Nicholson Baker Critical Essay | Critical Review by Francis Spufford

Critical Review by Francis Spufford

SOURCE: Spufford, Francis. “Consuming Passions.” New Statesman and Society 9, no. 395 (22 March 1996): 40.

In the following review, Spufford offers an unfavorable assessment of The Size of Thoughts.

There was a Victorian naturalist named Frank Buckland who liked to eat what he studied: jaguar steaks, armadillo stew. Nicholson Baker displays something of the same urge, only refined and let loose on the zoo of consumable things. They don't have to be consumer goods, let's be clear. The sensibility that gave the chief character of The Mezzanine “Panasonic three-wheeled vacuum cleaner, greatness of” as his sixth most frequent thought ever, didn't have its drab utility in mind. His pleasure was more avid; it bypassed mere vacuuming.

The point is the discovery of incidental adventures for the gastronome. And so [in The Size of Thoughts] in these exercises in applied epicureanism, it transfers with ease to such challenges to digestion...
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