Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert

I didn't read this when Nora did,  back before the fervor and the movie's release. I usually feel pretty smug about being a book before movie kind of girl so it is shaming me to be the one who saw the pretty movie and only then went to read the book! I have to say the movie was gorgeous and I loved the soundtrack but the book is so much better. Which isn't much of a shock because it always seems to be that way.

I think I liked Eat Pray Love so much because I related in quite a few ways to Elizabeth Gilbert. Like Elizabeth, I've been depressed before and I am also a huge worrier. So the themes of learning to be happy and overcome negative thinking were really interesting to me even though her life is very different from mine. I am kind of bewildered by all the people online who love to hate this book and/or the author. She came off as very likable to me and it's totally clear in the book that she was never prescribing world travel as a solution for all of her readers' life problems.

Chapbook:

"It's kind of a fairyland of language for me here." p.38

This entire paragraph making me want to be in Paris so very much!

"Traveling is the true great love of my life..." p.41
And I suppose I could say arm chair traveling is the great love of my life if it didn't make me so depressed.

"Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend." p.55

"...you must be very polite with yourself when you are learning something new." p.56

"it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection." p.95 from the Bhagavad Gita. The first thing that popped into my mind when I read this was one of my favorite people:

"Always be a first rate version of yourself, instead of a second rate version of somebody else." -Judy Garland

Which made me want to post this:

Crazy Aunt Liz story on pg. 96 This story made me laugh so hard. I think everyone is in danger of becoming that crazy aunt at some point.

"... to learn how to speak a language for no higher purpose than that it pleases your ear to hear it?" p.113

"Our whole business therefore in this life is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen." p.123 Saint Augustine

"...the everyday mundane effort that must be applied to spiritual practice in order to purify the self." p.131

"What worked yesterday doesn't always work today. Prayers can become stale and drone into the boring and familiar if you let your attention stagnate." p.177

"...you need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select what clothes you're gonna wear every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control. Drop everything else but that. Because if you can't learn to master your thinking, you're in deep trouble forever." p.178

I love that advice. I love the entire two pages that follow it maybe the most of everything in this book.

"Because no matter how creatively I try to look at my habit of interrupting, I can't find another way to see it than this: 'I believe that what I am saying is more important than what you are saying.' And I can't find another way to see that than: 'I believe that I am more important than you.' And that must end." p.193

"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort." p.260

That should be embroidered on cushions! She goes on to say:

"You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments." p.260



And just for the prettiness:

Making Toast, Roger Rosenblatt

"How long are you staying, Boppo?"
"Forever."

When his daughter, Amy—a gifted doctor, mother, and wife—collapses and dies from an asymptomatic heart condition, Roger Rosenblatt and his wife, Ginny, leave their home on the South Shore of Long Island to move in with their son-in-law, Harris, and their three young grandchildren: six-year-old Jessica, four-year-old Sammy, and one-year-old James, known as Bubbies. Long past the years of diapers, homework, and recitals, Roger and Ginny—Boppo and Mimi to the kids—quickly reaccustom themselves to the world of small children: bedtime stories, talking toys, playdates, nonstop questions, and nonsequential thought. Though reeling from Amy's death they carry on, reconstructing a family, sustaining one another, and guiding three lively, alert, and tender-hearted children through the pains and confusions of grief. As he marvels at the strength of his son-in-law, a surgeon, and the tenacity and skill of his wife, a former kindergarten teacher, Roger attends each day to "the one household duty I have mastered"—preparing the morning toast perfectly to each child's liking.
With the wit, heart, precision, and depth of understanding that has characterized his work, Roger Rosenblatt peels back the layers on this most personal of losses to create both a tribute to his late daughter and a testament to familial love. The day Amy died, Harris told Ginny and Roger, "It's impossible." Roger's story tells how a family makes the possible of the impossible.

This was an interesting book and an interesting reading experience for me. How could anyone read that description and not be overwhelmed by sadness? Roger Rosenblatt and his wife, Ginny, are clearly wonderfully caring people to pick up the pieces for their grandchildren and son-in-law after their daughter, Amy's, unexpected death. The book was full of tender moments from the daily lives of the grandchildren. Those are the things that matter, the things that provide security and stability for young kids (well, really for everyone, but since I spend my days with the under 7 set it's what comes to mind more readily).

I loved the word of the day, the stories and songs (especially the Boppo national anthem), and all the glimpses into classrooms and birthday parties. Completely unrelated to the subject of death and grief it was interesting for me to read these little tidbits from schools on the East coast that are so clearly cut from the same cloth as the school I spend my days at. Rich people are rich people no matter where they are. I was thinking the whole thing throughout Caitlin Flanagan's book too. Little enclaves of privileged kids, everything so similar. And I completely agree with the author's take on the modern child's birthday party: rarely held at home, always at some type of event center (laser tag, games, gyms, build a bear, etc) and completely run by a staff of teenagers. He's totally right- they are weird. But that is beside the point.

It is a very spare, slim little book which made more sense to me when I realized it was originally a piece in The New Yorker. For me personally, the short, clipped sentences were abrupt and made me disconnect from the emotions involved. Mom read this a few days before I did and we talked about  it this afternoon before I read the last 20-30 pages. I kept saying how I admire what these grandparents are doing for their family and I am horrifed by their loss but something kept me from "liking" Roger... not that I think I need to like or agree with every author but something was just rubbing me the wrong way.

I think a big part of that dislike comes from the diametric opposite religious views we hold. Not that I think everyone should believe as I do but its hard for me to relate to someone who on the one hand says he doesn't believe in God or a higher power but then at the same time is angry at God, lashing out at Him and wanting to blame Him. To me if you don't believe it wouldn't make sense to be angry at what to you is a fictional construction. Whereas a true believer would struggle and ask why but ultimately come to find peace that God weeps with us in the midst of tragedies (p.151).

The last 20-30 pages of the book changed my opinion (of the writing and the author) dramatically. The writing seemed warmer and the outlook more reasonable... and maybe that is the point. That in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophic event like the death of your child you aren't going to make sense or seem rational but as time goes by you find ways to cope. I'm not sure but the end of the book was definitely more readable and relatable to me.

I loved this:

"I told the second graders that one of the sad and difficult things about children everywhere is that they have no power. Jessie raised her hand, 'That's not true, Boppo,' she said, 'We have the power of thought and kindness." (p.159)

I liked this too and now I want to look up Anne Sexton:

"In early November, the class took up Anne Sexton. I had never thought much of Sexton, judging her to be in a minor league compared to such contemporaries as Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich. But the students and I were getting into "The Truth the Dead Know," and I liked the poem better than I remembered. "This line, 'In another country people die.' What does it mean?" I asked the class. A young man said, "It means that death happens to other people." (p.112)

 "The Truth the Dead Know", Anne Sexton

Bookslut review ~ "days are to be happy in", Larkin

Washington Post review

The Middle Place, Kelly Corrigan

A mom of a little boy in my class invited me to a school fundraiser featuring Kelly Corrigan reading from her book and answering questions. I don't know that I would have read this book without it being given to me as a gift but I am so glad that I did. It is wonderful. I keep talking about it with my mom and want her (and Gnorah & my aunts) to read it so we can bookclub it up.

I also really loved going to the reading. I had never been to one before and wasn't quite sure what to expect but this woman is hilarious for starters so it was very entertaining to listen to her speak. But it also made her writing so much more meaningful to me hearing her talk about her family and answer questions.

There is a lot in this book I could write about, I certainly cried my way through reading it, but I think this is one of my favorite parts:

"I asked her what the worst time in her life was.
"Sixth grade was pretty bad," she said, thinking out loud.
"Wow, me too."
"Not my sixth grade, Kelly, your sixth grade."
"Why?" I asked, wondering if I had forgotten something terrible that had happened to her that year.
"You'll see. When you're a mother and your kid's in pain and you can't stop it- it's hell. Absolute hell." (p.67)