Why Eat, Pray, Love Makes Me Go *HEADDESK*

[love_story]

I’m currently reading Eat, Pray, Love. Or rather, I’ve been trying to read this book for almost a year now. I originally bought it in order to have something to do during my lunch breaks at work other than… well, work, because I have the bad habit of working right through lunch and having a book to read forces me to take a mental break

Comments

[wlotus]

I tried to like the book, too, but I couldn't. As much as I like Julia Roberts, I refuse to see the movie.

[love_story]

I probably will see the movie, in the grasping hope that Julia and some pretty cinematography can make up for the dazzling narcissism of the storyline. :P I'm a sucker for travel movies & pretty exotic places, so maybe *I* can at least appreciate the awesomeness of her travels even if the character doesn't, ha!! But I think I will wait and Netflix it when it comes out on DVD...

[tacohime]

I hadn't ever read the book and I sure as hell am NOT going to see the movie; I'd dismissed both as something for which I was clearly not the intended audience. Your description of it reminds me of something else, though: I recently started subscribing to the feed from un_news_centre because it occurred to me that I was not up on what was going on elsewhere in the world and what better way to find out than by following the UN? I have two friends working for them and I'm always intrigued by their work (one of them especially; his job is to help war refugees from Iraq find new places to live) and yeah, it really gets you thinking about how much we all take for granted. I wanted to read the news, no matter how depressing or disheartening because it's no more or less true. That and my mom was always on our cases about being aware of the news, and as I already said, I realized I was not so up on the world news

[love_story]

Oh wow ... O.o I guess on the one hand it's nice that someone's fandom has turned them on to bigger and more profound issues, but doesn't such a comparison run the risk of implying an almost fictional nature to very real problems? Because if you say "OMG the situation in Africa is just like that one Battlestar episode where ________ happened" isn't the next most logical progression going to be "but we all know Battlestar's just a TV show, it's not real, of course things like that don't happen in real life." When they ARE HAPPENING, and it's not just a tv show, and by the way it shouldn't take a comparison to fiction to make people care about reality. *shakes head*

[tacohime]

And that's why I'm not making friends with nerds anymore. XD

[van]

Wow, what a great review of a book that I am sure is spot on. I'd never read it, because the concept alone sort of baffles me and I know I am so not the intended target, but I've been known to be desperate for literature and if I'd seen this laying around the house or something, I might've picked it up for lack of something better to read. I may've enjoyed seeing the travels, but there's no doubt in my mind that I would've come away from it angry at her too--and this is from a pretty damn privledged middle-aged white male! I guess the differene being I know how lucky I am? Ugh.

Almost makes you want to rewrite the book where she DOES learn and where she DOES have to work through her vacation and touch more lives of people and find a calling that is more meaningful than, you know. Falling in love with a rich foriegner, so she can continue to have her fluffy little privledged life. Sigh.

[love_story]

I will say that it's well written. It does have that going for it. :P But I almost feel like kicking myself for having spent money on it, because clearly this woman has plenty of money and I hate to think of my royalties going to finance more of these self-indulgent "discovering myself" trips around the world. :P

Anyway, I just kept hoping she was going to reach some point in the book where she goes "you know, maybe my biggest problem is that I think about myself too much. Maybe I should try thinking about what I have to offer others..." And she just never gets there. And to top it off she is rewarded for all this narcissism with the attentions of a wealthy older foreign man. *shakes head*

What, exactly, has she learned from ANY of it? That she loves HERSELF oh so very much. (Not kidding -- her mantra to herself at the end of the book is "I love you, I will never leave you, I will always take care of you." )Well *I* could have told her that at the very beginning of the book and saved her the trip. :P

[awakesoon]

Now I know not to waste my time. I'd been kind of looking at it going, "Wait, why is she unhappy if she can uproot and go on a permanent vacation?" I mean, I know that money isn't happiness, but it's a damn fine way to make yourself available for other options.

[love_story]

I honestly don't begrudge her the money or the trip -- I mean, I would love to have those things too, and am genuinely happy for (if also perhaps a tad envious of) those who can have them.

But what I DO begrudge is the fact that she uses all these things to shamelessly spoil herself for an entire year, because she wants to forgive herself for hurting the people in her life (never mind whether they actually forgive her themselves) instead of taking a step back and going "gee, maybe I should rethink my priorities so that I don't hurt anybody like that ever again!" She doesn't spend her time thinking about the changes she perhaps ought to make in her attitude towards others, she spends all her time thinking about how much MORE she needs to love and accept herself and her selfish behavior. O.o

[love_story]

See and I have plenty of wonderful friends *pointpoint* who have had the chance to take awesome trips to different parts of the world and fully enjoy and explore them, as doors to other people, other cultures, other worlds, even as doors to learning and re-appreciating things in their own lives -- but they don't treat such trips as effigies to the splendor of THEMSELVES. ("Lookit meeee, I'm so learn-ed and cultured and smart and worldly. I love me. I mean, I really love me. Nobody loves me as much as I do!! So it doesn't matter if I've been shitty to a bunch of people in my life, they just don't understand how magnificent I am and how I had to treat them that way, for my own sake, because as we all know, I am divine!! See, this rich old guy thinks I'm divine. Finally, someone else to appreciate the glory that is ME!!")

*HEADDESK*