Intro:
Do you love to ’snigger, giggle and laugh out loud’ while reading a book? Do you have an ’insatiable appetite for hilarious humor’? Then certainly this book is for you.
Comedic Genius Cosby must have written this ’Cholesterol Comedy’ with you & your ilks in mind. This story marvelously unfolds how a gourmet, glutton, craving over-indulger of food (that he happens to be) is forced to go on diet & his travails, so human & so funny, in facing the challenge.
I. Cosby Finds Himself In A Spot:
Thinking that he would find some extra welfare-money to binge on whatever he likes to eat behind his strictest wife’s back, Cosby goes to have a physical. As Doctors use to say, ’No news is a good news’ and there is news!
His diagnostic report boasts of ’his sky-high Cholesterol level & a 30 per cent Blocked Carotid artery that takes blood to the Brain’. (A punishment for all his eating vices! Has his Judgement day arrived at last? )
The grumbler in him says, it’s all his own making & he reasons out that ’If he didn’t go to the doctor, he doesn’t have it’. Why did he go then? His Fate? He is mad at himself to find what he, who started with a clean fantastic Carotid, has done to himself all these stupid years!
So, there is no option for him but to join the Cardiac Rehab program and obey to the letter the strictures of his bureaucratic wife & his callous doctor. Cosby ’spills his Fears, Problems & Tricks’ ’keeping his tone light’ without becoming preachy or finger-pointing, throwing barbs at none but himself.
II. His Well-Founded Fears:
To make matters more serious & sorrowful, he finds ’the Front-page Headlines & the daily reports of the nightly news’ such as ’Cholesterol Kills!’, Cookies Clog Arteries’, and ’Meatball sandwiches cause God knows what’ quite intimidatory & ’Repent & Exercise... or Else’, threateningly cautionary & panicky. It has been one of his darkest hour in his life with the rest to follow, no doubt! His future looked utterly bleak & dark.
Lesser mortals (particularly women) would crib, cry, complain & crumble to smithereens making the life of others around a hell but not our dauntless Comic Hero Cosby who daringly decides , come what may, he’d fight it out to the last or die in that attempt & sets about it in right earnest like Don Quixote in Pickwickian Style.
He knows it is going to be a loooooong psychological war on the behavioural front. But why does Demosthenes’ dictum, ’’ He who fights & runs away, may live to fight another day’ come to MY mind? Bad timing, to say the least!
’He takes you to FUNNY Excursions’ into all the foolish things people would do to escape the consequences of bad cholesterol & artery blockage and enjoy what they’re doing.
III. Digressive Escape Routes:
To forget his problems, he needs to digress & so, he looks back & thinks of those heavenly years ( Past Pride as a morale booster). When he was young, he ate what all he wanted. Then he relished the foods his tastebuds loved such as: ’scrapple, croissant, bacon, hot dogs, pizza, ice cream, cakes, cheese, chocolate chips’ & what not? He had been a food lover for life up till now & an over-indulger with an’ American mindset’ , having his life-long Cravings & ’Snack attacks’ before his doctor puts him on diet. Now the time has come to resist all of them at once & wholesale. Is he to go the whole nine yards NOW to eat better & excercise more for healthier lifestyle? He finds it ’quite an effort’. That’s his real problem.
IV. All About The Book:
1. Title: ’I Am What I Ate---------- & I’m Frightened’
- Sub-Title: ’The other Digressions From The Doctor Of Comedy’
3.Size of the Book: Just 20 chapters ’a non-stop book; can be finished in one go.
Style: Conversational & breezy monologue (close to stream-of- consciousness)
Characterization: Only one Character: Bill Cosby. Who doesn’t know him as a person?
Illustrations: By George Booth accentuating the fun.
Plot, Structure & design: ’Each story builds on the previous ones making the cumulative effect marvellous’. He employs ’Deft Twists’ to make it humorous.
V. What does Cosby say About the following?
a) Food, Eating & Dieting:
i) Craving for the Foods: ’ Though my body was shaking, my brain was reeling, my mouth was watering’ at the sight or smell of foods. He wildly hopes there will be a ’miracle pill’ in the market soon to allow eating of doughnuts to your heart’s content without any harm.
ii) Lack of Control: Cosby speaks of his ’Mother’s inability to stop eating fried lamb chops even after she had a series of strokes.’
iii) Tempting fare: ’Not only the Taste but oh, the smell...’
iv) Nipping the Temptation at the bud: ’It’s time for the pizza man to change his way’ (Pizza Lady Paulomi to note!)
v) Sharing a trick: He tells us ’how he sneaks chocolate chips when his wife is not looking’. Funny scene!
’ Elderly mother’s technique for hiding fried potatoes & pepper & onion’ from his sons for her late-night binge.
vi) Holidays not welcome: ’Why else did they make holidays except to eat?’
b) Moderation: ’ The mind is an amazing thing. You can talk yourself into any bad habits & rationalize them. The mind kills the thought immediately & fools the body. So moderation is doomed from the beginning’ (DOA factor?)
c) Exercise Avoidance: Cosby finds exercising difficult with his ’old parts’ protesting vehemently. Mind proposes but body disposes. He listens to his body. He hopes, soon ’cloning of failed parts’ would help all including him .
d) Bad Habits: Smoking & Drinking:
a) Cosby has seen guys in the Navy smoking cigarettes while they showered ’!
b) Has seen a House Guest who braves the weather to smoke outside though it was 12 degree below zero.
c) ’One died of smoking related illness. His friends are there smoking themselves & talking of their smoking dead friend’!
d) ’They were trying to smoke in their sleep. (How did the fire happen?)’
e) Giving up Smoking: ’ I know the people who had their last cigarettes a hundred times. After they smoke the last cigarette, there is another last cigarette.’
f) ’An alcoholic buddy dies of Cirrhosis. A group of his friends raise their glasses & do whisky drinking’
g) Another wild & distant daydream: ’One day Pizza will be found to be a cure for heart diseases & high Cholesterol’!
h) About Doctors: (Specialization)
’The doctor says, ’I’m just a hip person. I don’t know about the thigh, or ankle or the skin’
VI. Other Works Of Bill Cosby: ’Fat Albert’, ’Time Flies’ , ’Fatherhood’, ’Cosbyology’, ’Love & Marriage’, ’You Are Somebody Special’, ’Childhood’ &’Friends of a Feather’ & watching CBS (T.V) rollicking Comedy Serial, ’ Kids Say The Darndest Thing’. My salutes to P.G.Wodehouse, my another favorite author.
Vii. Conclusion:
We think that Cosby is telling a story about himself but we find ourselves in him. How ’sweet, meaningful & universal as any piece of music’! How human & funny & Inspirational this book is! Thank you Cosby! ’The World Without You Will Be Less-Livable’ & Less-Laughable!
Friends: Whatever I write, I write it for you! Thank you for your time & effort to go through this review.
Remember I’m waiting for your RC.