As Meat Loves Salt

by Maria McCann

Book Overview

In the seventeenth century, the English Revolution is under way. The nation, seething with religious and political discontent, has erupted into violence and terror. Jacob Cullen and his fellow soldiers dream of rebuilding their lives when the fighting is over. But the shattering events of war will overtake them.
A darkly erotic tale of passion and obsession, As Meat Loves Salt is a gripping portrait of England beset by war. It is also a moving...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 015601226X
• ISBN13: 9780156012263
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Length: 588 Pages
• Weight: 1.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Love can't cure schizophrenia

I finished this book about 4 hours ago and I feel like I have been on an emotional roller coaster. I actually feel disoriented and dizzy by this wonderful tragic book. I would have to say that this is one of the most intense reading experiences I have ever had. It opened me up and challenged me emotionally like few books or films have ever accomplished. I may read it again some day but not soon. I say this because this book is so realistic and tragic that it is painful. Maria McCann gives us fair warning when she begins her story with a brutal murder, yet romantic idealist that I am, I kept hope alive in my heart that Jacob Cullen would overcome his dark interior voices and that he and Christopher Ferris would mature into a mutually supportive male-male couple. I hoped this to the final bleak and heartbreaking pages. We see the world narrated through the eyes of Jacob Cullen, who maintains control of his irrational violent impulses 99% of the time, however, when he is threatened or hurt, he becomes a terror, a Dark Angel. McCann carefully allows us to see deeper and deeper into the disturbed mind of Jacob. He rationlizes much of his hostility and violence and I didn't fully understand until I was 75% of the way through the book as to how dangerous Jacob really is. He suffers so much for his actions that I empathized with him until the final 2 chapters when he facilitated the destruction of Christopher Ferris' world. When a love affair ends, there are those who will go to extremes to re-ignite the flames of passion, and if this does not work, they will seek the total destruction of their past lover. Jacob Cullen is one of these folks. I hoped that Jacob's paranoid schizophrenic violent nature would be "cured" by his love for Christopher Ferris, his lover. They try to balance their strengths and weaknesses, each needing to submit to the other from time to time to maintain the balance needed in a male to male relationship. However, on many occassions neither partner submits and a struggle for dominance in the relationship clouds their interactions. Christopher Ferris is no push-over. In fact he is psychological healthy and empowered. The middle section of the book where Christopher and Jacob make love every night and plan their great commune adventure almost made me forget Jacob's intense violent reactions when he misinterprets and feels threatened. I am very conflicted as to whether their sexual relationship postpones Jacob's fall into violent insanity or whether it aggravated it. Their struggles for dominance (Jacob gained a violent sexual dominance while Christopher gained the dominance of vision, direction and becoming Jacob's entire reason for existence)further aggravated Jacob's disturbed paranoid mind. You will understand the attraction between these men as you read the book. Christopher wishes to create a new socially just world yet he is attracted to the massive masculine force of Jacob. Jacob is aware of his faults and sees in Christ

a difficult but compelling read

I've read this book a few times now, and even though I (obviously) know what happens, I still find myself in tears at the end. I almost don't want to evaluate it as it has, no doubt, many imperfections but it somehow transcends these to be a powerful emotional experience. Indeed, it's one of very, very few novels I have read in recent years which can claim this (Siri Hustvedt's "What I Loved" being another). Its power is in its ability to make my heart ache for self-destructive Jacob even while recognising the inexcusable nature of his violence and its appalling impact on others. On one level, it's deeply problematic to feel such pity for a character whose acts are violent and damaging, particularly in his use of sexual violence. On another, the way the narrative uncovers insights through the accrual of everyday knowledge makes simplistic judgements impossible, just as in reality. Nothing stands alone. The novel forces the reader to confront beliefs and stereotypes about "monsters" and "madmen" and instead recognise how such personalities become disconnected by life experiences. I think it also shows us how close to some of these states any of us might come, too. I've been in relationships where jealousy took me nearer the edge of my reason than I wanted to be. I can understand how it happens (although I've never raped or murdered anyone!). One thing I particularly like about the book is how well it illustrates the fallacy of love (and sex) as redemption. I don't believe that "love conquers all" - at best it gives us some help with the lifelong quest to know, understand and improve ourselves given the raw material which was formed before our lovers ever knew our names. Jacob's relationship with Ferris at best postpones and at worst aggravates his decline into uncontrollable violence - it has no transformative power and this makes the happiness they briefly believe they share all the more poignant. While Jacob is morally responsible for the rapes and violence, and in effect he has been formed and flawed before he ever meets Ferris, I also feel that his gradual disconnection from reality is fuelled by the way his lover eroticises as well as resisting Jacob's inherent sense of dominance. Ferris also counters his fears of the spiritual threat of damnation with a rationality which, you feel, just doesn't reach the emotions-driven Jacob. Both seem destined to draw the worst from each other and so it proves. Unlike many I'm not sure I want to see a sequel. Although Jacob is young, and is travelling to new experiences, there doesn't seem much further he can go on his internal journey. I don't know what there would be left to say. A happy ending is no more likely in Massachusetts than Cheapside. Bleak as it is, I prefer to think of him on the boat, the only love letter he ever got (or ever will) floating on the waves below, so disconnected from self that he cannot even tell he is crying.

Harrowing, Essential Reading

When I first finished this novel, I felt a terrible need to get it out of my sight. I couldn't return it to the library since it was about two in the morning, so I hid it under a pile of clothes in my closet. Such was the impact this story had on me - I could barely stand to keep it in my house.Sound terrible? Well, it was, but in the best kind of way. I suffered through everything with Jacob Cullen, Maria McCann's fascinating narrator. Jacob is somewhat schizophrenic and completely obsessed with violence, but like most people he has his own (flawed) reasons for what he does. He doesn't hate himself, so in seeing everything from his perspective it becomes difficult to hate him for his actions. One also becomes aware of every possibility he has to improve himself and his life. Christopher Ferris, Jacob's lover, is the kind of person any man or woman could (and does) fall for, passionately. This makes it all the more horrifying to be trapped in Jacob's mind as he watches everything good in his life come to ruin. The ending, as gut-wrenching as it is, seems inevitable given that it's brought on by Jacob and Ferris both being true to who they are, for better or worse. There's no escape.It's also worth noting that much could have gone wrong in the craft of this book, but didn't - quite the opposite. Not only is there the difficulty of narrating from Jacob's point of view (the mystery that is Jacob is dribbled out in the smallest hints, dreams or passing thoughts, never given too quickly), but also the story stretches from a manor house to London to the common fields, and it's all covered in compelling detail. The language, too, never falters in successfully blending 17th-century and modern. The underlying motif of hellfire/desire could come across as overused, but in the circumstances it's the right metaphor.When I first finished this novel, it was a year ago. I never thought I could go through reading it again. But a few days ago I picked it up and found myself just as compelled as the first time. This book has it all - full characters, mystery, eroticism, tragedy, detailed history and a sweeping insight into human existence. I couldn't recommend it more highly.

A welcome assault . . .

Wow! I just finished reading this book and am still reeling from it. I do not remember the last time I read a novel that made me feel so much so deeply. Moments from the story keep replaying in my mind, as if I had lived them . . .It is sad to read reviewers casually dismissing this book's narrator as unlikable. Jacob Cullen is twisted, but I find him darkly alluring. During the novel, he alternately reveals his intelligence, his resourcefulness, his idealism, his selfishness, his willingness to please, his paranoia, his shame, his sexual magnetism, and his capacity for cruelty. Still, he does not easily reduce to any of these. If he has one distinguishing characteristic, it is his brooding, passionate nature. Someone flippantly asked why anyone would want to read a novel about such an unpleasant man. The answer is that this sullen protagonist leads a richly textured emotional life, which McCann communicates with alarming power and precision. This book challenges the reader to feel the sprawling beauty and ugliness of Jacob and his world. As such, McCann's talent is a welcome tonic to our current era's numb complacency and tidy compartmentalization of affect.This novel unsettles because life is unsettling. Love, desire, vulnerability and obsession fold in and out of each other, with violence limning the contours. McCann's novel somehow manages to capture this great big mess in all of its sadness and glory. Reading this novel made me feel my own life anew. I can think of no better praise.

A masterpiece

This is a brilliant novel, a true masterpiece. Maria McCann has taken the historical novel to a new height with the story of Jacob Cullen, a deeply flawed man, and his love for Feriss, the idealist. Set against the background of the English Civil War, we are plunged into the 17th Century from the first pages. We see war,... idealism and great chunks of daily life. But above all it is the story of Jacob who cannot control his inner demons of rage and jealousy. And it is a love story with all the stages of an obsessive love, infatuation, fulfulllment, obsession and betrayal. I was not able to put the book down and it has haunted me ever since. This is a remarkable achievement for a first time novelist. Maria McCann is an extraordinary writer. You simply must read this book.