The Art Of Fasting
Review of "The Fast: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Promise of Doing Without" by John Oakes
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
BOOK REVIEW
You haven't done dishes in days.
The sink is full of dish, in fact. Dish, one cup, singular, because you haven't cooked in days, either. You're fasting and it was your choice. You have your reasons for denying your body food and in "The Fast" by John Oakes, you'll see the history behind it.
Politically, globally, personally, any day may bring turmoil to your life. It did to John Oakes one spring and it made him grow contemplative. He'd fasted before, a few days, give or take, and he knew it "involves doing less, but... in a radical way." He wanted to slow down and try fasting again, this time for a week.
He "proposed the fast to my spouse" who agreed to join him. They decided to consume only water, tea, coffee, and vegetable broth, and the fast began.
Author John Oakes | PHOTO COURTESY OF MIRIAM BERKLEY
On Day One, hunger pains were tolerable but time stretched thin. Oakes decided to add silence to his fast, remembering a trip to Minneapolis, to the quietest place on Earth.
Day Two brought him more inside himself, as he thought about the many throughout history who've fasted for preparation, sacrifice, and spirituality. He was hungry, not uncomfortably so, but his sense of smell was elevated.
On Day Three, he missed eating as he thought about our bodies as "marvelous machines," and what fasting does to us. By Day Four, "The cleansing process [was] well underway" with Ascetics, holy men and Biblical figures as his guides. He was steadfast on Day Five, as he thought about fasting as protest. Day Six brought a wish for his fast to end, and he examined how fraud has tainted fasting.
At midnight on Day Seven, the fast was over but it lingered in Oakes' mind. There are people who take fasting to the extreme, he says, but we shouldn't let a disease "keep us from exploring the gifts that fasting has to offer..."
Even without a pair of eyes there, your stomach always seems to know what time it is. It reminds you about lunch, sometimes loudly, but "The Fast" may surprise you with a desire to ignore the borborygmus, even for a day.
Before you skip a meal in favor of the book, though, just know that this isn't a fluffy-as-a-pancake look at doing without. Author John Oakes goes deep in his examination of the practice of fasting, deep into religion and ancient history, deep into modern politics. Most of this book will remind you of meditating because it's distinctly interesting, full of conviction, and it's deliberate. You'll almost want to take it to your yoga mat to read, or find a chair in a quiet room that allows for pausing and pondering.
This book fairly demands that you do so, in fact – which also means that it's not for everyone. It's not Reading Lite; treat it as such and you may get lost. But if you want something that's going to make you slow down and think, "The Fast" might just be your cup of tea.
