Read the french translation. First ; superb translation.
I read so little French books at the moment that I can spot a dodgy translation and here I was, reading in French, as if the book was originally written in the language. So there. First thing ; yay for valuable translator.

Really enjoyed the story. Very very melancholic and lovely. Picked it up for the cover and glad I took it all the way to the cashier.

The reviews were so good I decided I had to read this book. It looked really interesting. At first I didn't like this book and then it got interesting for almost half the book and then iI ended up skimming the last half. The problem for me with this book is that although the main character is somewhat interesting the descriptions about the "interesting" food were gross - seriously gross. My second problem is the sex scenes were foul. After the first one I skipped them but really. So unnecessary. I had to skim the last half of the book because there was too much gross and weird stuff.

Magnifique. Brilliant. One of the most unique books I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

http://abitterdraft.com/2013/09/the-last-banquet-by-jonathan-grimwood.html


The first time I noticed Jonathan Grimwood’s The Last Banquet was when I saw it up on NetGalley several weeks ago and I thought about how cool the cover was. For some reason I cast it aside, telling myself I already have plenty of books to read. Weeks pass, and reviews from a few bloggers I trust for recommendations pop up, drowning the book in praise. I checked back on NetGalley to find that it was archived and no longer available and that it wasn’t published in the US. My path led me to The Book Depository, where I found a signed first edition hardcover of the book for $15. I’m pretty frugal when it comes to buying hardcovers, so it was definitely an impulse buy. Once in a while impulse buys pay off, and The Last Banquet paid off in full and more.

Jean-Marie Charles d’Aumont is first and foremost a chef. Even the title chef is a gross understatement. Jean-Marie is a connoisseur on an adventure to taste as many different things as he can in his lifetime. The story opens up and we find Jean-Marie as an orphan sitting by a dung heap munching on beetles. With each beetle consumed, he notes that they often taste like what they’d consumed prior to being eaten. There’s a very wry, subtle humor throughout the story, and it shines in the beginning where Jean-Marie eats a beetle before a nearby man can ask him to share, as if everyone eats beetles.

Jean-Marie will eat anything he can get his hands on – frog, loris, snake, dog, cat, lion, you name it, he’s eaten it, raw or cooked. Intermittently throughout the book, Grimwood has placed entries of Jean-Marie’s cookbook, including ingredients, steps to cook said meal, and what the meal tastes like. Funnily enough, more often than not the meal tastes like chicken, and he reasons that if he’d been weaned on mutton, most meals would taste like mutton, and if he’d been weaned on venison, most would taste so, and so on. d’Aumont is a particular proponent of cheese, moldy and not, and he beautifully describes his favorite, Roquefort, in saying

“It tasted as I remembered, of mould and horses’ hooves clipping on brick and dung beetles and sun.”

Not only does Jean-Marie crave the taste of any animal organ, hearts, tongues, and all – he seeks the taste from every other locale possible – from dung to urine to milk from a woman’s breast, from blood to the taste of sex – he wants it all.

The Last Banquet was full of emotion – not necessarily from the narrator (who is narrating from old age) – but in the prose. Grimwood writes beautifully, as befitting the time prior to the French Revolution. There were some surprisingly dark passages that made my eyes widen in disbelief, some depressing parts, parts that made me angry, that made me happy, and there were parts that were filled with raw sensuality and love. Grimwood encompassed more emotion in The Last Banquet than I’ve encountered in any story I’ve read this year.

Through Jean-Marie’s attendance in a school for boys and later a military academy, he meets lifelong friends, and through friends he meets lovers and many other kinds of people. There are interesting characters you will hate and love throughout the story, including appearances by greats such as Voltaire and Ben Franklin. We follow Jean-Marie through love and loss, thick and thin, as he rises through the ranks of the French society in the 18th century that Grimwood depicted so very well.

Having a solid amount of knowledge of the Revolutionary era of France, I found myself smiling at how much of the detail written was picture-perfect – The Last Banquet is an ideal representation of the rising class tension, the food shortages, and the decay of French society at the time. From peasants covered in filth giving Jean-Marie and his compatriots angry looks to men and women alike squatting to relieve themselves out in the open without a care in the world. This accuracy made the story feel incredibly real to me.

The sheer scale of The Last Banquet is one of its defining features. Grimwood doesn’t give us a glimpse into Jean-Marie’s life, or even a decade. He gives us the entire thing – decades and decades of d’Aumont’s life. He also includes very thought-provoking material, one such example is when Jean-Marie says

“‘I’m not sure the people can cope without the idea of God’ I told him. ‘Without spiritual heights to which they can aspire…’”

The conversation continues with talk of what the causes of religion are, what the world would be like without it, and other things.

There is so much wonderful content in The Last Banquet and Mr. Grimwood shattered my expectations when I bought the book on a whim. The Last Banquet is the story of Jean-Marie Charles d’Aumont – a man on the quest of taste, going wherever it takes him, from an orphan to a diplomat of the king, country to country, flavor to flavor. I cannot recommend it enough and, having not read Jonathan’s previous work, I’ve got some catching up to do before he puts out another marvelous piece of work like The Last Banquet. Now go buy it.

The Last Banquet, translated by Maria Maestro was recommended to me on a reading spa I went to at the wonderful Mr B's Emporium Of Reading Delights with Chrissi Reads. To be honest, considering that eye-catching cover, it's the sort of book that would have intrigued me enough to pick it up but I'm not sure on the synopsis alone whether I would have been compelled to follow through and read it. Luckily, the book-seller who encouraged me to give it a try was incredibly persuasive and I became excited to find out what it was all about. To be fair, the intricate details of the narrative within this novel haven't completely stayed with me but generally, this book is a literary marvel. The way it's written is so sumptuously detailed that for any lovers of language, it's truly a joy to read. It's not for the faint-hearted, (which I'll go into a bit later) but it's a surprisingly compulsive read and I found myself hanging on every word the author had written, the sure sign of a hooked reader!

In a nutshell, The Last Banquet focuses on one male lead, Jean Marie Charles d'Aumout who is found by the Regent of France in the late 1700's on a roadside feasting on some beetles whilst his parents lie dead in a looted house nearby. The Regent takes pity on the young boy and takes him under his wing, sending him to a school and then to a prestigious military academy where he mixes with the aristocracy. This is the story of how Jean Marie rises from a penniless existence to the ranks of the wealthy as he takes his fascination that began with tasting beetles to whole new levels, continually on the quest for a more interesting and exclusive taste. Meanwhile, the French Revolution looms terrifyingly in the background, threatening the rich and entitled, and Jean Marie begins to understand the true nature of love and trust.

This was such an interesting novel that I really didn't expect to enjoy as much as I eventually did. From the very first moments, when we are introduced to Jean Marie eating stag beetles at the side of the road, I was instantly curious to see how the story was going to play out and of course, completely disgusted! My mum actually tells a story of when I was a young girl and she pulled half of a stag beetle from my mouth: ("It's back legs still wriggling!" she delights in telling me!) and I don't even want to think about where the rest of that beetle went! UGH. The fact that I find all kind of insect life absolutely grotesque in my adult years means that I wonder now whether the taste of that beetle put me off for life? Haha! Anyway, our lead character certainly doesn't have any problems in that department regarding tasting the weird and wonderful. He will try anything and everything, despite the species and this is where my warning in the first paragraph comes into effect. If you think you might be slightly queasy regarding this subject, be warned indeed. Included in the text are multiple recipes for Jean Marie's concoctions, including graphic details on how exactly they should be cooked.

Some parts are horrible, I have to admit but at the same time, the dark side of my brain was fascinated by his life, his strange obsession for new tastes (which does stray into the sexual as an adult as well), and how his happiness seems to hinge on this very unique quest of his. It is an odd book in this regard and I think you have to be pretty open-minded to see past this slight freakishness and appreciate the novel for what it is - something a bit different which is beautifully written and definitely has an edge over other books in the genre. The author did go to some unconventional places, that's for sure but you know what? I actually respect and admire him all the more for being brave enough to do that and writing a book that I'm more likely to think about and want to re-visit years down the line. Despite our male lead's quirks, he is an endearing and engaging character and because you follow him from such a young age and see his rise in society, you really want to know how it's all going to turn out for him.

For my full review and many more, please visit my blog at http://www.bibliobeth.com

I had high hopes for this book, but it fell very flat. Honestly some of the sensory imagery in this book I could've gone without...the taste of urine in the protagonist's lovers' nether regions, for example.

I really liked this book. It flowed quite nicely and HONESTLY--completely refreshing to have a man (and a man set in the context of the 18th century) not be a complete lout. A lot of times with historical fiction, the man is terribly cruel and whores around with literally EVERYONE and you're meant to shrug and just say "those were the times!"

Jean-Marie D'Aumout cares deeply for his wives, his children, and even animals at turn, and it really helped to solidify the reader in being on his side. He won't let his daughter marry a man he is certain will beat her. He wants to wear condoms with Virginie because of the miscarriages, and refuses to take on mistresses. He stops a lioness and her cub from being slaughtered and offers to take them in. He frees a cat and feeds her and the kittens. More examples besides.

The whole angle of wanting to try everything was interesting as well in a motive for the actions that he takes, if a BIT gross at times.

Beautiful and moving and heartbreaking. Some lovely turns of phrase and a genuinely relateable protagonist. I cried on a train in the middle of the day!

An interesting travel through prerevolutionary France as seen from the eyes of an improvirished nobel who has an overwhelmng desire to experience all the flavours he can.

Unique and quirky - lots of detailed descriptions of food but with a grotesque twist! Based on France in the eighteenth century this is an interested read about society. Similar to Patrick Suskind. I’d recommend if you are looking for something a bit different but not always an easy read.