John Saturnall's Feast - Rilegato

Norfolk, Lawrence

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 1408805960 ISBN 13: 9781408805961

Casa editrice: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012

Riassunto

From the bestselling author of Lemprière's Dictionary, Lawrence Norfolk is back with an astounding novel of seventeeth-century life, love and war; the story of an orphan who becomes the greatest cook of his age.

The village of Buckland, 1625. A boy and his mother run for their lives. Behind them a mob chants of witchcraft. Taking refuge among the trees of Buccla's Wood, the mother opens her book and tells her son of an ancient Feast kept in secret down the generations. But as exquisite dishes rise from the page, the ground beneath them freezes. That winter, the boy's mother dies.

Taken to Buckland Manor, John is put to work in the house's vast subterranean kitchens where his talent raises him from the scullery to the great house above. A complex dish served to King Charles brings him before Lady Lucretia Fremantle, the headstrong daughter of the house. He must tempt her from her fast.

But both encounters will imperil him. As the Civil War begins and the New Order's fanatical soldiers march, John and Lucretia are thrown together into a passionate struggle for survival. To keep all he holds most dear, John must realise his mother's vision. He must serve the Saturnall Feast.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

A brilliant, erudite tale of cookery and witchcraft in 1681 (A.S. Byatt Guardian, Books of the Year)

Lawrence Norfolk is a genius (Louis de Bernieres)

Glorious ... The whole book is an extended fantasia on the idea of taste itself. Like all the best historical novels, John Saturnall's Feast is not just a novel set in some point in history ... but a novel about how histories infect stories (Stuart Kelly The Times)

Lawrence Norfolk is just about ahead of everyone in his generation of English novelists (Observer)

As vivid as it is mouth-watering ... This glorious, multilayered banquet of a book is clever and finely wrought, and the prose, steeped in the arcane language of 17th-century cuisine, brings it vividly and sensually to life (Metro)

Scrumptious foodie tale of a low-born master cook and his survival (Boyd Tonkin Independent Books of the Year)

In Norfolk's skilful hands, there is no danger of verbal indigestion. John Saturnall's Feast is the most accessible of his works. A grown-up fairy tale ... Fantastical architecture and weird botany are a vivid background to the bloody conflict and swooning romance. Norfolk is an expert on obscure sources as well as sauces. His blend of horrid history and oddly credible fantasy deserves to be consumed by the masses (Sunday Telegraph)

Witchcraft, cookery and war in seventeenth-century England ... from the master of the historical behemoth (Guardian)

A lyrical tale of historical havoc set in the English Civil War, with cookery as salvation. Class, war and folk tales are the themes of this ambitious, elegant novel (Marie Claire)

A fabulous novel. I was totally wrapped up in it, reading it on planes and trains and automobiles when it really should be read in front of a roaring fire with a huge mug of claret. It does what he has always done, which is wrap you totally into a world; utterly convincingly into that world ... extremely, extremely moving (Alex Preston BBC Radio 4, Saturday Review)

Descrizione del libro:

From the bestselling author of Lemprière's Dictionary, Lawrence Norfolk is back with an astounding new historical novel

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Data di pubblicazione: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1408805960
• ISBN 13: 9781408805961
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 416