On Eat, Pray, Love

Ok, so just a forewarning for any readers out there who liked the book Eat, Pray, Love. You probably aren't going to agree with anything I say from here on in. Read on at your own risk, or go on your merry way without prejudice!

I'm coming at this blog post so long after the book was released because of the recent news that the story will be made into a movie starring Julia Roberts.

Let me start by saying that I like Elizabeth Gilbert's writing. She's witty and funny and I think she has a gift for describing beautiful things. She's good at what she does.

That being said, I was so annoyed by the time I got through Eat, Pray, Love that I could barely see straight.

My annoyance isn't really with the trip itself. The trip sounded beautiful and I'm sure was a lovely experience. It was neat to read about. I like Italian food too.

My annoyance was largely with the fact that SOMEBODY ELSE PAID FOR HER TO TAKE THE TRIP, a fact which goes by in her early chapters astonishingly quickly. And that, knowing that someone else was paying for her to have this incredible experience, she still acts like she was entitled to it.

Most of the rest of us, when our lives get messy (and they all do), work it out. We yell, and cry, and fight, and compromise, and make sacrifices, and take stock, and move on, and heal, and seek help, and brush ourselves off, and take responsibility. We figure it out. It takes time, but we do it. And maybe somewhere in there, we take ourselves on a bit of a vacation to clear our heads. A vacation that WE PAY FOR.

We don't abandon our lives and go and do whatever we want on the other side of the world, on someone else's dime.

I have no objection to the trip itself. Like I said, it sounded fascinating. I certainly believe that we are entitled to genuine adventures in our lives. And I fully appreciate (and even like!) books about people's travels around the world.

My objection was the feeling I got that the author was bereft of any sense of responsibility for the mess in her life, any sense of maturity or accountability. And because of that, to me, her healing experience isn't grounded in reality. It doesn't resonate as true. And the rapidity with which critics fawned at the profoundness of her experience irritated me no end. Because I wonder what a book would have been like detailing how the author stayed put, and worked through her issues, and took responsibility and made it work. Because those, too, are profound experiences.

It's possible that I am cold and heartless, but a complete lack of empathy and a strong desire to scream "GROW UP" into the pages somewhat diminished my ability to fully appreciate her story.

Book Review

In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore.

This is a very interesting book.

I assumed, on picking it up, that the book was going to be a fairly standard description of all the reasons why it's important to slow down and not worry so much about how quickly things are moving around us, that it would be a 200-pages of lecture on why the way that we live and the world that we've created are bad for our health.

But it's not that. The book doesn't ask the reader to make any unreasonably dramatic shifts in behaviour or attitude; the book simply asks that we think about the things that we do, and embrace opportunities, where they exist, to enjoy those things more completely. And then the book provides examples of the ways that other people and communities have put those thoughts into action, covering such topics as food, work, sex, health and exercise. And it's pretty hard to argue with the underlying theme of the book, which is that if we do a few things just a little bit slower, we might live longer and be happier. Hard to find fault with that, eh?

The book is not an overly technical or difficult read, and in fact, there is real joy in reading Honore's descriptive passages, especially those about Italian food. (DROOOL)

It's been kind of a tough month around here... WH and I have been going full steam with choral commitments for both Orchestral Choir and Chamber Choir this month, and we've had our bathroom renovation, and WH has been travelling, and we have the attempted sale of our house looming, winter won't seem to go away... it's just been very busy and we're both very tired. We suggested to each other that it might be time to find some activity that doesn't have anything to do with anything that we can just enjoy together in relative peace. I think the understanding that we have a choice in that, that we can choose to shut out the craziness around us and take time for ourselves, while a tough lesson, is the strongest message I took from Honore's book.

Wishing for you all some slow moments!