Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - Anthony Bourdain

I’ve always had a bit of a contrarian streak when it comes to things everyone tells me I should love. Once discourse over a movie, show, book, or even a person becomes too fawning, I get my hackles up and develop a distinctive and entirely unjustified dislike of the subject. So it was with Anthony Bourdain, whose boudless adoration made me reluctant to watch his shows or read his books. Who was this guy that everyone was going on about? With the release of a documentary about him and the controversy resulting from the director’s use of deepfake audio to replicate Bourdain’s voice, I started hearing his name again, and I overcame my prejudice long enough to check out his breakthrough book, Kitchen Confidential.

I’ll say this about Bourdain: the man could write. There are two common methods that weak writers use to write books. The less self-conscious among them simply write as if speaking—or, in all likelyhood, speak and have their words transcribed. The result is bland prose, but easy to read and engaging enough if the story itself is interesting. The second technique, common to non-writers with literary pretensions, is to adopt a stilted, overly complex language, cramming adjectives and metaphors into simple ideas to bloat them into some facsimile of depth.

Bourdain adopted neither of these strategies. His prose is eloquent and conversational, allowing flourishes where appropriate without lettting them overpower the text. His language is peppered with expletives, but in a manner that feels natural—there was never a “fuck” or “asshole” that didn’t feel like it emerged spontaneously, they way it would in conversation after a few drinks.

The structure of the book is loose, begining with an episodic biography of his childhood (not nearly as hardscabble as his hagiographers imply, by the way: he went to private school and enjoyed a summer in France as a child, not something poor American kids get to do much) and continuing in bursts through his early and middle career. He is honest about his faults, and reveals enough warts that I expect most of what he says is treu in spirit, even if the details are sometimes exaggerated. Some of the characters he describes feel a bit larger than life, and I’m guessing he allowed himself a bit of poetic license when describing the debauchery of their lives, extent of their unmatched skills, and floridity of their language. Here, for instance, is a snippet of speech supposedly representative of what a cook from an Italian resaurant would regularly say:

'You, sir, are a loathsome swine. Too damn ignorant to pour piss from a boot! Your odor offends me and my shell-like ear gapeth to hear thy screams of pain. I insist you avert your face and serve me a libation before I smite your sorry ass with the tip of my boot-you sniveling little cocksucker!'

Has a human being ever said anything like that sincerely? Probably not, though I don’t doubt that’s how Bourdain rememebrs it, more or less.

After the biographic portions, the book fragments into different topics: tips for aspiring chefs, inside secrets about how food is prepared and what the discerning diner should avoid, character sketches of people he’s worked with (always celebratory, if not unaware of the individual’s flaws), a detailed desciption of a day in the life of an up-scale chef. I found all of it interesting, and read through the whole thing quickly.

All in all, I can’t say I’m in the hardcore Bourdain fan club, but I’ve lost my prejudice toward the guy at least. He seems like a talented chef and writer, and no doubt brought joy to a greater number of people than those to whom he brought pain, as addicts always do (he is upfront about his checked past and addiction, though doesn’t wallow in the details too heavily). A good book worth reading.

Songs in the key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music - Irwin Chusid

My wife gave me Songs in the Key of Z as a gift several years ago, and it’s been a favourite of mine ever since. This is my third or fourth rereading, and I enjoy it as much today as when I first cracked it open. It might seem an odd candidate for repeat reads, as its stated purpose is to introduce the uninitiated to a roster of bizarre and largely unheralded artists. Yet I find myself coming back to it every couple of years, engaged time after time in these stories of hope and perserverence in the face of indifference, madness, and a host of other obstacles.

I was not truly uninitiated when I picked up this book, having heard of several fo the artists already—and not simply the more commercially successful ones—but I nevertheless learned of a lot of amazing individuals, some of whom became personal favorites. Chusid casts a wide net, chronicling the careers of respected avant garde stalwarts like Syd Barrett and Captain Beefheart, indie darlings like Daniel Johnston and Wesley Willis, and true off-the-radar oddities like Jack Madurian, a resident at an assisted living community who recorded a pinballing medley of Tin Pan Alley hits, and Shooby Taylor, whose unreleased demo of himself playing air saxophone have made him a celebrity among a small but fervent clutch of devotees (count me among them).

In addition to varying levels of fame, Chusid makes no distinction between artists whose intensity fo vision make them commerically unviable despite considerable knowledge and skill, and those who truly have nothing that could be called, in the conventional sens,e musical talent. Harry Partch and Robert Graettinger are undeniably able composers with deep understanding of music theory—Partch even devised his oen 43-note scale based on Just Intonation—but chose to compose music that most listeners would not appreciate, whereas the tin-throated heiress Florence Foster Jenkins had what is universally described as an atrocious voice, and can be appreciated more for her guileless faith in her own abilities. Nor are the camps clearly defined: I imagine most listeners owudl consider The Shaggs utterly devoid of talent, but I remain convinced that in an alternate universe, they are as big and influential as the Beatles.

Chusid’s prose is deft and funny, descriptive withotu being overwrought, and gilded with many funny turns of phrase. He is a talented writer, and I was surprised to find that he doesn’t have any sort of writing background, going so far as to claim in his author bio that Songs is his first and last book. I hope he reconsiders. there remain considerably greater depths to be plumbed here, and he is clearly the man to do it.

Transperceneige (Snowpiercer) - Jacques Lob, Jean-Marc Rochette, Benjamin Legrand

La Transperceneige—or “Snowpiercer” in English—is a futuristic trai nwith 1,001 cars containing (what are supposedly) the last living humans on Earth after a global nuclear conflagration induces an eternal winter. At the opening of the story, Transperceneige has devolved into two distinct civilizatiosn sealed off form one another, with the citizens in the frontmost cars living a life of relative luxury, while those in the backmost cars dwell in abhorrent squalor.

The story opens with a “queuetard” (roughly translating to “tail-dweller,” a perjorative for those in the backmost cars) named Proloff, who enacts a daring escape to the front cars only to be captured and questionsed about the deteriorating conditions in his homeland. He gains the support and friendship of Adeline Belleau, a citizen of the upper classes who belongs to a movement favoring integration and equality between the cars. Their struggle defines the first chapter, before abruptly switching to another train called the “Crève-Glace,” or “icebreaker,” and following the exploits of an arpenteur (or “explorer”) named Puig Vallès.

There are a number of twists and turns, and the writing doesn’t take pains to lay everything out for you (though part of that may have been my French, which probably fails to catch some nuance), but the story is coherent enough to propel you forward, even if there are some components that require a fair bit of suspended disbelief. The premise itself is maybe the hardest sell. I still don’t really understand why the sole survivors were on a train, and not in a bunker somewhere, nor am I sure why it was so important that it kept moving. If anything, a trai nseems liek a pretty impractical place to weather an apocalypse. WOuldnt’ the rails have been damaged in some place? And how does it keep going forever? Presumably it’s on a loop, but a loop where, and for what purpose?

I wondered about these things from time to time, but for the most part was comfortable ignoring them. Some stories are more about style than plot, and getting too hung up on technicalities can cause you to miss the positive aspects of the story, and there are several here. The characterization is rich, its heros and villains sufficiently shaded in their ethics to help you pick sides without making the good guys too good or the bad guys too bad. The dialogue is rough and natural, full of contractions and figures of speech that lend an air of verisimilitude and fit the rough-edged post-apocalyptic setting. Admittedly my French is not good enough to truly gauge the accuracy of the speech, but it sounded good to my ear (and also taught me a bunc hfo new swear words, which is an important and often neglected part of language learning. “Salaud” and “bordel” are both going in the old back pocket, as is the euphemistic, s’astiquer (politely translated as to “polish” oneself).

Lastly, I should note that when I checked the book out of the library, I assumed it was the complete series—it is titled to suggest as much—but it turns out this version was published right before a fourth and final volume was released, so I haven’t actually read the true conclusion (which surprised me, as the end seemed fitting). I am intrigued enough to seek this out at some point.