Review of The bedroom secrets of the master chefs by Irvine Welsh

Title: The bedroom secrets of the master chefs

Author: Irvine Welsh

Editorial: Vintage Books

Genre: Fiction

Country of origin: Scotland

Pages: 438

Days to finish it: 20

Books read of the author: 4

Year of publication: 2007

Personal score: 4.5/5

Preview: The secrets of the master chefs

What the heck is related cooking and fucking? In my personal opinion: nothing. But I guess this has a cause, and it is that I don´t know how to cook. In the most of the second or third dates, is a sort of tradition that the man makes a dish for the dinner, and the plot is the next: the man strives and learn how to cook a fancy dish, the next thing is that the lady feels charmed, then a bottle of wine comes, and the action begins. Yup, this is the normal plot of the second date, now I can explain why I never have second dates… but at least I have the thirds, if you know what I mean.

How did I get it?

Actually I don´t remember how much long ago I get it, but I remember it has a great discount, I guess it was two Christmas ago.

A little bit of the author…

Just today, when I finish the book, the author (earlier) gave me a retweet of one of his phrases, I was on ecstasy and I think I could die happy tonight. Reading his Twitter profile, he will release a novel in the next weeks. I´m not sure if I can read it so fast, but I´ll try.  

Review

Danny Skinner is the jerk of the office, he´s sort of handsome, intelligent and he knows how to treat the women, but he has a little problem, he´s an alcoholic, Ups. Danny has a medium employment in the council of the city. His life is bad at all… until Brian Kibby reaches to the office. But Kibby is a relaxed and shy guy, he only wanna makes friends. Soon, Skinner will hate so much slowness and dumbness.  

The war of egos, will start, and so the opposite sided will clash. In one side the opportunism in the other the shyness. A mystery curse will be put on both, and the events will not be the happiest for one of them.

Through the portrait of opposite men, and having as background the book the bedroom secrets of the master chefs, this story will settle up. Who will win in this absurd “war”?

Opinion

This is the second book that I have been slowest reading in a while, doesn´t care if was in English or not. At least I read other two books while I was reading this. Before I´d read in English, but always in American English, this was Scottish English, which is harder. This is the fourth book I´ve read of Welsh, and I´ve loved all of them.

This book could be descripted as slow in the start, in the half all the things are becoming better. In the other books, I had a background or an idea, in this I didn’t had a fucking idea. Actually I don’t know what motivate me to read it.

In the beginning I thought it will be easier or faster, but when I was reading, I only could read 10 pages in half hour, quickly this frustrates me, I thought so much descriptions were necessary, but in the end all becomes worth. I really liked the book but the truth it was a tired book. I loved the panoramas, the characters (specially having two characters so extremely different), the situations, the happiness, the sadness, everything. Even this strange thing that happens in the half.

The book is about a big metaphor, the two sides in the life: the fun and selfless or the shy and cautious. How we live, which questions we make it to ourselves, and how we treat the other persons (doesn´t matter their genre) are other metaphors in the book. Actually is a very deep book, and if I didnae took so long I never realized it.  

And the end… the end totally broke up my heart. In all the book I had one favorite character, and in the end… I won´t tell you what happen. The only thing I could say is that I love those kind of ends, but I hated this. Fucking Welsh.

I need a recipe for everything in my life.

Quotes

“Her lips still carrying the remnants of the satisfaction he´d given her.”

“I can´t explain the rage I have against him, the impulse to precipitate and savour his annihilation, and part of me is horribly ashamed off it: the pathetic nature of it all, the raw, searing illicit pleasure this hatred of him gives me.”

“God, I´m sorry about all my touching myself cause I know it´s wrong. If you could get me a girlfriend I´d treat her nicely and there would be nae need to…”

“She gasped and grimaced and bit my lower lip until we both got that metallic taste of blood in our mouths.”

“A flood of emotion almost overwhelms me. She´s right, but I just need… somebody. Why is it girls always look at their most beautiful, most desirable, just as they´re telling you to fuck off?”

“When did all those lovely memories of togetherness and fun start to become uncool and embarrassing me?”

“Even if somebody was an object of his desire, he invariably found himself thinking about her level of intelligence, music, clothing, film and book preferences, the sort of friends she had, her social and political views, what her parents did for a living.”

“We tried to poison each other. We were like lemmings, but instead of jumping over a cliff together, our suicide pact was long and turgid. We just wove the bastard imperceptible into our social life.”