow that's exactly what I want her to do. It's a dirty book, sticky, slicked with grease and oil and semen, and blood, of course, a lot of it. Whether that's the blood of the animals that the Great Tarare, with his dislocated jaw, swallows up (bones and all), or the people dying like flies around him, is of no importance. She tortures her characters, and seems to delight in it – and somehow I enjoy it too. It makes one feels rotten, but also makes the reading a deliciously sick experience.

Blakemore speaks to all five senses as she conveys plot and atmosphere, and is excellent at it. Stench prevails throughout. The imagery is so vivid, yet so poetic that her style could be no-one else's. Her vocabulary is broad – to some, jarringly so, though to me doesn't feel gloating (though an LRB feature quotes ‘feculent’, ‘violaceous’, ‘sapor’, ‘asterisms’, ‘garniture’, ‘verdigris’, ‘entheogen’, ‘ectomorph’, ‘raptorine’, ‘ascarids’, ‘gleets’, ‘craquelure’, ‘priapic’ and ‘autogamous’ in one breath and yes, put like that, it does feel like a lot). I can see how this cacophony of mellifluous words, perhaps unnecessary, might annoy someone as much as it impresses me. I gather a vague sense most of the time, but I google certain words that jump out at me, not because I can't make out their meaning from the context, but because I feel she deliberately chose them, placed them with care. The least I can do, I feel, is to explore at least some of them.

It is no surprise that Blakemore has previously pubished poetry collections, because her narrative flows, convulses, expands, circles. I love her occasional use of repetition, both within a paragraph and throughout the book. It foreshadows and lends musicality to the text. By what seems like mundane repetitiveness, to me it seems she hefts gravitas onto sentences. Her craft is to be admired.

And what of the Glutton himself? Though Blakemore sometimes makes us wobble in our antipathy for Tarare, on the whole I think she wants us to dislike him. This is not a tale of understanding the misunderstood: it feels more like being one of the crowd, watching Tarare swallow leather belts and jewellery (and then some), equally repulsed and excited. I revel in it.

The only issue I have is with the novel's timing and timeline. We know, from the present-day snippets, that Tarare is twenty-seven when he dies; and we know he only spends a summer with his vagabond crew of thieves. So as I progress with the book, and find my right hand holding an increasingly thinning half, I'm worried about the ending. I do find the pacing struggles a bit – huge gaps in time with little detail, then comparatively short events before we zoom out again – but the ultimate events are harrowing enough to make the ending a relief, as I'm sure the author intended it to be.

I hope whatever comes next from Blakemore will be just as mysterious, dark and entertaining as her first two novels.

Four Mountaineering Books Everyone Should Read | Dorothy Pilley, Catherine Destivelle, Helen Mort & Alison Hargreaves | Rock Climbing Book Reviews

I want to tell you about the four mountaineering books I've read recently. This chain of events wasn't intentional, quite haphazard in fact; but the outcome, and this thread that I've followed (and can hopefully keep following) have been very satisfying indeed.

They're all about, or by, women; again, not planned, but I'm quite happy it turned out this way. They are all heroes in their own right, who broke unimaginable limits and went way beyond expectations. Whether you're a climber, hiker, walker or armchair traveller, these books, I believe, are full of inspiration and evocative landscapes that will delight you. 

I'll go chronologically.

Climbing Days by Dan Richards

I reviewed Climbing Days earlier on my blog, but this was the book that started me off on a quest for mountaineering literature. Its focus on a pioneer of British mountaineering, who also happens to be a woman, was a great hook. I loved reading snippets of Dorothy Pilley's adventures and those of the author, Dan Richards – both transported me, as a reader, to the places I dream of. The Lakes, the Alps, Welsh crags, the great outdoors, powerfully evoked throughout.

The upshot of reading Climbing Days was a short trip to Wasdale Head, where climbing as a sport first began (at least in the UK), with Walter Parry Haskett Smith's solo ascent of the Napes Needle. It is also the home of the Barn Door Shop, supplier of all the gear that hikers have forgotten to pack, as well as plenty of great literature of local interest. I came away with my next two reads...

Rock Queen by Catherine Destivelle

I started reading Rock Queen by the lounge fire of our cosy Wasdale Head B&B, whisky in hand, legs aching from a full day of hiking. It was perfect, and Catherine's no-nonsense, straight, driven narrative was a pleasure to read from the very start.

I didn't know it then, but Catherine is something of a legend in climbing and mountaineering circles, having completed first (often solo) ascents of some of the hardest rock faces and routes in the Alps and beyond, as well as being climbing world champion at a time that was the very beginning of competitive climbing. She began her climbing career while still at school, escaping to Fontainebleau and beyond each weekend. After she became world champion, she realised it wasn't what she wanted: her true passion lay in mountaineering, and so she turned her back on competing once and for all. It is so brilliant to read how she gave it all up to follow her own path.

It's hard to believe a bigger publisher didn't snatch this book to put out in English. My copy is from Hayloft Publishing, and albeit the translation and spell-check falter a little towards the end of the book, it is still a fascinating read about Catherine's life and genuinely jaw-dropping achievements. It made me want to try trad climbing for the first time in my life (the discipline where you place your own protective gear as you progress up a rock face).

A Line Above the Sky by Helen Mort

This was my second purchase at the Barn Door Shop, for a mixture of personal reasons, and also having seen Helen's name many times before. I felt it was time. 

This book is beautifully written, and is a poetic reflection of Helen's journey into motherhood. She is a climber and a fell runner, and although she yearned for it, being a mother didn't immediately feel natural for her. From the beginning, it made me sad.

A 'glass moth, a metal butterfly ': the first stirring of a new life in her. If I wanted reassurance that in motherhood, one can still have it all, I was disappointed – but Helen writes beautifully of the duality of a need for freedom and an even more desperate need to cling to her newborn. 'This is the purgatory of motherhood – perhaps of the human condition altogether – to want or need something else and then, as soon as you have it, to need the opposite.'

Throughout the book, she also traces the life of Alison Hargreaves, also a mother and accomplished climber who, six months pregnant, climbed the notorious North Face of the Eiger. She looks to her like her own mother figure, an example to her like I'd hoped Helen might be for me. In fact, the title of the book is that of a climb named by Alison's son, Tom Ballard. Which led me onto my next read, of course.

Regions of the Heart: The Triumph and Tragedy of Alison Hargreaves by David Rose & Ed Douglas

Reading Alison Hargreaves' biography was a very different experience from Helen's tender reflections, but perhaps that's a good thing. Alison was a driven, outstanding mountaineer and climber who struggled against the unfair cards that had been dealt to her all her life. It was another heartbreaking read, this time because such a brilliant talent was being kept down by an abusive husband and her isolation from the climbing community. (Catherine Destivelle often crops up in the narrative as Alison jealously read about her achievements in the press.) She was never quite able to break out and make a name for herself to the extent that she wanted to.

Nevertheless, Alison's achievements are mind-blowing, though one may not appreciate their full force on paper: perhaps the most oustanding one worth mentioning here is being the first woman to climb Everest unsupported, carrying all her gear and without bottled oxygen. By this time, she had two children.

Alison died on K2, way too young. She had already completed the ascent and was on her way down when a storm enveloped her. The narrative of the book is sorrowful: it felt as though she was finally ready to leave her husband, to start a new life with her children, somewhere new. But it was not to be.

It is a deep look at the life, drive and passion of an excellent mountaineer who deserved so much more recognition than she got. I am surprised and somewhat outraged that I had to buy this book second-hand from some dodgy website.

I'm currently reading The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer – where shall I go next? Please leave your best mountaineering or climbing recommendations in the comments, so that I may continue my escapist reading frenzy...