While reading Allegra Goodman's The Cookbook Collector, I posed the question to myself (and now to the
rest of the class): How does Goodman explore the theme of hunger in The Cookbook Collector? I did not want to look at hunger in the traditional sense (the need or desire for food) but in
the sense of hunger for success and hunger for love or acceptance. Orion and
Molly’s insatiable desire for success ultimately drives them away from each
other and from happiness, whereas George’s constant search for companionship is
a painful process that eventually results in him finding love with Jess.
In some way or another, every single
character in the novel hungers for success, however he or she may personally
define success to be. While the desire for success is not an inherently bad or
immoral goal, the problem arises when success becomes the only driving factor
in one’s life, and especially when success is equated with financial gains. For
Orion and Molly, their hunger for success becomes a serious problem. Following
a big fight, they conclude that “They didn’t have the money yet, but they would
in six months. They could solve almost all their problems soon” (149). However,
once Orion makes his millions, he is still unsatisfied with his life and his
position at ISIS: “Heading a new group, he would step up. He had a chance to
justify his wealth, to prove that his success was more than accidental, to
become a self-made man” (253). Orion continues to hunger for something bigger
and better than what he already has. Essentially his drive for success is
really the search for his purpose. In the end he leaves both ISIS and Molly
when he realizes what it is that he truly is looking for—a relationship with
Sorel.
Hunger is also portrayed through the
oft-misunderstood bibliophile, George. Of the over 40 major and minor characters
in The Cookbook Collector, George is
the only one who knows how to cook and takes pleasure in gastronomy. As the
years pass by and he remains unmarried, his desire grows to find a woman that
he may share his life with: “Endlessly he had searched for his love, and when
he couldn’t find her, he looked for signs, traces of her beauty in books and
maps…The one he couldn’t find became the one he couldn’t have” (186). This hunger
is whetted when he falls hard for Jess, longing for her companionship from
afar. It takes several years before she realizes that she too loves him, and at
last George no longer feels starved.