Tender At the Bone Personal Review

Tender at the Bone was hysterical and carried a great message. I think the mere fact the novel was about cooking and still appealed greatly to the reader is extremely significant because some other cooking stories are not so exciting or well-written. I adored the narrator and author because she was unique and viewed food as I did, a great treat. The humble father and neurotic mother gave the story a neat twist because it gave the readers another insight--that it was not only a book on cooking, it was a story about family and growing up as well. Food played a noticeable part in the novel as well, as a comfort and a hazard. I think the author did this to excite readers and reveal the purpose of food as a necessity and blessing, if it was anything not cooked by her mother. A primary purpose of the novel also is not just about cooking or food, it had a deeper meaning, as can be inferred by the underlying undertones of the narrator and her feelings and connections with people through food or cooking. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the novel, as I thought it was extremely humorous and interesting, and would definitely recommend it to any others looking for a pleasant read that is hard to put down.

Tender At the Bone Symbol

The symbol I chose in Tender at the Bone were the included recipes added inside the chapters. I believe the recipes serve more than their presence--that they are a pattern the book mimics itself. In every chapter, I notice the continuing sentence complex of the characters doing one thing after another, for instance, in, "I slammed the door behind me, took The World of Suzie Wong out of the laundry bad in which I had hidden it, and unearthed some cream puffs from beneath the bed," (62). She uses this syntax numerous times throughout the novel and I believe it mimics the way the recipes are included in the way the ingredients are included and steps are followed to get a result. The periodic sentences, like, "Impeccable and elegant, Madame du Croix looked askance at her daughter's rumpled suit and my frizzy hair," (64) also imply the directions followed and then the outcome. By adding these recipes to the chapters it allowed the author to give the reader a precipitated idea of where the novel was headed to, serving a greater purpose than just steps to make food.

Tender At the Bone Theme/Motif

A reoccurring theme in the novel is cooking. The author uses cooking as a device to display emotions, whether it be chaos or solace. She uses it this way because she grew up "at the table" (cover) and food was always a steady constant in her life, portraying one of the reasons she might have written this novel. Food was a grace and an appendage when she felt alone, like when she was forced into a French Canadian school, away from her family, and she shows it to one of her friends deprived of cultural food like Chinese, Italian, etc. In this way, cooking food was an importance to her because she knew she could rely on it to keep her sane and happy--she always had loved ones cook for her until she learned on her own, which could draw a parallel to growing up and her independent love for cooking growing along with her.

Tender At the Bone Character

The character I chose was the narrator's father, Ernst. First, Ernst starts out as a gullible and easy-to-manipulate kind of man, as he is at the beck and call of his wife's eccentric and odd commands. This includes waking up early to taste the disgusting concoctions his wife makes by combining everything in their refrigerator. His daughter, the narrator, describes him to be sweet and warm and always a nice father, but as the novel goes on, his character can be recognized as naive because the author's tone is always frustrated since he does not interfere into her mother's absurd choices. The narrator's point of view is very compassionate towards him, yet wishes he would take a stand for both himself and her, as she says he was "baffled by [her] mother's moods as [she] was, and just as helpless before them," (13). He is easily controlled by his wife because he does not want to upset her at all, even when her actions are altogether ridiculous. For example, he does not object to sending his daughter to a French school in Canada or to tasting his wife's food, no matter how bad it smells or looks, because he does not want to be cruel or hurt anyone's feelings. In this way, he is immature, but his good heart and tenderness overpower his thoughtlessness in the novel.

Tender At the Bone Rhetorical Strategies

• Anaphora, pg. 41- "I could smell the entrance to the pillared house with its waxed wooden floors and bowls of roses. I could see the blue satin on Mr. Peavey's pale dress as she around a candle-covered Christmas tree. And I could hear the string quartet that came every Sunday to play in the music room."
• Irony, pg. 35-"...my mother greeted him with the news that she had just purchased a dead birch tree to brighten up our home."
• Simile, pg. 31- "...after dinner Aunt Birdie turned up the radio and the three of us danced as if we were attending a formal ball."
• Personification, pg. 29- "Her voice caressed the words "your father", as they always did..."
• Simile, pg. 26- "She was mixing spices to make meat leaf, but she stopped in mid-motion, like a rabbit when it sees a car..."
• Anaphora, pg. 35- "She entertained, she decorated, she arranged culturally enriching trips."

Reichel uses these rhetorical strategies to emphasize her certain views. The repetition, for example, shows her precise knowledge about exact things and people and what she knows they do. She often uses a lot of humor in her writing which contributes to the heartwarming nature of the read and novel. Since some of her accounts are from when she was a young girl, the humor is relative to her age and understanding of the events she takes part in, yet her sense of humor continues to stay with her as both the novel and her life progresses.