Summary
Title: Gluttony: The Seven Deadly Sins
Author: Francine Prose
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195156994
Pro:
• Connects ancient understandings of gluttony to contemporary concerns with dieting
Con:
• None
Description:
• Exploration of the nature of gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins
• Examines how our conception of gluttony has both changed and remained the same
Book Review
Gluttony isn’t just a form of consumption, it’s a form of over-consumption. Nor is it just a function of how much one consumes in terms of food (although that’s its most popular depiction), but rather a function of how much public resources one consumes generally. A person can be a glutton not only with food, but also with space, energy, attention, etc. In early Christianity, such over-consumption was considered an obstacle to holiness and the worship of God, at least in part because it made an idol out of whatever one was a glutton for — one began to worship that instead of God.
In Gluttony, Francine Prose contrasts this with modern attitudes towards overeating: the obese are widely discriminated against in society while fit, trim bodies have themselves become idols of worship and veneration. Overeating and over-consumption are just about the only “deadly sins” that remain objects of condemnation — and the only ones which continue to be deadly — yet in some ways, it is their opposites which have taken on the role of distracting one from the attention supposedly due God.
Is there any connection between early and modern condemnations of gluttony, or are the similarities mere coincidence? It’s interesting that the same sort of behavior has come in for criticism and condemnation in both religious and secular contexts. Also interesting is the long list of various “explanations” for what is supposedly wrong with gluttony.
Perhaps if there is a connection, it is that human beings have an instinctively negative reaction to gluttony, whatever form it takes, and searches ever for some sort of rationalization to justify not only that reaction, but also the harsh treatment of gluttons. If the early Christians have anything to offer on this issue, it may be their warning against making food or any other resource a subject of obsession which keeps us from paying proper attention to other important things in our lives. This is equally true of those who diet as of those who overeat.
We all have to eat, and there is nothing wrong with eating well; yet every good thing can be taken to inappropriate extremes, and this is certainly true of both consumption and dieting. It’s the presence of an obsession, a concern with food or drink or anything else which consumes our lives rather than allowing us to consume them. It is thus a question of control: so long as you truly have control over your habits, you are unlikely to be guilty of gluttony; once you begin to allow your habits of consumption to control you and decide what direction your life takes, you are in the grip of gluttony.
What makes Prose’s book Gluttony so interesting her exploration of this apparent contradictions and conflicts, the ways in which our conception of gluttony has both changed and remained stable at the same time. It’s one of the more interesting of Oxford books on the seven deadly sins, but perhaps that’s partially because this is one of the more interesting sins to discuss.
