Eat, Pray, Love
Another expat was selling a few books. I bought three; one of which was Eat, Pray, Love. I have resisted reading this book for a few years now. 'It's self-indulgent', I thought. Then I thought, if I haven't had the most self-indulgent 18 months, I have no idea who has. I should read it.
Few pages in and I'm curious. Put the book down, google the author, and end up on her website. Read the part about her thoughts on writing. 'Write!', she says. After all she's been writing since she was a child. She began submitting articles to the New Yorker when she was 19. Of course she got rejected, over and over but still. And she does know a woman who didn't start writing until her 30's (imagine that) and was still able to pull it off (even at that advanced age). Her message seems to be...'all things are possible'. I'm beginning to like her less.
I read on. Her first conversation with God. Something about talking to him in Sanskrit. I skip the rest of the chapter. Google her again. Find out that whole year was financed by a $200,000 advance from her publisher. Becoming jaded.
She goes into this whole thing about Dante (you know, The Divine Comedy) and I think weird how I manage to pair books together. Also reading Inferno by Dan Brown. Dante IS the book. I was loved the story about Dante and Beatrice. Love at first sight- at nine. He never got the girl. She marries someone else and dies young. He's thrown out of Florence. His life is a mess. I like him. Back to EPL.
Find her uber, super secret journal to herself sort of odd. Creepy even.
She mentions frozen rice pudding. Off to google recipes. I'm back on board. She can't be all bad. Then I get to the Luca Spaghetti part. I know she changed names. I get hung up on the possibilities of what his real name could be...Ravioli? Tortellini?
I'm only 80 pages in. Give or take a few. I've skipped ahead and omitted a few here and there. I was so optimistic by the thought Anne Lamott liked her, now maybe I was wrong about Anne Lamott. But I did love Operating Instructions.
Another 250 pages to go. But seeing as I already read the end, hope it's worth it. In case you're curious (spoiler alert)...in one year she learned Italian, sat at the feet of God, got divorced, dumped, and hooked up with another, bought someone a house- not sure what that was all about, and made a bucketful of cash. Oh, and there was something about a medicine man.
In eighteen months...I've quit German (twice) and sat of the roof of a church, stayed married, renovated a house from 7,000 miles away, and spent a bucketful of cash. And I've been to a few Swiss medicine men- sometimes even the right ones.
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Few pages in and I'm curious. Put the book down, google the author, and end up on her website. Read the part about her thoughts on writing. 'Write!', she says. After all she's been writing since she was a child. She began submitting articles to the New Yorker when she was 19. Of course she got rejected, over and over but still. And she does know a woman who didn't start writing until her 30's (imagine that) and was still able to pull it off (even at that advanced age). Her message seems to be...'all things are possible'. I'm beginning to like her less.
I read on. Her first conversation with God. Something about talking to him in Sanskrit. I skip the rest of the chapter. Google her again. Find out that whole year was financed by a $200,000 advance from her publisher. Becoming jaded.
She goes into this whole thing about Dante (you know, The Divine Comedy) and I think weird how I manage to pair books together. Also reading Inferno by Dan Brown. Dante IS the book. I was loved the story about Dante and Beatrice. Love at first sight- at nine. He never got the girl. She marries someone else and dies young. He's thrown out of Florence. His life is a mess. I like him. Back to EPL.
Find her uber, super secret journal to herself sort of odd. Creepy even.
She mentions frozen rice pudding. Off to google recipes. I'm back on board. She can't be all bad. Then I get to the Luca Spaghetti part. I know she changed names. I get hung up on the possibilities of what his real name could be...Ravioli? Tortellini?
I'm only 80 pages in. Give or take a few. I've skipped ahead and omitted a few here and there. I was so optimistic by the thought Anne Lamott liked her, now maybe I was wrong about Anne Lamott. But I did love Operating Instructions.
Another 250 pages to go. But seeing as I already read the end, hope it's worth it. In case you're curious (spoiler alert)...in one year she learned Italian, sat at the feet of God, got divorced, dumped, and hooked up with another, bought someone a house- not sure what that was all about, and made a bucketful of cash. Oh, and there was something about a medicine man.
In eighteen months...I've quit German (twice) and sat of the roof of a church, stayed married, renovated a house from 7,000 miles away, and spent a bucketful of cash. And I've been to a few Swiss medicine men- sometimes even the right ones.
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Hahaha! Funny, I loved that book when it first came out, but then saw the movie much later and hated it, it was so stupid. And thinking back to the book now, after I've written my fair share myself, I would agree. Very self-indulgent and a bit phony. Love your analogy at the end, especially the one about spending a bucketful of cash. Hah! Maybe you should write your own EPL.
ReplyDeleteIt's been weeks and I can't stand the thought of picking it up again. Oh, well. Next!
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