The Glutton
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- € 7,99
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- € 7,99
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Sister Perpetu� is not to move. She is not to fall asleep. She is to sit, keeping guard over the patient's room. She has heard the stories of his hunger, which defy belief: that he has eaten all manner of creatures and objects. A child even, if the rumours are to be believed. But it is hard to believe that this slender, frail man is the one they once called The Great Tarare, The Glutton of Lyon.
Before, he was just Tarare. Well-meaning and hopelessly curious, born into a world of brawling and sweet cider, to a bereaved mother and a life of slender means. The 18th Century is drawing to a close, unrest grips the heart of France and life in the village is soon shaken. When a sudden act of violence sees Tarare cast out and left for dead, his ferocious appetite is ignited, and it's not long before his extraordinary abilities to eat make him a marvel throughout the land.
Following Tarare as he travels from the South of France to Paris and beyond, through the heart of the Revolution, The Glutton is an electric, heart-stopping journey into a world of tumult, upheaval and depravity, wherein the hunger of one peasant is matched only by the insatiable demands of the people of France...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in the last turbulent decades of the 18th century, Blakemore's savory second novel (after The Manningtree Witches) is loosely based on the life of the Great Tarare, a French peasant renowned for his insatiable hunger. The story begins with Tarare chained to a hospital bed near Versailles, recounting his story to an incredulous nun named Sister Perpetué. Born in 1772 near Lyon, 17-year-old Tarare escapes after being beaten and left for dead by his mother's salt-smuggling lover Nollet. He begins a new life with a band of traveling entertainers, whose enterprising leader capitalizes on Tarare's talent for devouring anything and everything: "Trotters and snouts, sod and corks, snakes and rats, mice white and browning and throbbing in mute terror as they are dangled by their tails above the mouth, scrabbling their tiny person-like hands uselessly." Tarare performs for an increasingly rebellious peasantry, who maraud throughout the countryside smearing human waste on the wrecked walls of abandoned chateaux. As war ravages Europe, Tarare becomes a soldier and a spy and ends up in the care of two doctors—one benevolent, the other cruel. When a child disappears, perhaps devoured by someone or something, Tarare vanishes. Atmospherically charged and written in eloquent and compassionate prose, this is a lusty feast.
