I am reading "
Curiosities of Literature" by John Sutherland.
Samuel Johnson is quoted as saying,
"Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully, for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else."
I sent a part of this passage as sms to some of my friends- one of them replied with no mean guilt, "I think this is meant for us- we need to be careful". But Samuel Johnson is not asking us to diet. He is boasting that he took greater care to eat more, not less, for Boswell writes,-
"When at table... his looks seemed riveted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite, which was so fierce, and indulged with such intenseness, that while in the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible."
How times change- we are all gluttons now, and when we hear mind what you eat, we think we are asked eat less, not more: our enjoyment of eating is now tinged with the guilt of abusing our health: food itself has become a forbidden fruit.
Elsewhere in this chapter, which is all about the pleasure of eating as described in literature, Sutherland quotes a curious passage from a short story by Guy de Maupassant: two strangers, one of them a young man, travel together- he helps a lactating young woman rid herself of the pain of lactation- the passage goes,
"Il se mit a genoux devant elle; et elle se pencha vers lui, portant vers sa bouche, dans un geste de nourrice, le bout fonce de sons sein. Dans le mouvement qu'elle fit en le prenant de ses deux main pour le tendre vers cet homme, une goutte de lait apparut au sommet. Il la but vivement, saisissant comme un fruit cette lourde mamelle entres ces levres. Et il se mit a teter d'un facon goulue et reguliere."
Not having the confidence that I could learn French to decipher the meaning of this passage, which Sutherland promises is voluptuous and icky, I turned to Google Translate:
"He began his knees before her and she leaned toward him, carrying to his mouth in a gesture of nurse, after dark in sound. In the movement she made by taking his two hands for towards this man, a drop of milk appeared at the top. He drank it eagerly, seizing a heavy fruit this udder between these lips. And he began to suck a greedy and lawful manner".
Such are the pleasures of literature.
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