One of BBC Culture's Ten Books to Read this March and The Rumpus
Book Club Pick for March
Maylis de Kerangal follows up her acclaimed novel The Heart with a
dissection of the world of a young Parisian chef
More like a poetic biographical essay on a fictional person than a
novel, The Cook is a coming-of-age journey centered on Mauro, a young
self-taught cook. The story is told by an unnamed female narrator,
Mauro's friend and disciple who we also suspect might be in love with
him. Set not only in Paris but in Berlin, Thailand, Burma, and other
far-flung places over the course of fifteen years, the book is
hyperrealistic―to the point of feeling, at times, like a documentary. It
transcends this simplistic form, however, through the lyricism and
intensely vivid evocative nature of Maylis de Kerangal's prose, which
conjures moods, sensations, and flavors, as well as the exhausting rigor
and sometimes violent abuses of kitchen work.
In The Cook, we follow Mauro as he finds his path in life: baking
cakes as a child; cooking for his friends as a teenager; a series of
studies, jobs, and travels; a failed love affair; a successful business;
a virtual nervous breakdown; and―at the end―a rediscovery of his hunger
for cooking, his appetite for life.
