Reviews

Our Daily Bread: A Meditation on the Cultural and Symbolic Significance of Bread Throughout History by Predrag Matvejević

sherbertwells's review

adventurous hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

2.0

An informal guide to the meaning of bread in (European) history, culture and religion. Like bread, poetic nonfiction is sorely needed, but this particular meandering “meditation” sounds underproofed.

“The poetics of bread is scattered like grains through time and space, across countries and peoples, in everyday life and eternity. It reveals itself in poetry, paintings and prayer. It is present when dreaming and when awake, ‘between dreams and reality,’ in the shortness of a instant and in the length of time” (145)

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Content Warnings

Minor: Genocide, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Racial slurs, Islamophobia, Forced institutionalization, Death, Confinement, Colonisation, Antisemitism, and Alcohol

This is a book that covers the highs and lows of European history. Of particular significance is starvation.