The Fast: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Promise of Doing Without, John Oakes. Avid Reader Press (ISBN: 9781668017418) 2024.
Summary: The history, science, philosophy, and promise of doing without, set against the author’s own experience of a seven-day fast.
I suspect many of us have fasted either for religious reasons or in preparation for medical tests or procedures. After reading John Oakes book on fasting, I realized that there are other reasons for fasting: spiritual and philosophical ones apart from religious observance, for health reasons, for protest, and as a choice leading to death. I also discovered how pervasive the practice is, and like many other practices, subject to fads and frauds.
Oakes writes this book against the backdrop of engaging in a personal seven-day fast from food. Each of his chapters begins with a journal entry for each day of his fast, what he feels and experiences. He experiences hunger early on, but not significantly after the third day when the body transitions to metabolizing ketones. He grows aware of how much of our days revolve around food preparation. Intermittently, he feels weak or jittery, and sometimes struggles to focus. But most of the time Oakes is able to carry on most of his ordinary activities.
He considers the function of fasting as similar to that of silence as a “space between,” as a way to focus awareness and attentiveness. Oakes explores Greek, Buddhist, and Abrahamic roots of fasting and other ascetic practices. He weighs asceticism against the moderation of Epicureanism, the mean between deprivation and excess that was the place of pleasure. He notes the renewal of fasting in churches that stress personal transformation. Turning from philosophical considerations, he investigates the physiology of fasting over time, the benefits that may accrue particularly from intermittent fasting and the harmfulness of fasting for weight loss.
Perhaps one of the most illuminating chapters was that chronicling the use of fasting as a form of social protest. From the 12th century BC in Kashmir, to early Christians in Ireland (including Patrick), and to modern day activists like Angela Davis and Caesar Chavez, fasts were an effective means of protest. But protest fasts are also the occasion for brutalities, such as the force-feeding of Muslim detainees at Guantanamo post 9/11.
He includes a chapter on those who use fasting for fame and fortune, often engaging in fraud or faddism. These range from those claiming to never eat to those promoting fasts of various lengths for health reasons, sometimes with deleterious effects. This, in turn leads to a consideration of fasting as self-cancellation, a willful choice, sometimes genetically influenced as in anorexics, including “holy anorexics” like Catherine of Siena, who died of starvation at thirty-three.
In the end, the author concludes he will continue to embrace this practice, writing:
“That is the strange quality of fasting: its inside out invertedness, the idea and the reality that cutting back can add, that diminishment can bring strength and a measure of serenity. And when implemented as a hunger strike, fasting amplifies resistance.”
Nevertheless, he cautions against self-destructive excess of fasting enthusiasts and is careful to advise consultation with doctors before engaging in fasts.
The author approaches his own fasting from a non-religious perspective. Therefore, his book should not substitute for religious teaching from one’s particular faith on fasting. Rather, he sets the fast in both a personal and global context. We are introduced to the experience through the author’s journaling. We catch a global perspective on various cultural expressions of fasting. He carefully outlines both benefits and dangers associated with the practice. Above all, he reminds us of the ways our lives may be enriched by periodically doing without.
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Disclosure of Material Connection. I received a complimentary copy of this book for review from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program.