≡ Libro Gratis The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs A Novel Irvine Welsh 9780393329667 Books

The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs A Novel Irvine Welsh 9780393329667 Books

Download As PDF : The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs A Novel Irvine Welsh 9780393329667 Books

The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs A Novel Irvine Welsh 9780393329667 Books

Before I get into the meat of this review, let me just get this statement out of the way: Irvine Welsh is, flat-out, a brilliant writer, matching deep-seated insights into his characters with a prose style that could make a Wendy's menu look interesting (well, moreso) and even when his plots drag a bit his gift for crafting memorable, quotable dialogue and penetrating inner monologues is more than enough to keep pages turning. His latest, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, is (cliche alert) a somewhat more mature work than such early Welsh classics as Trainspotting and Filth, but still quintessential Welsh all the way: intelligent, profane, and all-around bizarre. There are still plenty of depictions of sex, boozing, and drug use, peppered with the usual heavy dose of naughty language, and topped off near the end with a (sexual) set piece so disturbing it almost made me lose my lunch all over some fellow commuters on the train ride home. Beneath its rampant vulgarity, though, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs is sort of a quietly devastating story, exploring the darker recesses of the human mind without getting too bogged down in the results to have a sense of humor about it.

The two principal characters (and, to a lesser extent, some of the ancillary characters) are both well-fleshed out and multi-dimensional, helped by Welsh's decision to jump back and forth between third- and first-person narrative. After a brief prologue establishing the circumstances surrounding his conception, we're first introduced to Danny Skinner, a fatherless young restaurant inspector in Edinburgh living a somewhat typical aimless twenty-something life filled with sex, drugs, and an almost unfathomable amount of alcohol. Danny's life is going along just fine until he makes the acquaintance of Brian Kibby, a virginal, comically innocent 21-year-old model-railroad enthusiast who takes a job in Skinner's office. It doesn't take Skinner long to develop the sort of burning, irrational hatred for Kibby that's all the more intense because he can't adequately explain its source (I think most of us have felt that way about somebody), and that's when things really get weird. After a while, the negative effects of Skinner's dissolute lifestyle-hangovers, weight gain, the pain resulting from being raped-all start to take their toll on Kibby, whose physical deterioration only adds to the emotional toll of years of ostracism by his peers. In turn, the previously chaste Kibby sees his thoughts turning progressively darker, starting with a humorous struggle to control his urge to pleasure himself and eventually coalescing into a lethal combination of lust, spite, and bitterness, the latter two directed mainly at Skinner.

It would be easy to make the sex-obsessed, almost perpetually drunk and cynical Skinner a simple villain and the diffident, self-effacing Kibby a good guy, but Welsh ensures that we see them both from as many angles as possible, to the point that I for one found myself identifying mostly with Skinner, even if we don't have all that much in common. Skinner really is pretty thoughtful and even occasionally sensitive beneath his cynicism, and he is the kind of alpha-male guy people tend to like to be around, while Kibby is the type of nerdy, snivelling little sissy you just want to punch in the face. Through these two, we see alienation approached from two seemingly opposite poles, as Kibby is still grappling with the effects of a childhood filled with rejection while Skinner is steadily coming to realize that his cynicism and substance addictions have prevented him from forming any real relationships. Skinner's attempt to find out his father's identity weighs heavily on the proceedings as he tries to figure out the source of his self-destructive compulsions, but this isn't some cliched, sappy "I drank because my daddy abandoned me" story. As usual with a Welsh story, people's motives and drives are harder than that to determine, leaving one to wonder just where free will ends and determinism starts. Even the supernatural elements that creep in about halfway through the book, dealing with a bizarre hex that Skinner seems to hold over Kibby, are integrated into the larger story rather than taking it over, keeping the focus on the inner turmoil of the two protagonists as they go through some profound and not entirely explicable life changes.

As a couple of others have pointed out on this site, the book's twist revelation near the end isn't all that hard to determine, although even that isn't quite as clear-cut as it seems. That's not even really the point, though, as The Bedroom Secrets isn't really a plot-oriented novel anyway. As is typical with Welsh, it's more about getting drawn into the world and the minds of his characters, which he always manages to make fascinatingly skewed yet somehow lifelike. If you're a fan of Welsh in particular or unconventional literature in general, I can't imagine you not liking this one.


Tags : The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs: A Novel [Irvine Welsh] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <strong> A family saga, a revenge fantasy, a Twilight Zone</i>-esque parable, and, most importantly,Irvine Welsh,The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs: A Novel,W. W. Norton & Company,0393329666,Literary,Absentee fathers,Diseases,Edinburgh (Scotland),Enemies (Persons),Environmental health personnel,Food habits,Psychological fiction,San Francisco (Calif.),FICTION General,FICTION Literary,Fiction,Fiction - General,General,Literature: Texts,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),Scottish Novel And Short Story

The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs A Novel Irvine Welsh 9780393329667 Books Reviews

I'm a big Irvine Welsh fan and was not at all disappointed by this read. Full of the characters and plot twists that Welsh does so well. Love heading back to Edinburgh for those accents and the weather! Love it.
Dark, disturbing, hilarious - everything you would expect from Irvine Welsh. Lot of twists and turns with this one. Reads incredibly quick.
Another masterpiece from my favorite author. I've read everything Welsh has written and while I'm a better man for having done so, I am sad this run is over, for now.
It's an entertaining book. The ending is somewhat predictable. I bought it because I wanted to read something by Welsh besides Trainspotting or Porno. This book is nowhere near as good, I guess Trainspotting is his Magnum Opus. It's not bad but not great either, and in your heart you kind of know that although it's an alright book, it's actually just... Buy it if you are going on vacation and want an easy read, just don't expect too much.
This is Welsh's solidest effort since the brilliant novel "Filth". Glue had its' moments but was uneven. Then came the amusing but ultimately dissapointing "Porno". With this contemporary retelling of O. Wilde's "Dorian Gray" Welsh reestablishes himself as one of the most original contemporary novelists. The use of working class Edinburg dialect is kept to a relative minimum as compared to his early work, but rest assured that the black existentialist humor as well as the subversive politics (economic, political, and sexual) that characterize his best work are on full display. A satisfying if ultimately more "mature" work that still roils with kinetic authenticity.
Irvine Welsh's novel includes three topics...sex, food, and celebrity. Oh yeah, let's not forget drugs. Would it be an Irvine Welsh story without drugs? Maybe. Would his avid readers be satisfied? Probably not.
This tale has it's central character, in the partying Danny Skinner. He's a restaurant inspector on a journey to find his father. His enemy is the computer geek Brian Kibby. He relentlessly picks on Kibby throughout the story, and learns that their lives are somehow linked.
Skinner reads the book, "The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs," written by celebrity chef, Alan De Fretais. He eventually believes that the book may hold the secrets to finding his father.
Skinner ends up leaving Edinburgh to travel to San Francisco. He returns to Scotland, and discovers more about his nemesis, Brian Kibby.
"Bedroom Secrets" is a bit of a twisted story, about rivalry, making it in the world, and finding oneself. Welsh's skills as a writer are shown once again, to be high above his contemporaries. Though not his best work, fans will not be dissappointed.
This is the sixth book I have read by Welsh and while it doesn't quite measure up to the books featuring Renton and his band of misfits, it is another enjoyable stand alone tale of masculinity and drunkenness.

I enjoyed it thoroughly over the three days I binged on it, just as I have with all of his other books...My only gripe is that it is a little long, but ultimately that's the price you have to pay in order to explore such well built characters and narrative.
Before I get into the meat of this review, let me just get this statement out of the way Irvine Welsh is, flat-out, a brilliant writer, matching deep-seated insights into his characters with a prose style that could make a Wendy's menu look interesting (well, moreso) and even when his plots drag a bit his gift for crafting memorable, quotable dialogue and penetrating inner monologues is more than enough to keep pages turning. His latest, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, is (cliche alert) a somewhat more mature work than such early Welsh classics as Trainspotting and Filth, but still quintessential Welsh all the way intelligent, profane, and all-around bizarre. There are still plenty of depictions of sex, boozing, and drug use, peppered with the usual heavy dose of naughty language, and topped off near the end with a (sexual) set piece so disturbing it almost made me lose my lunch all over some fellow commuters on the train ride home. Beneath its rampant vulgarity, though, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs is sort of a quietly devastating story, exploring the darker recesses of the human mind without getting too bogged down in the results to have a sense of humor about it.

The two principal characters (and, to a lesser extent, some of the ancillary characters) are both well-fleshed out and multi-dimensional, helped by Welsh's decision to jump back and forth between third- and first-person narrative. After a brief prologue establishing the circumstances surrounding his conception, we're first introduced to Danny Skinner, a fatherless young restaurant inspector in Edinburgh living a somewhat typical aimless twenty-something life filled with sex, drugs, and an almost unfathomable amount of alcohol. Danny's life is going along just fine until he makes the acquaintance of Brian Kibby, a virginal, comically innocent 21-year-old model-railroad enthusiast who takes a job in Skinner's office. It doesn't take Skinner long to develop the sort of burning, irrational hatred for Kibby that's all the more intense because he can't adequately explain its source (I think most of us have felt that way about somebody), and that's when things really get weird. After a while, the negative effects of Skinner's dissolute lifestyle-hangovers, weight gain, the pain resulting from being raped-all start to take their toll on Kibby, whose physical deterioration only adds to the emotional toll of years of ostracism by his peers. In turn, the previously chaste Kibby sees his thoughts turning progressively darker, starting with a humorous struggle to control his urge to pleasure himself and eventually coalescing into a lethal combination of lust, spite, and bitterness, the latter two directed mainly at Skinner.

It would be easy to make the sex-obsessed, almost perpetually drunk and cynical Skinner a simple villain and the diffident, self-effacing Kibby a good guy, but Welsh ensures that we see them both from as many angles as possible, to the point that I for one found myself identifying mostly with Skinner, even if we don't have all that much in common. Skinner really is pretty thoughtful and even occasionally sensitive beneath his cynicism, and he is the kind of alpha-male guy people tend to like to be around, while Kibby is the type of nerdy, snivelling little sissy you just want to punch in the face. Through these two, we see alienation approached from two seemingly opposite poles, as Kibby is still grappling with the effects of a childhood filled with rejection while Skinner is steadily coming to realize that his cynicism and substance addictions have prevented him from forming any real relationships. Skinner's attempt to find out his father's identity weighs heavily on the proceedings as he tries to figure out the source of his self-destructive compulsions, but this isn't some cliched, sappy "I drank because my daddy abandoned me" story. As usual with a Welsh story, people's motives and drives are harder than that to determine, leaving one to wonder just where free will ends and determinism starts. Even the supernatural elements that creep in about halfway through the book, dealing with a bizarre hex that Skinner seems to hold over Kibby, are integrated into the larger story rather than taking it over, keeping the focus on the inner turmoil of the two protagonists as they go through some profound and not entirely explicable life changes.

As a couple of others have pointed out on this site, the book's twist revelation near the end isn't all that hard to determine, although even that isn't quite as clear-cut as it seems. That's not even really the point, though, as The Bedroom Secrets isn't really a plot-oriented novel anyway. As is typical with Welsh, it's more about getting drawn into the world and the minds of his characters, which he always manages to make fascinatingly skewed yet somehow lifelike. If you're a fan of Welsh in particular or unconventional literature in general, I can't imagine you not liking this one.