There is gold in these pages but the reader has to work hard to mine it and cast it into something useful. Taylor deserves his reputation as a thinker of unparalleled breadth and depth, but in this book his vision has turned too inward and backward. It is as though he has become too transfixed by his insight that we are the products of our cultures and history and so has become trapped in his own.
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Most of us can honestly say we have no desire to be on the cover of Hello! magazine, yet almost all of us crave recognition, believing that it validates our endeavours. A myth of our age is that talent, dedication and ambition bring such recognition – and its associated rewards – in gastronomy as in everything else. Tiziano Gérard is living proof that this just isn’t true
ReadIn recent years many have expressed a concern that Western individualism has created a society of atomised, isolated selves. At the same time, the values of personal choice and autonomy remain sacrosanct. Individualism is thus seen as both the great achievement and bane of Western civilisation.
ReadSarah Bakewell’s new book is a kind of collaboration between her exhilarated younger self and the more measured, adult writer she has become. These co-authors are as generous with each other as they are with their subjects, resulting in a work that is both warm and intellectually rigorous.
ReadThere is nothing new in “playing God”, it’s just that we’re getting better at it.
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