Journal Entry (Week 2): On “Anthony Bourdain’s Moveable Feast” by Patrick Radden
Keefe
While I found “Anthony Bourdain’s Moveable Feast” rather interminable, I think it is a
great read. It provides a comprehensive, intricate overview of Anthony Bourdain’s
life—his romantic, professional, and social life—and tells the story of how his exposure
to various cultures, norms, and traditions made him into an interesting but sophisticated
character. Specifically, the article emphasizes Bourdain’s relationship with food,
especially Vietnamese street food, and the contribution it made to the development of
his personality and his outlook on life. While I hold this article in high regard, I disrelish
its lengthiness which can make it a tedious read. To prevent the article from boring
readers very quickly, the author could taper the scope of the article a little. For instance,
the author could expound on Bourdain’s connection with food some more and explain
how it may have influenced his interest in jujitsu. The article tells us that because of his
popularity as a professional chef, Bourdain was “mercilessly inundated with food”
everywhere he went, and because he was “loath to spurn courtesy of any kind,” he
often ended up eating more than he might have liked to. Given Bourdain’s
overindulgence, it’s safe to say that he went through a period of considerable weight
gain; however, the article tells us that Bourdain “lost thirty-five pounds” since he started
doing jujitsu, which does provide a glimpse (but not a full
picture) of the sport’s role in helping him maintain a healthy body weight. As such, I
think exploring more of that aspect of Bourdain’s life would provide us with a better
understanding of his relationship with food and sport (in this case, jujitsu) and how he
was able to balance both. I think the article providing too great a detail on Bourdain’s
romantic/marital life and criminality may be divergent from its overall purpose, so I think
it’d have been better if the author had cut down on that. Also, I think the article starting
with Obama’s visit to Hanoi may not be the best. I don’t seem to understand the function
of this part of the article except that it highlighted Bourdain’s connection with
Vietnamese cuisine which I think could have been conveyed in a much more effective
way.
I think it’d be appropriate to say “Anthony Bourdain’s Moveable Feast” takes the form of
an essay—basically an essay on Bourdain’s life and how he was molded by the
experiences he had at every stage in his life. It was published in February 2017, a few
months before Bourdain celebrated his sixtieth birthday and roughly a year before his
death by suicide. Since this article gives a firsthand account of Bourdain’s life,
successes, and struggles, I deem it reliable and trustworthy (again, taking into account
the fact that there was one-on-one interaction between Bourdain and the article’s
author). The author mentioning, toward the end of the article, that “Bourdain often
[thought] about dying” and had told him, more than once, that “he would happily renew
his acquaintance with heroin if he got ‘a bad chest X-ray,’” as well as the reckless
behavior he exhibited when riding the scooter in the streets of Hanoi (with the author on
the passenger’s seat), to me, foreshadows the tragic event of his death by suicide which
would occur within less than one and a half years of the article’s publishing. Indeed,
“Anthony Bourdain’s Moveable Feast” is unlike anything I can remember reading in the
past, as it paints, with the full
force of storytelling, a vignette of Bourdain’s life, particularly through his relationship
with food, martial arts, and other people, its significance, and quite sadly, by foretelling
the tragedy that would accompany its ending.