Pinky Vincent wrote this review.
You need be no joe junkie to sip the pleasures of The Devil’s Cup — meaning the book. Stewart Lee Allen has taken on the seemingly onerous task of merging a traveler’s tale with a “coffeecentric history of humanity.” But the effort — if any– does not show.
Instead, Lee’s book inebriates the readers with his travels to Asia, pouring in snippets of coffee’s long — and sometimes maligned — history without any pretence to academic flourishes.
A bit of what he says of an 18th century French writer, Jules Michelet, applies to his book as well: “At times, it seems like the ramblings of a hypercaffeinated hophead; at others, a completely credible study.” Yes, Lee is an opinionated author, and not only about his passion, coffee. Whether he is writing about Ethiopian women, the Existentialists in France, Calcutta (coincidentally, this reviewer’s hometown) or even St. Francis of Assisi, Lee can raise a reader’s hackles.
For instance, Calcutta appears to Lee as “cheap, dirty and full of poorly washed people sitting about babbling nonsense.” Hmm — if I were in Brazil, overhearing conversations in Portuguese (a language I know little about), would it in any way sound enlightening? Call it the grudge of a touchy reviewer, but then you were forewarned about Allen’s provocative abilities.
Besides, his carelessness disappoints as it mars his credibility to give accurate information. Not that many of his readers will know much about Turkey, Ethiopia or India, but that does not excuse his sloppiness. Places are misspelled (Bikaner becomes Bikaneer), cricket (the sport) becomes croquet, and one of India’s greatest poets and Asia’s first Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, becomes a convenient R. Tagore. Now who, except for an Indophile, would know R. Tagore? Still, Allen should have given his full first name.
But he is quickly forgiven as readers go on a virtual voyage with the author across countries that coffee conquered. Discarding chronology, Lee seamlessly weaves in past and present to explain the nuances of coffee’s influence in a region. An instance of this is the chapter “War,” where hundreds of years of Turkish history are traversed without a jolt.
His theories are sometimes novel and farfetched, but thought-provoking. For instance, he links tribal coffee customs in Africa with today’s business social norm to offer a cup of, well, coffee. His ironic humor never fails to tickle — watch out for his wit at its best on St. Francis of Assisi, and his subtle comic sense when he tackles the bureaucracy — anywhere in the world, including the United States. Here’s an ‘absurd’ appetizer: “If they still grow coffee, please come back and tell us. We’re supposed to be keeping track of these things.”
However, reserve the loudest applause for his impartial stance on coffee. He never lets his devotion to his joe override the truth. If coffee has transported “thuggish idiot” Europeans to the Age of Enlightenment, Allen also acknowledges that coffee is destroying Brazilian jungles.
And while Lee packs this information, his opinions, and coffee’s history into a manageable 231 pages, he never fails to entertain — a trademark of successful writing.
(Soho Press, 1999)
