1. There are three things you should know about this book before you start it:1a. IT IS BRILLIANT.1b. EVERYONE IN IT IS EXTREMELY FUCKED UP.1c. It's gonna wear you out.2. As Meat Loves Salt is a dark, brutal, intelligent, and moving novel. If you could write Caravaggio down, it would be this book. (Interestingly, it has a lot in common with Jarman's movie too - and for reasons other than obsessive erotic fixations with beautiful blond men!) It is beautiful and frightening - terrifying, in some places - but captivating and startlingly erotic.3. By far the most remarkable thing about the book is the protagonist, Jacob Cullen. Other people have called him a sociopath, and while I agree that he'd probably benefit from some modern medication, his problems stem not from his lack of a conscience but from his susceptibility to anger. He's a monster, but he's far from the only monster in As Meat Loves Salt. (Also, he has no personal charm. His life is not smooth, and he's not really an opportunist - I mean, okay, if we want to talk about fictional characters that might be sociopaths, Scarlett O'Hara is probably much closer to that profile. But Jacob Cullen is in thrall to his own wrath - he's a sinner, a criminal, and a violent man, which is plenty, honestly.) His violence manifests on a different scale than that of the men around him; as we see in the passages about the New Model Army, he disdains the brutality of the seventeenth century soldier, which creates a fair amount of irony. But actually, this makes him more frightening, because Cullen's violence is so wrapped up in how he thinks of love. He kills - and rapes - to defend what he thinks of as his. His deep insecurity makes him easy to rouse to anger, but it makes his love fierce and compelling (and completely fucked up, which bears repeating). However, the way McCann immerses us in the violence, including the violence Jacob enacts, creates a very attractive argument against passion . . . or at least against the particularly twisted, Heathcliffe-like passion exhibited here.4. I'm rarely absorbed so much by a book - I think it actually sped up my metabolism, so, uh, yeah - and I was definitely overstimulated by this one. It's an easy book to fall into, which is part of why it's so disturbing. But I like it when books freak you out, a little. Or a lot. This one freaked me out a lot, but in ways that made me want to draw ENORMOUS HEARTS ON IT.5. The love story - I don't have any hesitation calling it that, although it goes veryveryveryvery wrong by the end - is excellent. It's convincing and however many problems you have with Jacob you still want it to work. Oh, and actually the sex is pretty delicious too, and it's not described with flowery phrases or anything terrible (thank god).6. Other things As Meat Loves Salt reminded me of: Giovanni's Room (it's kind of a facile comparison . . . unless you've read them both), A Suitable Boy (anti-passion, complicated historical/political/social themes), La haine (violence). There are probably others I'm too mentally exhausted to think of right now.*ETA October 31, 2012: I thought rereading this would be easier than the first time, because I thought if I knew what happened it would be easier to deal with it.I was wrong.A. W. Eaton has an article on rough heroes (I have a number of problems with the article but that's irrelevant), and I . . . really wonder if she's read this book.
It’s been a long time since I’ve stayed up past my bedtime to finish the last few chapters of a book, let alone a book of the densely written historical fiction variety.It’s also been a long time since anything I’ve read affected me so much—the last few pages brought on a curious kind of devastation I’ve yet to process, and the hundreds that came before dragged me through the muck and mire, the highs and lows and everything in between, that usually foreshadow such devastation.I started this on August 5th and finished it last night, September 10th. That’s my usual speed these days, and it’s worth mentioning because Jacob and Ferris have been crawling around under my skin since page one. (I won’t be rid of them anytime soon.)As Meat Loves Salt, when you try to describe it to someone with the insolence to ask why you’re carrying some thick-ass book to the beach: “Umm, it’s like, a story about a couple of English soldiers in the 1600’s that fall in love and it’s pretty taboo at the time, you know?” As Meat Loves Salt, when you allow yourself to think upon its darkest alcoves as they snake through to the heart: “It’s about the uselessness of hope. What a single year can do to a life, of having the grace and wretched misfortune to know the whispers and kisses of a sunny love, doomed. Of not being able to escape your nature.”I loved Jacob, and I loved Ferris. I also hated them both. I’ve been both of them, and I’ve been with both of them, at different times in my life. I understand each of them equally. When trying to describe the plot of As Meat Loves Salt, my first instinct it to delve into their characters immediately and ignore anything resembling a series of events. So, apologies for that. Yet the plot is good; it’s great. It rings true, even the wacky twists. But the story lies in the minds of our leading men.It was a wise choice to make the book’s voice Jacob’s—we see him as less of a monster, we hear his justifications, shames, desires. At times, even his most atrocious thoughts make a lot of sense. His behavior is inexcusable, but his instincts about the character of others are usually correct. This is the kind of writing that makes you wonder at the scope of a mind. The prose is incredible—lacking even ONE misstep. Not one. The rendering of the characters is a work of art. Maria McCann got the job done, and don’t mistake that for a non-compliment. Every word is a puzzle piece with no jagged edges, serving its purpose quietly. Not much to look at on its own, but step back when the puzzle’s completed and choke on your awe. Even the sex scenes were written with this economy, and they’re the better for it. Just, like, damn. 10/10 would recommend.
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This is an excellent book. A historical novel set during the English civil war, it's an absolutely engrossing read. It's also very, very dark, and the story really got under my skin. The two main characters are both appalling and appealing at the same time. I picked it up after it was recommended on some m/m list, and indeed the relationship between the two men is at the heart of the book. But it is not a happy romance, no, far from it. But it was breathtaking to read - I don't recall ever reading a book where mere looks between two characters felt this erotic. Reading the book, though, you know everything is doomed from the start (believe me, this is not a spoiler), which makes it both hard to read and impossible to put down. The language is amazing; it pulled me in from the very first sentence. And even though reading it hurt, hurt badly, I am very glad I read it, because like it says in a review included at the front of the book, this is a book that stays with you for a very long time.
—Sophie
More notes than a review. I'm still processing it.Really well-crafted. Dark like Faulkner. Jacob is a train-wreck and a fairly satisfying anti-hero, albeit deeply fucked up and deeply crazy. Ferris is also fucked up, and not in ways that compliment Jacob's crazy. It's clear from the allegory in the preface that things are going to end badly, although I admit I hoped for a happy ending. Turning the Jewish folktale about a father and daughter's screwed up relationship into a doomed romance between
—sage
Somehow this book had never registered on my radar and I probably would not have come across it had it not been for Good Reads and for a friend on here urging me to read it - to the extent of sending me his own copy. I finished it a little while ago but it's a book that doesn't let go of you easily. I usually prefer reading non-fiction histories to historical fiction, unless it's been written by an author like Pat Barker who has done her research thoroughly. As Meat loves Salt is set during the English Civil War - a time of great turbulence and upheaval and I'm pleased to say that Maria McCann does not put a foot wrong. More than that she gets across to the reader a vivid sense of the times with the servants discussing ideas about equality and liberty in the pamphlets they are reading and later in the book when one of the main characters sets up a digger style colony in which he and his companions go back to the land. The novel is written in the first person in the voice of Jacob Cullen who becomes a pikeman in Cromwell's New Model Army where he meets Christopher Ferris. Cullen is an enthralling but deeply damaged man and yet I found throughout the book I kept hoping that things would work out for him and Ferris. I had to keep reminding myself of the acts that Cullen had committed and that he's not someone that anyone sensible would want anything to do with. I was captivated and could hardly breathe as the book lurched towards the end.
—Caroline