Tarquin Winot, voluptuary and supercivilized ironist (and snob), sets out on a journey of the senses from the Hotel Splendide, Portsmouth, to his cottage in Provence, his spiritual home. With his head newly shaved and his well-thumbed copy of the Mossad Manual of Surveillance Techniques safely stowed, Tarquin elegantly introduces his life, itself a work of art, through the medium of seasonal menus.

'Coruscatingly, horribly funny . . . a cunning commentary on art, appetite, jealousy and failure. Tarquin is a splendid creation, genuinely learned (the scholarship is dazzling), poisonously bigoted and wholly mad' John Banville, Observer

'A fully achieved work of art . . .a triumph. You have to salute the real thing. The Debt to Pleasure is a major work, a supreme literary construct that's also deliriously entertaining. Even the recipes are gorgeously seductive; several pages of my copy are flecked with stains of ragu and ratatouille to mark the moments when I could stand temptation no more' John Walsh, Independent

'Reading between the lines to discover what Tarquin is up to is enormous, sinister fun . . .dazzling, languidly brilliant, his verbal flourishes are irresistible' James Walton, Daily Telegraph

'The chilling, deluded Tarquin is the best character to come out of an English novel since Charles Dickens put pen to paper' Cressida Connolly, Tatler

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Product details

Paperback : 231 pages
ISBN-10 : 0330344552
ISBN-13 : 978-0330344555
Product Dimensions : 13 x 1.5 x 19.7 cm
Publisher : Picador; Main Market Edition (7 Mar. 1997)
Reading level : 18 and up
Language: : English

Best Sellers Rank: 322,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 30,150 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- 38,898 in Contemporary Fiction (Books)
- 40,896 in Mysteries (Books)

Customer reviews:
117 ratings

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Amazon Review

A gorgeous, dark, and sensuous book that is part cookbook, part thriller, part eccentric philosophical treatise, reminiscent of perhaps the greatest of all books on food, Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Join Tarquin Winot as he embarks on a journey of the senses, regaling us with his wickedly funny, poisonously opinionated meditations on everything from the erotics of dislike to the psychology of a menu, from the perverse history of the peach to the brutalisation of the palate, from cheese as "the corpse of milk" to the binding action of blood. --Sue Sheph

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" The Debt to Pleasure has no flaws. It is witty, frequently hilarious, and wicked." -- "The Boston Globe"

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3 star		8%
2 star		11%
1 star		7%

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George

Sublime, snobbish fun. Save the spoiler Introduction until the end.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 July 2015

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I am so glad that I didn’t read the spoiler of an Introduction before setting out on this wickedly delightful book!

I loved this novel because I am enthusiastic about food and good writing. It was like reading an erudite Mastering the Art of French Cookery, with the odd blink-and-you’ll-miss-it clues about murder and mischief thrown in between the lines. The author very cleverly shows us the truth, even when Tarquin is saying the complete opposite. A passage that made me laugh early on was when he said that he has “always disliked being called a genius” and that “It is fascinating to notice how quick people have been to intuit this aversion and avoid using the term”.

Keen as I am on food and food writing, I did find some of the long, descriptive passages a bit tiresome and can see how the book might not suit everyone, but as the tension and slow-burning/roasting excitement built towards the end, I would happily have read more, including a sequel or continuing Ripley-like series.

Overall, this was a very funny, dark parody of good food and snobbery with a sinister streak of murder peppered throughout.

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Guy

One of the funnest, funniest novels I've read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 November 2012

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Some reviewers here have complained that this novel is quite slight and unsubstantial. To me, that misses the point - things which are slight and inconsequential can be incredibly enjoyable.

Tarquin Wynot, the narrator, is an erudite, snobbish, foodie, psychopathic murderer. Sounds a bit 'Silence of the Lambs'? Not really. Wynot bumps people off for a variety of reasons but never just for fun. His fun he gets from the food and wine he so meticulously describes throughout the novel.

Like Tarquin's cooking, the prose is a fanciful, indulgent, and showy. Often fantastically funny, with a swift pace that still takes time for plenty of impressive asides, I found this unputdownable not necessarily because I wanted to know what happened next, but because I was enjoying myself too much. It is the literary equivalent of a meal in a very good but self-consciously experimental restaurant. You may not want to eat there everyday, you may think some of the combinations were a bit over the top, but you have to admit it was dazzling.

Finally, it is telling that when Lanchester published 'Capital' to much critical fanfare in 2012, this was the book, despite being his first novel and published in the nineties, that several reviewers held up as the measure of his full abilities. Unfortunately, I don't think he's lived up to the potential of 'The Debt to Pleasure' so far, but then it's a very high standard to have set yourself! If you enjoy 'The Debt to Pleasure', the meatier, more homely 'Mr. Phillips' is not a bad second course.

4 people found this helpful

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Mr. M. Bloomfield

Leaves you hungry for more

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 October 2008

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John Lanchester gives us a study in pretentiousness, self-denial and deranged envy that would sit proudly on any psychologist's bookshelves, while keeping the reader gripped in this most unusual novel.

Part travelogue, part diary, part recipe book... wholly entertaining. All that and elements of a whodunnit turned on its head make this one of the most interesting books you'll read for a long time.

What starts off, apparently, as the snobbish diary of a nobody becomes compelling very quickly in ways the reader certainly doesn't expect. The dark humour is perfectly observed and often laugh-out-loud funny; the meticulously-concocted (and utterly convincing) recipes make for mouth-watering platforms of action and opinionated soap-boxing by the main character; the hints at a murky past leave you curious to find out just what is going on as Tarquin Winot travels south on what appears to be some sort of quest; the plot drives forward through unconventional means until you're utterly engaged by the insane thoughts of one of modern fiction's most devilishly intriguing creations.

The Debt To Pleasure is not a conventional novel. The narrative does not develop along conventional lines. The fascination is not always for what happens next but rather for what is going on in Tarquin Winot's mind, and how to unravel his deluded understanding of his past, his relationship to those around him and his philosophy of life from what might, by the rest of us, be called 'the truth'. The story is written in the first-person, and that person is clearly bonkers.

An easy read, it works on many levels, entertaining, enthralling and inviting us into the mind of a man who can't distinguish invention from reality, or even right from wrong. The past, desires, hatred, envy, unfulfilled ambition, sibling rivalry and the amorality of a psychopath are used like ingredients in a dish that leaves you with a very satisfying aftertaste.

3 people found this helpful

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Tessa Warburg

Diary of jealousy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 July 2015

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I really enjoyed this book, right from the beginning to its - by now - expected end. Once you realise that this is not a cookbook in the usual sense you can gorge on the language, the needle-sharp wit, the clever snippets of foodie dishes.
And then you realise the story is so much more than that. The bitter herbs of sibling jealousy provide the motive for the narrator's obsessions - and his machinations.
The language, the recipes, the camouflaged meanings give the book an excitement a more prosaically constructed novel cannot equal. Reading it is a mesmerising joy. I will try other books by this author. It will be fascinating to see if he can equal - or surpass - this outstanding work.

One person found this helpful

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Amanda Youngs

So Clever It's Unbearable!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 May 2019

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There's no doubt the writer is a clever kind of chap. And the book came very highly recommended. But the character he's created here is so monstrous that I couldn't stand to stick it out to the end of the book, and abandoned it some 70 pages in! You have been warned!

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Mrs Alex J

Tedious

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 June 2020

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Tedious and pretentious .... like listening to a boring person enjoying telling you about your life when you just want to be somewhere else .

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The Debt To Pleasure Paperback – 7 Mar. 1997

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