Bad Eating Makes for Good Reading

[Henry Musikar]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/books/review/Nicholson-t.html?_r=1&em 

"In 'Gravity’s Rainbow,' for instance, there’s an early scene in which the wartime inhabitants of a London maisonette enjoy bananas served in myriad forms, including mashed bananas “molded in the shape of a British lion rampant.” This is good stuff, but the truly magnificent scene in the book has Tyrone Slothrop sampling various hideous English candies, flavored with the likes of quinine, pepsin, eucalyptus, tapioca, until, choking, he’s offered a Meggezone, “the least believable of English coughdrops.” This is a real product, a nasty little black lozenge, still available, and if my childhood memory is reliable, Pynchon’s description of its effects — “Polar bears seek toenail-holds up the freezing frosty-grape alveolar clusters in his lungs” — gets it about right."

http://tinyurl.com/meggezones4sale 

Henry Musikar
Sr. IT Consultant
http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20/ 
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