Po recently lent me "Eat, Pray, Love". Oh god. I'm in my thirties and my friends are lending me self-help books (this is number two by the way, following Tolle's "A New Earth"). A therapist also recommended some anger management book for me once, but at the time I had been to busy slamming doors and screaming at Michael to read it.
Out of Tolle's book I was able to discern that I would like to learn more about Buddhism, that I need to be aware of my ego, and that I need to be in the now.
From "Eat, Pray, Love" I learned that stillness is a good thing (and have started meditating), and that fear is the mind-killer (okay, I learned that from "Dune"), and that forgiveness is divine and you must learn to love and forgive yourself.
The other thing I learned is that underweight Westerners shouldn't write self-help books. I just couldn't get my head around this woman's sense of ego (hey: I recognize that my ego runs rampant as is evidenced by this very blog - and the previous ones - dedicated to it, but at least I'm not a) making you pay to read it or b) being so audacious as to think anyone would pay to read my drivel in the first place).
Sweetheart? We all go through divorces. We all lie, sobbing, on our bathroom floors at one point or another. Thank you for mentioning, numerous times, how you became underweight during your arduous journey that went from married woman, to divorced woman, to divorced woman having an affair, to divorced woman travelling around and trying her hand at celibacy and... um, having an affair again. I'm sure fat America can really relate.
Also? Not everyone has the means to just fuck off and go travel to Rome and to India and to Bali to investigate those hurtful things that been perpetuated against them in their lives. And you're right to not get into the details of your divorce because it is one sided and I would absolutely pay $20 to get your ex-husband and ex-lover's side of the story.
I think the pinnacle of the book was when you went to Bali when, after commencing an affair with Felipe you wrote "so I stepped out of that single-minded single-engine airplane and let this fluttering white parachute swing me down through the strange empty atmosphere between my past and my future, and land me safely on this small, bed-shaped island, inhabited only by this handsome shipwrecked Brazilian sailor, who (having been alone himself for far too long) was so happy and so surprised to see me coming that he suddenly forgot all his English and could only manage to repeat these five words every time he looked at my face: beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and beautiful".
This is not to be outdone by your trip to the beach with him, where you wrote "he liked my body, he told me, after the initial viewing at the beach. he told me that Brazilians have a term for exactly my kind of body (of course they do), which is magra-falsa, translating as "fake thin", meaning that the woman looks slender enough from a distance, but when you get up close, you can see that she's actually quite round and fleshy, which Brazilians consider a good thing".
The coup de grace would have to be when you refer to the ex-pats living in Bali as "all united by the absence of the one thing they seem to have surrendered completely and forever: ambition. Needless to say, there's a lot of drinking."
Holy shit. I had to haul my magra-falsa, beautiful self up off my couch to grab a second glass of wine when I read that one.
I wish I was done, but I'm not. There is actually an ad in the back of her book for her upcoming book "Weddings and Evictions". The write up states that she "ended up... traveling some more!... Recently, she finally settled down and bough a house in rural New Jersey where she now lives with her husband, Felipe. It's all a long story, which she plans to tell in her next book".
Oh my god! Lucky us! I can't wait to read more of your condescending look at whatever religion is currently tickling your fancy and I hope that you maybe tell us exactly how tall you are and how much you weigh so I can calculate your BMI!
And kudos for wrapping up a (potentially interesting) journey of self exploration and actualization by getting married. To an old guy! Guys in their fifties chasing after girls in their thirties and calling them beautiful!? Wot??
I'm inclined to agree with Maureen Callahan of the New York Post. Per Wikepedia, she "disliked the book because of its spiritual themes, especially its focus on Eastern religion. She heavily criticized the book, calling it 'narcissistic New Age reading,' and 'the worst in Western fetishization of Eastern thought and culture, assured in its answers to existential dilemmas that have confounded intellects greater than hers.' In addition, she was critical of Oprah's focus on the book, as well as Oprah's fans who enjoy the book, asking why her fans are 'indulging in this silliness,' and why they aren't 'clamoring for more weight when it comes to Oprah's female authors.'"
Out of Tolle's book I was able to discern that I would like to learn more about Buddhism, that I need to be aware of my ego, and that I need to be in the now.
From "Eat, Pray, Love" I learned that stillness is a good thing (and have started meditating), and that fear is the mind-killer (okay, I learned that from "Dune"), and that forgiveness is divine and you must learn to love and forgive yourself.
The other thing I learned is that underweight Westerners shouldn't write self-help books. I just couldn't get my head around this woman's sense of ego (hey: I recognize that my ego runs rampant as is evidenced by this very blog - and the previous ones - dedicated to it, but at least I'm not a) making you pay to read it or b) being so audacious as to think anyone would pay to read my drivel in the first place).
Sweetheart? We all go through divorces. We all lie, sobbing, on our bathroom floors at one point or another. Thank you for mentioning, numerous times, how you became underweight during your arduous journey that went from married woman, to divorced woman, to divorced woman having an affair, to divorced woman travelling around and trying her hand at celibacy and... um, having an affair again. I'm sure fat America can really relate.
Also? Not everyone has the means to just fuck off and go travel to Rome and to India and to Bali to investigate those hurtful things that been perpetuated against them in their lives. And you're right to not get into the details of your divorce because it is one sided and I would absolutely pay $20 to get your ex-husband and ex-lover's side of the story.
I think the pinnacle of the book was when you went to Bali when, after commencing an affair with Felipe you wrote "so I stepped out of that single-minded single-engine airplane and let this fluttering white parachute swing me down through the strange empty atmosphere between my past and my future, and land me safely on this small, bed-shaped island, inhabited only by this handsome shipwrecked Brazilian sailor, who (having been alone himself for far too long) was so happy and so surprised to see me coming that he suddenly forgot all his English and could only manage to repeat these five words every time he looked at my face: beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and beautiful".
This is not to be outdone by your trip to the beach with him, where you wrote "he liked my body, he told me, after the initial viewing at the beach. he told me that Brazilians have a term for exactly my kind of body (of course they do), which is magra-falsa, translating as "fake thin", meaning that the woman looks slender enough from a distance, but when you get up close, you can see that she's actually quite round and fleshy, which Brazilians consider a good thing".
The coup de grace would have to be when you refer to the ex-pats living in Bali as "all united by the absence of the one thing they seem to have surrendered completely and forever: ambition. Needless to say, there's a lot of drinking."
Holy shit. I had to haul my magra-falsa, beautiful self up off my couch to grab a second glass of wine when I read that one.
I wish I was done, but I'm not. There is actually an ad in the back of her book for her upcoming book "Weddings and Evictions". The write up states that she "ended up... traveling some more!... Recently, she finally settled down and bough a house in rural New Jersey where she now lives with her husband, Felipe. It's all a long story, which she plans to tell in her next book".
Oh my god! Lucky us! I can't wait to read more of your condescending look at whatever religion is currently tickling your fancy and I hope that you maybe tell us exactly how tall you are and how much you weigh so I can calculate your BMI!
And kudos for wrapping up a (potentially interesting) journey of self exploration and actualization by getting married. To an old guy! Guys in their fifties chasing after girls in their thirties and calling them beautiful!? Wot??
I'm inclined to agree with Maureen Callahan of the New York Post. Per Wikepedia, she "disliked the book because of its spiritual themes, especially its focus on Eastern religion. She heavily criticized the book, calling it 'narcissistic New Age reading,' and 'the worst in Western fetishization of Eastern thought and culture, assured in its answers to existential dilemmas that have confounded intellects greater than hers.' In addition, she was critical of Oprah's focus on the book, as well as Oprah's fans who enjoy the book, asking why her fans are 'indulging in this silliness,' and why they aren't 'clamoring for more weight when it comes to Oprah's female authors.'"
Amen to that.
3 comments:
I read this book last year.... I'm sorry to say. I actually finished it and didn't throw it across the backyard. I donated it to my local library because I knew I wouldn't read it again and I didn't think I'd get anything for it at the resale shop. It left me wanting.... I so wanted her to go back to her ex-husband and bitch-slap the shit out of him. Wouldn't that have been a great ending? Your review was so much better than the book.
Bitch slap the husband? I dunno. I would like to have heard his side of the story, as well as David's.
Mostly I just wanted to bitch slap her.
Even though she is just so skinny and beautiful...
I'm sure she deserved some bitch-slapping. Let's find her website and ask for the guy's sides of the story.... After reading A New Earth she was exactly what Tolle was talking about avoiding.
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