Upon Reading M.F.K. Fisher

From: The Gastronomical Me by M.F.K. Fisher

"The prettifiers of human passion choose to think that a man who has just watched his true love die is lifted above such ugly things as food, that he is exalted by his grief, that his mind dwells exclusively on thoughts of eternity and the hereafter...the truth is that most bereaved souls crave nourishment more tangible than prayers; they want a steak. Preferably they need it rare, grilled, heavily salted, for that way it is most easily digested, and most quickly turned into the glandular whip their tired adrenals cry for...

Underneath the anguish of death and pain and ugliness are the facts of hunger and unquenchable life, shining, peaceful. It is as if our bodies, wiser than we who wear them, call out for encouragement, strength and, in spite of us and of the patterns of proper behaviour we have learned, compel us to answer, and to eat."



So..I have finished reading all of M.F.K. Fisher's works and have never read anything more lucent. However, in trying to find anything personal about her I've come to the conclusion that she was in fact evasive if not vague about what she has written. It ocurred to me that this is because it is in the past. She never read reviews, she rarely rewrote, and never reread finished work.

In my obsessive research I learned that when a psychoanalyst friend suggested that she look at her past work, Fisher felt sick. Why?

Judith Jones, Mrs. Fisher's editor at Knopf, who coped with her idiosyncrasies said, "she simply sets very high standards. She is a perfectionist, with great modesty and an old-fashioned sense of propriety."

M.F.K. said, "Well, I get so self-critical, I get sick. I think, I have to pull this thing back, but I can't; it is over. Writing is the only thing I know how to do, the only thing that makes me very happy. I write all the time--my house is bulging with things that will never be printed If we survive another fifty years, these pieces might have some value--they might not. I don't care. I really don't care."

There was something about reading this quote this weekend that completely freed me up to the point of feeling absolutely reckless. Isn't that great?

Then there's this:

"I have known a lot of writers," she wrote, "and have always been basically amused by their frantic insistence on being WRITERS."

The simplicity of that sentence. The artfulness of its construction. Great art comes from indirection.

Read "How to Cook a Wolf" or my absolute favorite, "The Gastronomical Me". What porn is to some people, Fisher's work is to me.