In a nutshell : Tarquin Winot is our epicurian, gentleman dandy narrator who, via seasonal menus, gives us a scattered autobiography, food memoirs and a million throaway opinions and comments on life, art, l'art de vivre etc etc etc.
The blurb : quite dense to read- do not be fooled by the fact it is only a couple of hundred pages long. Tarquin is an incredible narrator, erudite and with a poor opinion of his surroundings (exept good food, southern france, good art and the occasional beautiul woman) and launches in to a monologue on all of this. It does however become increasingly clear that he is completely mad, as he carefully builds up confessions to - haha!- and generally makes clear that he is a megalomaniac, schizo genius. He is oblivious to his own faults and the opinions some may have of him, making him a rather credible character, and it is great (on rereading the book, which is a must) to understand the gap between his opinion of himself and what he actually is.
IMHO this is a brilliant book which needs to be read and reread. Tons of facts on pretty much everything - though mainly food (of course), art, history and travel. In every paragraph he wanders off down another thought path. Taken all together it is a very funny and witty, amazingly constructed, book, that draws you in to the strange mind of the Tarquin Winot and slowly sheds light on what he is really getting up to... Highly recommended.
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