Mostly, any book at all about food really sucks me in. I love them. I do. So, I was thrilled to find The Singular Beast: Jews, Christians, and the Pig by Claudine Fabre-Vassas and translated by Carol Volk. Food, religion, reading. Hurrah. Not to mention a used book (published in 1999) so reasonably priced.Well, I thought, if pigs could fly . . . (Actually, no I did not, I just happen to love this picture, for which I thank the site Millard Filmore's Bathtub. And I will spare you my wanderings, but do check this out on the phrase.)
Having said this, the book is an anthropological romp, of a sort, which ties together various ways that the pig features in village life -- and in the Christian year -- across centuries (and some entangled regions) in what is now, I think, France. Tracing all sorts of links (and I do not mean only sausage links), the book, alas, starts from places about which I am clueless and thus the effort to read it is huge. I get it -- the symbol (and the reality -- hence the sign, the signified and the whole darn semiotic tangle) known as "the pig" holds together a whole world of relations, social and otherwise, and when read thoroughly can help the anthropologist (for that is what the book's author is) understand the world more fully. I get that. I even get that the way this particular symbol -- and its links -- are maneuvered has a lot to do with religion, with Judaism and Christianity. In fact, I get even more. I even get that the pig may in some sense make Christian, Jew, and their (sometimes horrific) relations.
But, I have to admit, the book is sort of over my head. Well, either that or I just do not care about all the details as much as I feel I "should." If I were in charge of the book, I would open it with a little more background -- what happens is you are (well, at least I was) immediately clueless about the era, geographic location, and referents for much of what is being discussed. It is as though the author (or maybe the translator) thought her readers knew a whole lot more than I did. I loved the introduction, and then got totally stuck in the remainder of the book -- despite my having imbibed a few juicy (read silly) novels with Langue D'Oc settings and even consumed some wine from the region). I may have to try again, but in the meantime, for those of you who love thick description a la Clifford Geetz, this one may actually be for you. (Yes, I still like, despite its lack of trendiness, his works on religion, art and common senses as cultural systems not to mention loving his work on color symbolism. Or was that latter bit Victor Turner?) Or, better yet, those who really like the kind of tracing of symbolic connections that is thorough and a combination of historical and contemporary, a sort of Annales school historical anthropology should read this.
For a review in the Journal of Social History try here. And don't do what I did and google "pig symbolism" -- your whole day will be shot.
Want the book? Tell me -- and maybe I will send it to you!
