Working Hard for the Man

So the other day I'm in the airport and I see a copy of the #1 New York Times bestseller "Eat, Pray, Love." And I think, well, everyone likes this, it must be good! So I buy it, and start to read.

Well. The author finds "God" in Chapter Two, and considering as the memoir's subtitle is "One Woman's Search for Everything" it's almost sad that she hits the major plot point by the 10,000 word mark. But why doesn't she end it there? Good question. In search of the answer, I struggled on through another 10,000 words, until I couldn't tell whether my headache was airplane nausea or sympathetic nausea. My thoughts varied: they ranged from 'why would anyone read this' to 'why does this person have any friends?' Because I can honestly say that in all my years of reading magazines, memoirs, novels, etc, I have never come across a book where the author seemed like such a boring, self-absorbed, faux-inspired narcissist that I actually had to put it down.

And yet that happened. Keep in mind that I slogged through all of Tale of Two Cities and almost all of Lady Chatterley's Lover. As well as Wonkette. And then I thought: perhaps she had a different audience in mind. You know, another demographic. Maybe she was writing to an audience.

Maybe, when she "realized" that she didn't want to be married anymore, what she meant was that she was experiencing genuine feelings of pain and loss. Not that any of this came across in words, per se. Oh, and there was that affair.

But whatever. Far be it from me to judge.

Then I came across this article, written by the same author several years prior. I immediately recognized the smug, self-absorbed tone, the faux-inspiration, the Yoga Lite approach to eternity. And then I thought: wow, this isn't an act. This is what she is actually like. Both of these pieces contain a self-satisfied edge of "this is hard, but wouldn't it be harder if I weren't very attractive, white and upper-class? Eat your hearts out at my flame-breathing, man-baiting, home-wrecking style, bitches!"

But maybe I'm just getting too worked up.