The most frustrating thing about this book was that it started strongly with the first couple of chapters drawing me in and ended strongly with the last two or three chapters being quite engrossing. Regrettably, the 200 hundred odd pages inbetween just didn't cut it at it all. Whilst the writing of a novel that takes a real person, of greater or lesser fame, and then weaves a story around them has lots of pit falls it can fall in to the easiest one to avoid is boring the reader. I found this book inestimably boring.
The strongest sections of the book deal with Escoffier's relationship with his wife and also his rather dubious business dealings. Slotted around this are ramblings about Sarah Bernhardt and his relationship with other famous people. None of which ultimately lead anywhere or really add anything to the tale. Throw in generous handfuls of culinary talk and the bemoaning of any language or way of cooking but French and it becomes tedious. It isn't helped by their being no real timeline structure to the tale, the chapters feel like they have been thrown together in a random order as the story jumps from the present (approximately 1939) to any point in Escoffier's long life the author cares to take us.
Whilst Escoffier was undoubtedly a very talented chef and he certainly revolutionised the presentation of a menu in this book he comes across as boorish. The man himself may well have been but this is a fictionalised account and no attempt has been made to gussie him up in to an empathetic character. His wife, Delphine, gets quite a bit of page space but she never becomes a person on the page instead seeming to act as a foil for the author to show us another tiresome aspect of the chef.
Sadly, I could not wait to finish this book as I was determined not to leave it unfinished but I really did not enjoy vast swathes of prose. At the end of the reading I was just relieved that it was done.
THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK SUPPLIED COURTESY OF THE PUBLISHER VIA AMAZON.
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