A Sweet Death - Softcover

Tardat, Claude

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1609440153 ISBN 13: 9781609440152

Publisher: Vertvolta Press, 2010

Synopsis

"The fundamental inanity of existence has already pierced my heart, and I know now that only cakes have any savor."
In a tiny room under the Parisian rooftops, a precocious student concocts a rather unusual plan for a simple task: suicide. A dizzying array of desserts--pastries, chocolates, cookies, custards and more--are the instruments of her demise.
A Sweet Death is the macabre and humorous record of a young woman's eccentric progression. A rumination on life, literature, philosophy, fashion, love, and--most importantly--food.
By turns sumptuous, horrific and hopeful, Claude Tardat's novel is an original and compelling exploration of what it means to be alive.

About this title

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

Review

"Countless authors have confronted the idea of Western over-indulgence by making their characters as self--indulgent as their enemies. ...Claude Tardat, a French writer who has apparently vanished since the original publication of her book in the 1980s (this edition was translated late last year), has given us a nameless narrator in A Sweet Death with the self-awareness to embody her disgust with Western overindulgence. She becomes consumptive on her own terms.
Ironically, the language itself is indulgent. "Why do they get so worked up about it just because the skies are clear and the sun is out?" she asks while observing young hotties scantily clad on a hot day. But, characteristically unable to stop and let the question and the inevitable answer gain a footing, she continues, "Exhibiting all that skin, forgetting that the skin is just a husk holding in a soggy, sticky mass? Congregating in a mess of erotic magma?" Although it's appropriately melodramatic for a 19-year-old girl, it only works to relieve the narrator of any credibility. Often, the flowery language and overly specific adjectives remind the reader just how frustrating it is to see a privileged teenage girl die from too much food when so many are dying from lack thereof. The theatrical narration can come only from a girl who is trying to hide the fact that what she's really saying is, "See? See what you made me do?" " -Josh Potter, The Stranger newspaper, August 3rd, 2011

About this edition

• Publisher: Vertvolta Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1609440153
• ISBN 13: 9781609440152
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 154