Fat Boys by Sander Gilman, University of Nebraska Press, $27.95/拢21.50, ISBN 0803221835 Reviewed by Simon Ings
IS OBESITY a medical problem or a moral one? This question underpins Sander Gilman鈥檚 history of, specifically, male obesity. Gilman鈥檚 cultural and medical arguments against lumping together male and female metabolisms are thoughtful and convincing.
But when it comes to his argument, even in his preface Gilman resorts to weasel words like 鈥渢entative鈥�, and by the end of the introduction he dares to suggest that in nature, 鈥渢he large male body does not have meaning鈥� 鈥� a statement of such exquisite blandness that its plain wrongness almost escapes notice.
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Its bloated warriors and puffing detectives, corpulent villains and beefy sportsmen are barely visible through the modish, knotted prose, laborious for us and positively insurmountable for the poor proofreader, who was reduced by the end to confusing immortality with immorality.