Book of the Week

The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester

Recommended by Rohan Nightingale

Described as '[an] [un]conventional cookbook', John Lanchester's debut novel The Debt to Pleasure focuses on the integration of a cookbook with a literary confession full of textual surprises. [SPOILER ALERT - some of these surprises are about to be revealed ...]

Written through the perspective of the erudite and immoral Tarquin Winot via a stream of consciousness, the sophisticated culinary guide develops into a murder admission that allows the reader to become semi-accomplices in various murders, with the hints of the protagonist's murderous attitudes and subsequent irrationality making for the most important surprise. 

The discovery about Winot’s murders makes for the most significant surprise, and yet it is highly possible for this information to 'slip by' as you read through; Lanchester’s confession through Winot is made possible through the interweaving of slight hints between literary and sensory perceptions. The writer's emphasis on 'the accumulate[ion] of hints, glimpses (...) sense of foreboding' highlights his manner within the novel and offers a path to unlock its mystery. 

The fate of his first victim, the family cook Mitthaug, is therefore the ideal place to assess Lanchester’s work, where the accidental death on a railway sheds light on Winot's focus on food and murder. Mitthaug’s death is recounted in an early section of the summertime menu, in an aside instigated by the tastes of tomatoes. After his small talk regarding the derivation of the word 'tomato' from the 'Nahautl tomatl' and its uncanny resemblance to the human heart which was often '[at the centre] at the daily human sacrifice [in historical cultures]', Winot then hints at the absolute satisfaction of experiencing a ripe sample of the species. 

Additionally, Winot’s description about Mitthaug’s expression, '[one] of surprise and near-sensual shock' is one of intense taste, and this incident underlines the transformation of innocence into experience via inexplicable sensations of murder. The mere delight and near-mystified behaviour represent the vivid depiction and dichotomy of violence and human sacrifice which immediately follow from Mitthaug’s passing. 

Yet, while the theme of murder is certainly at the forefront of the novel, it has its moments of what can only be described as humour when Winot hints at various surprises. Winot uses puns to highlight the significance of more serious themes that strike a serious note; for example, when discussing the 'skeletons [within] Breton' and 'the [images of death and destruction in] Mexico', which not only creates a sense of morbidity, but also showcases Lanchester’s creative wit and Winot's deadly mindset that foreshadows the events that follow. Lanchester’s ability of writing the narrative in such a way to draw the unsuspecting reader into this 'world' cannot be understated. It evokes a sense of empathy for his victims, and this only becomes semi-apparent as he laces the descriptions of his childhood in between the culinary extracts. 

Author John Lanchester

Above all, however, we realise that Winot is a perfectionist; one whose culinary creations are thought out thoroughly to provoke responses and to a degree, achieve pre-meditated desires. They are successful as they are appreciated by those who critique his food within the story and on a darker note, they succeed in exactly the way that he wants for his victims.