Interesting Article on books like Eat, Pray, Love

Well I finally got thru that article..it was a bit wordy IMO. But I get the point. I do understand the point that it's making, but I guess I feel that there is always going to be "a new revolution" towards self actualization. I mean in Maslow's Hierarchy that's the end..so people are going to market that, and especially to women. We are much more focused on "self" than men (IMO), and we buy into all the new things that are going make us more attractive and feel better about ourselves. Happiness is your own reality. I don't think some book telling you buy this or eat this should be the "bible" of how to live your life, UNLESS, you want that, then who's to say you shouldn't, or can't. I think it's a bit judgemental to say that someone who spent this and did this, and says they are happy is not really happy. How would they know? I mean isn't happiness individual? Sure we look to other things to help us out when we feel lost or down, or confused, but to knock what works for someone else to knock it, seems odd. How does not buying any new clothes for a year suppose to be so revolutionary? I think it's just another revolutionary fad trying to look more revolutionary by going against what's "in" now. It's just lip service to me.

I haven't read this book, but I am interested of course to see what it's all about. But I'm interested in lots of books, so it's not a peg hold to enjoy reading someone else's journey to happiness, even if it's viewed new age or not financially accessible to everyone. There are so many things that are financially accessible to everyone, and if reading one book makes you go out and spend your money carelessly and go into debt and ruin, well I'm sure that if it wasn't the book it would have been something else, because that is more or less personality.

People make choices. I think if you want share your story of how you found "happiness" and someone wants to publish and people want to read it, that's great! Life is mostly an individual decision. So if you marry and change your mind or have a job and decide you don't like it, and you make steps to change that, so be it. It's your life. You should be responsible when others are involved of course (e.g. children etc), but in the end it's your life and you are the ONLY person responsible for your happiness.

(off soap box)(deposited 2 cents)

Just my opinion. I look forward to everyone's review of the said book.

[poky]

I think it's a bit judgemental to say that someone who spent this and did this, and says they are happy is not really happy. How would they know? I mean isn't happiness individual? Sure we look to other things to help us out when we feel lost or down, or confused, but to knock what works for someone else to knock it, seems odd.

That's really not what the article is saying. What the article is saying is that it's great for the people who can afford to spend and do the things mentioned, but the idea that spending money is *necessary* for "self-actualization" and/or happiness is problematic. And that's also precisely why "not buying clothes for a year" is at least slightly different. It may be faddish, but it *doesn't* involve spending lots of money.

I see what you are saying Sandy, and I agree it shouldn't be necessary for "self-actualization." And yes many things trend that way, because people are trying to make money (bottom line in all fade-isms) the all mighty buck! But the thing about the clothes is just ridiculous to me, personally. If you have a major "shopping" issue, and just need a lot of retail therapy, and it's financially hurting you, and you don't need any item for a year, sure it may be good for them in a sense of learning self control, and other "self" areas that may be causing them to shop so much (personal to each). But not buying something just to say "I'm doing the great American Apparel Diet" is just like saying I'm being trendy for status. Yes it doesn't cost money, but is the only thing seperating that from the other "trendy" "feel good" suggestions, is money?? Does because it doesn't cost anything make it "best?" What do you think?

I read every single day of my life. Nonetheless, my literary interest absolutely can not be sustained by reading only Very Important Books.

This. And I LOVE that you have a quote from Faust to justify your literary slumming. AWESOME. Me? I don't even bother to defend it -- I read what happens to hook me at the moment. Sometimes it's "Very Important", sometimes it's brain candy. Still beats drooling in front of a TV any day.

I haven't read the article, did read EPL, and totally agree with the surprise that it's being touted (or reviled) as a "self-help" type book. I thought of it more as a travelogue combined with memoir. It didn't make me feel sorry for her in the least, and she did totally own that she was blessed to have the privilege to work out her life in this way. I also read Committed, and liked it a lot - more for the history of marriage (especially as a religious institution).

[houseelf]

La Patel said

And I LOVE that you have a quote from Faust to justify your literary slumming. AWESOME. Me? I don't even bother to defend it -- I read what happens to hook me at the moment. Sometimes it's "Very Important", sometimes it's brain candy. Still beats drooling in front of a TV any day.

Smack... I love you too.

But not buying something just to say "I'm doing the great American Apparel Diet" is just like saying I'm being trendy for status. Yes it doesn't cost money, but is the only thing seperating that from the other "trendy" "feel good" suggestions, is money?? Does because it doesn't cost anything make it "best?" What do you think?

ITA. It is very au courant to denigrate anything that seems excessive or wealthy. I find this hugely ironic because literature and media typically only mirrors who we are and what we are experiencing right now. Remember the halcyon days portrayed in movies like Wall Street? This was us then . Today self-deprivation becomes tauted amongst smug, pious individuals who are now experiencing some sort of mass post-consumerism revelation. It's hip to malign wealth and privilige.

On a personal level, this makes me laugh because in recent years when we were residents many of our friends and family chided for being so damn cheap over things like not having a cell phone. Today this same behavior would be commended as laudable for living within our means. Now we're afforded a few perks (although according to recent posts, not a lifestyle that some would imagine apparently) and we feel somewhat like outsiders to popular culture. I guess we're prone to zigging while everyone else zags.

She's not selling us biblical analysis, she's telling us how she figured out her own pile of crap. People are extrapolating to fit the current mood.

[GrayMatterWife]

This. And I LOVE that you have a quote from Faust to justify your literary slumming. AWESOME. Me? I don't even bother to defend it -- I read what happens to hook me at the moment. Sometimes it's "Very Important", sometimes it's brain candy. Still beats drooling in front of a TV any day.

I am feeling like a total ignoramus right now. My favorite TV show is "The Nanny." I love watching the re-runs. Talking about intellectual slumming... hahaha! What does it say about me that I slum on TELEVISION?!

Honestly? Nothing. Everyone needs their mental break. You sound all day reading tedious legal briefs - if I were you I probably wouldn't
Want to read a single thing beyond that. It's just that those who tend to be superior about what KIND of literature you read are likely to also feel superior about their abstinence from tv, too.

I watch my fair share of tv as well ... I'm clearly lost ...

[Flynn]

Honestly? Nothing. Everyone needs their mental break. You sound all day reading tedious legal briefs - if I were you I probably wouldn't
Want to read a single thing beyond that. It's just that those who tend to be superior about what KIND of literature you read are likely to also feel superior about their abstinence from tv, too.

I watch my fair share of tv as well ... I'm clearly lost ...

Very well said. I don't watch that much TV but I read books for 15 year olds -- A LOT if I'm being honest. I love the stories and thinking how I would teach it back when I had a paying job. We all have what we consider our "escapes."

My DH escapes with non-fiction about WWII. Stuff that reads like a text book and has words I think were on the SAT -- but I'm not totally sure.

[GrayMatterWife]

FWIW: The New York Post's review of the movie (not the book) "ELP."

Pretty much, exactly what I thought it would be, based on Julia Robert's penchant for playing women who think they are suffering and are completely unaware of how stupid, shallow and selfish they sound (think "Nottinghill"), combined with the New Age-y emptiness. All resting on the presumption that your "true inner-self" is worth knowing--and inflicting upon the rest of us.

____________________

A year-long, around-the-world quest for self-fulfillment that basically goes nowhere, “Eat Pray Love” is a very shallow, very glossy 2½-hour travelogue starring a miscast Julia Roberts as a spoiled, self-centered divorcée who decides to get away from it all.
Though it’s based on a hugely popular, Oprah-endorsed memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, there’s little in the script or in Roberts’ wrongheaded Big Movie Star Performance to explain why, in the space of six months, Elizabeth dumps both her husband of a decade (Billy Crudup) and a younger actor/yogi (James Franco), both of whom adore her.

In search of self, Julia Roberts instead discovers the healing powers of gelato in Rome.

Most likely she’s bored, a sentiment that will likely be felt most acutely by guys dragged to see this overproduced, self-congratulatory collage of New Age-y clichés.

“You know what I feel when I get up in the morning?” whines Elizabeth. “Nothing.”
That’s pretty much how I felt about this movie, except for the first section, which takes our heroine to Italy where she learns "You Americans don't know how to enjoy yourselves" from the natives and eats up a storm.
The food is enticingly photographed, and it made me hungry -- but I was hungrier still for a story that involved any crisis larger than Elizabeth (who still looks near anorexic) struggling to get into a pair of jeans after a pasta-and-pizza binge.
This near-total lack of dramatic conflict continues when Elizabeth arrives at an ashram in a very well-scrubbed India, no doubt with Pratesi sheets in her backpack.
Between meditations, Elizabeth endures some very mild needling from a fellow American spiritualist (Richard Jenkins), a recovering alcoholic who dispenses a long string of aphorisms, or, as she calls them, "bumper stickers."
"I think you have the capacity, some day, to love the whole world," he tells her with a perfectly straight face.
There's lots more of these -- like "God dwells within you as you," which hopefully sounded less silly on the printed page than as a line of dialogue.
As the title indicates, the last trip of Elizabeth's journey -- financed by a hefty book advance that goes unmentioned in the movie -- involves romance.
By this point, she's in Bali, where she rents what looks like a $5,000-a-night beachfront cottage.
"Since the bombing, business has been way down, so I can give you this place at a very good price," says a real estate agent -- the only line in this humorless movie that made me laugh, however unintentionally.
Love comes in the form of a sexy Brazilian (Javier Bardem) getting over his own divorce, who literally runs into Elizabeth with a Jeep.
Like all of the other characters in this movie -- including Viola Davis, criminally wasted as Elizabeth's stereotypical, straight-talking African-American best friend, and several condescendingly played natives -- this guy exists primarily as a concept. So she can tell him: "I do not need to love you to love myself."
Though I tend to doubt it, it's possible that "Eat Pray Love" could have worked with a different star or a less deferential director.
I'm a big fan of Roberts -- I gave "Duplicity" four stars -- but portraying this type of inner conflict is not in her skill set. It's something Gwyneth Paltrow, not one of my favorites, did effortlessly in Murphy's previous feature, "Running With Scissors," which may have been problematic but at least wasn't a thumb-sucker like this.
Perhaps an even more apt choice would have been Diane Lane, who played a similar character in the far shorter and more emotionally truthful "Under the Tuscan Sun."
Even if you buy Roberts as an introspective writer (I didn't), there's no real sense of an emotional journey here. Any movie where the protagonist's biggest problem is whether or not to split her time between New York and Bali is inherently going to be as profound as perfume.

Great review. I look forward to seeing and/or reading the book and see how they compare.

[GrayMatterWife]

Great review. I look forward to seeing and/or reading the book and see how they compare.

The book may be really good--I have no idea. I haven't read it. I probably would not choose to read it, because my experience with Oprah-endorsed reads has been poor. And I am really not into her whole pseudo-New Age-iness. But combine my predisposition against New Age stuff with Julia Roberts and upper-middle-class self-induced ennui, and the movie just sounded more than I could bear. The book may be a lot less insufferable to me.

[SoonerTexan]

Perhaps an even more apt choice would have been Diane Lane, who played a similar character in the far shorter and more emotionally truthful "Under the Tuscan Sun."

Loved that movie--there are a lot of similarities, there--I hadn't thought of it. There was another story on NPR (I think?) about the consumerism attached to the book and related ideas today. Wish I could find it online.

[Auspicious]

Loved that movie--there are a lot of similarities, there--I hadn't thought of it. There was another story on NPR (I think?) about the consumerism attached to the book and related ideas today. Wish I could find it online.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/d...love-and-shop/

I'm in a med spouse bookclub and we are reading The Happiness Project. http://www.happinessprojecttoolbox.com/the_book.html It's a little more realistic, but it still obviously won't just make people happy. It has goals for each chapter though like, get more sleep, sing in the morning, make time for friends. For me, things like that make me feel happy!

I've read Eat, Pray, Love and The Happiness Project. Both books are similar in that the authors take on a "project" for a year and write about their experiences. I love books like that. Anyhow, I thought Eat, Pray, Love was good and I look forward to seeing the movie. I loved The Happiness Project and thought it had a lot of excellent points. Your bookclub sounds really neat to have chosen a book like that! I'm trying to find a book club, but most of them are fiction-oriented, and I'm not a huge fan of fiction--I prefer non-fiction.