Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Why Eat, Pray, Love is overrated

Just because I'm a librarian doesn't make me the foremost expert on all books. Let's be honest, reading is a very subjective hobby, there is no wrong way to read, there is no wrong book to read. The worst thing you can do however is not read.
Last Wednesday I hit up my girl Shannon for some much needed highlights for my serious case of outgrowth and to put a little more va-voom back into my usual bob do. She mentioned she read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I rolled my eyes. I hated that book. I don't normally hate books, it's against my religion, but really that book was painful to read to have to look at an know I just couldn't stand it. She loved it, good for her, I know a lot of people do and for crying out loud it has the almighty Oprah stamp of approval too. Hey Julia Roberts will be playing the lead role this coming year in the movie version. Its popular, it gets to the center of our beings focusing on our needs for satisfying our physical spiritual and emotional selves, I get it really. Her other client who was there suggested it. She thought there was something wrong with me that I didn't L-O-V-E that book, her comment was that "Its been on like the New York Times Bestseller Lists for like 3 years or something." Why yes that's how I judge whether a book is good or not, a list compiled by the brains of this world and their purchasing powers. (Yeah Anne Coulter and Rush Limbaugh have been on that list too but I wouldn't tend to mark those as good reads either).
Sooooo, what's my beef with this book. It's selfish, it's self-centered, it's irrational and unreasonable. Yeah we can all say that about a lot of books, that's why we read, to take us into the abyss of another world, to disappear, to find ourselves. That's cool, but for me, being a biography, its just not real to me. I'm so sorry this chick had a bad marriage (I've seen that happen to a lot of people). I'm so sorry she lost her faith in herself, love and life. But really, running away for month to regain all of these losses to expensive far ends of the earth. Sounds kind of like overdoing it to me. I relate it to dieting with a program that forces you to eat their food. What happens the second you get to goal, the moment you come back to reality and are around normal everyday situations and food, you gain it all back. Congrats Valerie Bertinelli for your ability to maintain, but egads when Thanksgiving rolls around I will be applying butter to mine and counting the ones that are forming around my midriff (or lack there of). So here's my thing. Deal with your crap here at home, find your happiness in everyday life, the one that you own and are a part of everyday. Do you need to run and hide and eat gnocchi and live in a temple and drink possibly malaria infested water to get back to who you are? If you do, good for you, I'm glad you have the time, the fortune (both literally and figuratively) and freedom to do so. For us here in the real world, we take meds and meditate in the minutes we have of our lives and get back to living and finding our happiness in ourselves, our families, our friends and our food (oh gracious scone fairy, where art thou?)
I'm really happy though that so many people are reading however, its makes me feel all warm inside.