Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisher Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisher? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisher. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisher ReviewI enjoyed Joan Reardon's intimate biography of the food writer MFK Fisher quite a lot but the pleasures of reading it deepened into dispiriting reflections on how intrusive biography can be. Taking its title from an inane description of Fisher;s writing by John Updike, POET OF THE APPETITE peers almost literally into the abyss, the destruction and mixed feelings left behind by a talented, "play-acting" lady's sweep through life. Reardon details the events of Fisher's three marriages almost as though she'd been there, and she brings to life some long affairs as well. Before reading this book, I don't remember knowing that Fisher had often had to fight off members of her own sex, and occasionally she succumbed, bragging about it later. In contrast to the three dimensionality imparted to Fisher's male lovers, it is perhaps unfortunate that Reardon seems unwilling to portray the estimable Marietta Voorhees as anything other than a quarrelsome, needy, aged and ugly pest, whose function in Fisher's life was to whine and to fret about her mother.
Meanwhile a comparable affair with a man, her late in life hook up with Esuqire editor and Hemingway buddy Arbold Gingrich, a married man no less, is presented as kind of cute in that old-lovers Cocoon way.
Most distasteful is Reardon's prompt, efficient way of laying out the whole sad story of Anna Parrish, Fisher's younger daughter. After reading the facts of her life in this book, how could poor Anna ever raise her head high again? Reardon eviscerates her as a hedonistic hippie who let her toddler walk across a six lane highway unattended, while she was having a manic episode on a commune. I guess part of the point is that Fisher's karma finally caught up with her.
And what about the food industry, which drove Fisher to restless spasms of having to produce a new book every year even when she was dying, or trying to? Those late books are looking more and more grotesque, like the late De Koonings produced by "the Master" in the stages of Alzheimers Disease. And yet, as Reardon shows, Fisher was complicit in their production. Anything for a buck or so it seems. I liked reading the book, its cool analysis, its thorough research, its sturdy construction, best of all for showing us, in more detail than entirely necessary, how a legend fights its way into being, and folks, it isn't always pretty.Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisher Overview

Want to learn more information about Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisher?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now