v is for vent

Okay, look at this book. Take a minute and really digest what you see. Really, take your time. I'll wait.

Okay, now read this:

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A feast, a voyage, and a marvel." (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love )

"Laugh-out-loud funny." (Boston Globe )

"Powell writes like a culinary Chris Rock - profane, honest, and very funny." (Seattle Times )

"A really good book." (Washington Post Book World )

Product Description
Julie & Julia, the bestselling memoir that's "irresistible....A kind of Bridget Jones meets The French Chef" (Philadelphia Inquirer), is now a major motion picture. Julie Powell, nearing thirty and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, resolves to reclaim her life by cooking in the span of a single year, every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her unexpected reward: not just a newfound respect for calves' livers and aspic, but a new life-lived with gusto. The film is written and directed by Nora Ephron and stars Amy Adams as Julie and Meryl Streep as Julia.

Okay, now how much do you want to read this book?

Because you are spending your time here I would assume you have an interest in cooking. That means that it's possible you might see this book and read the reviews and want to pick it up at the book store. And it is that possibility that has prompted this post.

I saw a preview of the afore-mentioned movie this month and was immediately interested in the idea. I picked up Julia Child's My Life in France the next time I was at the book store and enjoyed it. I liked her writing and the topic and she has a personality that can't help but bring life to the story. Besides, my dad loves Paris, so I enjoyed her almost blind affection for all things French. About half way through Julia Child's book I decided I was going to read Julie Powell's when I was done. I didn't really think twice about it and picked it up at the bookstore last weekend.

I began reading on Saturday night and soon realized that a powerful black pen was a neccesary companion whenever I opened those covers. I was blacking out bad language on just about every page. Now, I realize that I probably have a much lower tolerance for profanity than most people, but this was a little ridiculous. I think she has an unhealthy obsession with the f-word. Maybe I should have known then, but I am some kind of naive and I assumed that was going to be the worst of it. Oh, no.

So, after ripping out a whole chapter that catalogs her introduction and subsequent addiction to an inappropriate book she found in her parents house when she was eleven (eleven!), I was a little more wary. But I still didn't want to call it quits. I wanted to hear about her cooking experiences and how it changed her. I guess I was assuming that she changed in the ways I wanted her to; i.e., it inspired her to clean up her language and get her mind out of the gutter!

Ripping a few more pages out (and wondering why because I'm surely not keeping this for anyone else to read!) I began to resign myself to the idea of not finishing the book. But I didn't want to miss her life-changing experiences and her respect and admiration and gratitude for Julia Child! I was torn.

Then I read it. Her ridiculous account of a detailed conversation with her friend about her affair with a married co-worker. That was it. With a heavy heart, I tried one last thing. I read through the accounts from Paul and Julia Child's life that she had novelized. Somehow these had escaped the influence of her vocabulary and moral depravity and were much more in the tone of Julia Child's own book. Then I turned to the last chapter, hoping against hope to find a new and different Julie Powell writing. It was a discussion of her reaction to the news of Julia Child's death, which I thought might be a good occasion for her to demonstrate a respect for more sacred things, like life. No such luck. More foul language and a flippant attitude toward mortality. I was crushed. I threw the book into the garbage and turned my back on it forever. I even threw it in my bathroom trash, just to show that I was never going to fish it back out again. (Bathroom trash cans gross me out. Ew.)

And that is a faithful account of my dealings with Julie Powell's book.

Now, back to the exercise at the beginning of this post. How many of you would expect to read the f-word at least once in each chapter, accompanied by some other choice jewels of expression of the four-letter variety, of course, when looking at that cover? And how many of you would expect to hear detailed accounts of scandalous affairs and other such adventures in immorality? And how many of you would find those things marvelous? The reviews on the cover of my book included the word "delightful", which now boggles my mind.

I am either way out of touch with what is marvelous and delightful in the world today, which is a distinct possibility, or they are selling this thing as something it just isn't. So, that's my whole point. Don't get sucked in. If you want to read it and can withstand the kind of moral decripitude that it contains, go for it. I just think you ought to know what your getting into. I wish I had. So sad. An adventure in cooking is interesting enough on its own, if it's written well. It doesn't need that kind of gaudy and gross ornamentation! Anyway, I'd better quit while I'm ahead. Thanks for letting me vent.

Oh, and read Julia Child's book if you get a chance. I thought it was genuinely delightful, although she does think that all politically conservative people are brainwashed and close-minded. Maybe I just proved her right...