Hunger

Unlike other animals whose hungers are strictly biological, humans have an almost infinite variety of appetites and desires. Even those of us fortunate enough to have sufficient food, drink, warmth and safety are still possessed by other intense hungers. But, how much consideration do we give our hungers and what do they say about us? In this thought-provoking new book, Raymond Tallis explores our fascinating, mysterious and multi-layered hungers.

Tallis begins by considering how the incidental pleasure of meeting our nutritional needs has spawned a multitude of other pleasures related to culinary delight - the self-indulgence of eating purely for pleasure as well as the distortion of hunger in those with food addictions. He explores how the pursuit of ever-proliferating pleasures, and the avoidance of the boredom that comes with satiety, has become a life-long preoccupation for those lucky enough to pass their lives above the subsistence threshold.

As well as the hunger associated with appetites, Tallis delves deep into the realm of desire, whose supreme object is the hunger for others, sexually or otherwise. The need to be needed, the need to be admired, to be an object of others' longing, is a hunger from which no one escapes. And when all other hungers have been met, what then? Tallis shows how the hunger for meaning and significance, which goes far beyond the cycles of appetite and satiety, desire and its extinction, still remains.

In a world of ever increasing consumption, Tallis's call to understand and manage our hunger is an important one if the world is to be bearable for all who share in it. Satisfying them, controlling them, coming to terms with them, escaping fromthem, or even putting them to good use are the challenges of a life lived well.