Eat Pray Love

I am currently reading Eat, Pray, Love. It was given to me for my birthday by a dear friend of mine. "I don't know if you'll like it," she said to me as I unwrapped it. To this I thought, "What? This is a New York Times bestseller! It's being made into a movie! My roommate in Cortona said it was pretty good. I've wanted to read it..." But I think I'm beginning to agree with my friend. I'm not sure I like it.

The first third of the book takes place in Italy. THIS I like. My memories of Italy are simultaneously fading and becoming increasingly vivid. I'm remembering more of Rome than I remembered a few days after I left it... and not just because I'm reading this book. I remember streets and feelings and places and people, where they stood and what they looked like in those exact moments, whether there was a cigarette between their fingers or a backpack on their back.

I also feel many of the same thing she feels. She talks about Loneliness and Depression as if they are two unwanted detectives, lingering and stalking her as she travels about. These, I understand. They follow me a lot, too. Especially now that I am doing essentially nothing with my life. "SO! DO something." Thank you lingering voice, I love you, too. I'm trying. It isn't easy when no compass points north.


However, I have some serious issues with the book. It's obvious that she's going through a midlife crisis. She isn't really fooling anyone, and I hope she knows that. I have some theological issues with the book, but I won't aggravate you about that right now.

Anyway, and then she gets to Italy and all she wants to do is eat and speak Italian. Americans, she insists, are never very good at just taking in pleasure. We're good at being entertained, but not good at taking in pleasure. If we do, we feel we must earn this pleasure or have earned it.

Incorrect.

I am very good at taking in pleasure. Too good at it.

I get pleasure from reading books. I get pleasure from spending time with friends and noticing the patterns of blues, greens and browns in their eyes. I get pleasure from looking at stars. I get pleasure from looking really closely at blades of grass to see the little velcro-like hooks. I get pleasure from "accidentally" getting paint on my fingers while holding a paintbrush a little too close to the bristles.

I get pleasure from gazing endlessly at artwork. Oh, I could do that all day. Really, I could. Never go to a museum with me. You'll never get out. (I once heard the statistic that the average time spent in front of a work of art is approximately 30 seconds. 30 SECONDS... for something which the artist spent hours, days, weeks, months, even years to complete. And the most you can do is stare at it for 30 seconds! We spend more time watching the average youtube video which might have taken a few hours or days to make. Come on guys... really. Which brings me to another objection with the book.

She didn't go to one museum when she was in Italy (she says this regretfully...) and then she takes it back... she went to the National Pasta Museum. WHO DOES THAT? Honestly? What was the POINT? If you wanted to learn Italian and eat all day, you could have done that in ANY small town in Italy, learned more Italian and eaten better (and less expensive) food than if you had lived in Rome the whole time.

And this is why everyone hates Americans.

I am disgusted.