What does "Committed's Elizabeth Gilbert" Tell about Marriage?

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition, First Printing edition (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670021652
• ISBN-13: 978-0670021659
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches

Embarking on writing a major work after the spectacular Eat, Pray, Love, must have been no easy feat. However, undaunted and honest as ever, Elizabeth Gilbert provides an eye-opening and thorough account of the colossal entity we call marriage. We have all grown up accepting marriage as a given. It seems to be taken as common place that people simply grow up and get married- and then (of course) live happily ever after. Or is it that easy?

Not so fast, Gilbert warns us. Do we completely know what we are getting into? What happens to us as independent beings when we marry? What makes a marriage more likely to succeed, and what makes it more likely to fail? What are the economic, social, and legal ties that bind us and do we even understand the significance of them? How are we able to somehow throw love in the mix as well? Extremely timely and pertinent questions with serious implications. Some of the most interesting and thought provoking aspects of the book- a glimpse into the lives of the Hmong women in Asia (who view marriage not as a solution to all of life's problems and seem to have no qualms whatsoever about this), how marriage was viewed by different religions throughout the centuries- not always so 'sacred', and the way marriage has been used to secure money, power, and property throughout history. Quite simply, Gilbert explains this institution has been pulled, prodded, and changed for centuries- yet still it remains. There is something, then that draws us still to marry. Gilbert (thrown rather harshy into marriage by the US government) walks away with a brokered peace with marriage and a deeper understanding of what it means to be married- as she embarks on her own marriage. The reader has a deeper understanding as well.

As a final note, what is more important if not the subject of who we spend our lives with? Who we share our faith, time, children, money, and precious moments with? As a new mother who married five years ago at the age of 24 (I know this puts me into the danger zone :), this book has given me fuller understanding of what it means to be married and coming to respect my own marriage as an imperfect, changing, and totally lovable creature- much like my own baby son. (Quite simply, the white gown and endless talks about the church and reception hall didn't really matter- the chats we had about faith, child-rearing, navigating our political differences, and in-laws definitely mattered.) It has once been said that 'The unexamined life is not worth living.' Gilbert's book suggests that perhaps an unexamined marriage is not worth having- and I'd agree. (KimberlyA)

For Further Info:

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Eat, Pray, Love: Do What Makes You Smile and Thankful for Life

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Later Printing edition (January 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143038419
• ISBN-13: 978-0143038412
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1 inches

I find it so surprising--reading the angry, negative reviews--that the people who hated the book hated it for exactly the reasons why some steer clear away from the the spiritual-journey-memoir genre. Yes, the author is self-absorbed, yes, she seems to think of only trite stuff, yes, she seems self-indulgent with her problems. And yes, she's allowed. It is after all a book that is positioned to address these things in the author's self; who otherwise would not be searching for something more: more meaning and more appreciation in/of her life.

Here is a woman who shows all the possibly-perceived-as-lacking-substance thoughts of hers and we are throwing tomatoes at her. One thing, she obviously wasn't afraid of that. She wasn't aiming to be coming off as some deeply wise woman but a fumbling girl-woman trying to break out of what she felt was imminent disaster (had she had the baby and delayed her need to find out what she truly wants from her life she might have left not only her husband, but their child, or most probably ending up not leaving out of guilt and becoming crazy instead: exposing her family to that for years; not an uncommon reality). She is not one for anti-depressants, remember.

This memoir falls in the same category as the TV show Sex and the City (of which it was compared to in a review here). Both get trampled for being supposedly superficial, covering the silly plights of city girls who don't know what they want and yet have everything. But this book--as the TV show--actually are part of a wider story that is illiciting reactions from the public because it reflects the transition in which women in the modern world are experiencing: now that we have equality with men professionally, now that we are liberated from all the limitations being a woman dictated two generations ago, how does that affect us? From a distance, in a glance, it seems that women have all the cards to play with now. But this book and many other works by women and/or about women of this generation show that having all those cards does not mean Happiness.

There are still things in society--in regards to a woman's role--that grates. And then there are things within our Modernised, Westernized, Individualized, Ambitious selves, that are lacking.
This is what Miss Gilbert's search is about, and what she represents.
On a collective level, much of the modern world is in search of God, Spirituality (one just needs to walk through bookstores in the US and see the plethora of soul searching self help books on the shelves). This is what needs to be observed and understood as a phenomena in the West; the small voices, small cries, here and there by those who come up with the balls to share their journeys and thoughts with us--no matter how trite-sounding, how shallow-seeming--are part of a collective howl for the meaning of life.

Elizabeth Gilbert's voice is just one of many that calls for recognition as part of a chorus for something that firstly, many women are hollering about, and secondly, humanity in general--humanity in the first world--are crying for: some kind of guidance, indication, that the collective paths we fought for and chose (the best education, career ambitions realised, a certain amount of money needed to live that certain kind of magazine-lifestyle life--which is what Liz Gilbert's life is a reflection of, remember--love in the form of marriage and what society dictates) are truly the things that give us peace and happiness in the infinite sense.

Eat, Pray, Love might not be that deep, wise voice representing the deep, wise journey into the deep, wise self. But this book's packaging and tone, hell, its WORDS, never did say it was. It is a fumbling--almost child-like in its guilelessness--show of the ego's awareness and needs, and its attempt at searching for what many people from all walks of life only wish they could go out and find: THEMSELVES. SELF, being the keyword here. And in this memoir, ultimately, God, being in each of our selves.

To the people who were disappointed that the author didn't seem to give a hoot about India's poverty, they must have not read the book through: Miss Gilbert never ventured out of her ashram and the little village it is located in, after making a decision to further develop her meditation skills and thus skipping the rest of India. She also ignored Italy's corruption with her indulging in good food and focus on learning and enjoying the Italian language. Again, the critics missed the point of this memoir. It's a book about a writer, a New Yorker, a recently-divorced-woman-in-her-early-thirties' journey to heal and find spiritual strength through various means: pleasure first to recover (Italy), spiritual examination and purging (India), combining the two for balance (Bali), which would result hopefully in the kind of substance and depth and balance that so many critics mentioned she lacks.
One doesn't pick this book up to: 1. Be exposed to India's poverty and expect the author to discuss that in depth. 2. Be exposed to Italy's corruption and expect the author to discuss that in depth. 3. Be exposed to Balinese wiles and expect the author to discuss that in depth. (which she actually did in the account of the Balinese woman she raised money for to buy the land the woman needed to build a home).

Next time you pick a book up at the bookstore, call up your powers of perception before purchasing it. A book IS pretty much its cover. Did everyone really expect a book titled "Eat, Pray, Love" A Woman's Search for Everything, to be an experience of religious fervor, one that would reveal the secrets of the universe? It's a story about a girl who thought everything she thought she wanted, would bring her happiness. It didn't. It didn't for her, and possibly not for many other women. If it took this one woman to go to Italy, India, and Indonesia, to get away after a difficult and painful divorce to heal and get perspective--instead of festering and turning into a pile of flesh in depression--then by all means. Yes, she financed her travels through her book advance--after giving away the suburban home and NYC apartment to her ex-husband. And if she wrote this book for us, it's really for us to appreciate and enjoy the ride with her. Anybody else who got so upset needed only to put the book down and pick another one to their taste. If anything, that's this book's lesson: Do what makes you smile and thankful for life. (taniam)

For Further Info:

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Dear John The Best Nicholas Sparks

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Mti edition (December 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446567337
• ISBN-13: 978-0446567336
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1 inches

Just as I was about to give up on Nicholas Sparks after reading a string of mediocre novels following his first three blockbuster hits, I decided to give him one more chance. I'm glad I did! This is by far the best book he's written--even better than "The Notebook" and the two that followed, "Message in a Bottle" and "A Walk to Remember." I started reading "Dear John" at 8 PM one evening and couldn't put it down until I finished in the wee hours of the morning. Written in the first person by the young male protagonist, John Tyree, he tells the heartwarming story of his romance with the girl of his dreams--Savannah Lynn Curtis, whom he meets by chance one day on the beach. Their background and personalities are strikingly different, but yet they form an unexplainable bond that grows into a powerful love. Savannah is almost too good to be true, and I kept thinking: "Gee, I wish my son (who is John's age) could meet a girl like that!" I won't go into any details to spoil the plot, which turns out to have many twists and turns--not only involving John's relationship with Savannah but also a heartwarming story concerning John's father, John's time in the service, and his thoughts and emotions in general. This is a beautiful story, and frankly when I finished it left me emotionally drained where I wasn't able to get back to sleep just thinking about it. Not only is "Dear John" an entertaining read, but it was very well written and fast paced with a stirring conclusion. Congratulations to Nicholas Sparks on another winner! (Carole Imes)

For Further Info:

Dear John's Nicholas Sparks

On The Brink, Henry M. Paulson, Jr: Still Ignores a Few Important Factors

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Business Plus (February 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446561932
• ISBN-13: 978-0446561938
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches 

A book like this should be read only along with books like The Failure of Risk Management: Why It's Broken and How to Fix It or The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. These books are about the much broader topics of risk management and risk in finance, respectively, but they do put On the Brink in context.

Paulson has written a detailed, blow by blow, narrative account of several specific meetings leading up to and during the financial crisis. Less of the book deals with stepping outside of these meetings to analyze other specific causes, but there is some of that. The reader has to be careful of an attempt by Paulson to recast his own role in a more favorable light, but I haven't seen anything detailed enough to specifically contradict him, yet.

Paulson does mention an interesting and almost complete list of players in this crisis - Freddie, Fannie, Bernanke, Bush, etc. But he is almost silent on some of the more subtle players like the mathematical models that underestimated these risks (Taleb and Hubbard do and excellent job of this). He reiterates throughout the book that the events seemed "impossible" and yet they are events that seem to happen once or twice a century (Especially considering some of the relaxed regulation and oversight that preceeeded it).

He does mention the role of Credit Default Swaps in the crisis but not, say, the Gaussian Copula, Options, or Value at Risk. The use of such methods are at least partly to blame.

The reader has to assume Paulson's agenda of getting history to come out the way that casts him the way he would like to see it. But it is still an excellent account. We should like to see the accounts of Bernanke and Geithner someday and compare them side-by-side. (Jim Galt)

Who is Henry M. Paulson, Jr.

Henry M. Paulson, Jr. served under President George W. Bush as the 74th Secretary of the Treasury from June 2006 until January 2009. Before coming to Treasury, Paulson was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs since the firm's initial public offering in 1999. He joined Goldman Sachs Chicago Office in 1974 and rose through the ranks holding several positions including, Managing Partner of the firm's Chicago office, Co-head of the firm's investment Banking Division, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Co-Senior partner. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Paulson was a member of the White House Domestic Council, serving as Staff Assistant to the President from 1972 to 1973, and as Staff Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon from 1970 to 1972. Paulson graduated from Dartmouth in 1968, where he majored in English, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and an All Ivy, All East football player. He received an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1970.

More Info, here:

On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Vintage)

A 24-year-old computer hacker sporting an assortment of tattoos and body piercings and afflicted with Asperger Syndrome or something of the like has been under state guardianship in her native Sweden since she was thirteen. She supports herself by doing deep background investigations for Dragan Armansky, who, in turn, worries the anorexic-looking Lisbeth Salander is "the perfect victim for anyone who wished her ill." Salander may look fourteen and stubbornly shun social norms, but she possesses the inner strength of a determined survivor. She sees more than her word processor page in black and white and despises the users and abusers of this world. She won't hesitate to exact her own unique brand of retribution against small-potatoes bullies, sick predators, and corrupt magnates alike.

Financial journalist Carl Mikael Blomkvist has just been convicted of libeling a financier and is facing a fine and three months in jail. Blomkvist, after a Salander-completed background check, is summoned to a meeting with semi-retired industrialist Henrik Vanger whose far-flung but shrinking corporate empire is wholly family owned. Vanger has brooded for 36 years about the fate of his great niece, Harriet. Blomkvist is expected to live for a year on the island where many Vanger family members still reside and where Harriet was last seen. Under the cover story that he is writing a family history, Blomkvist is to investigate which family member might have done away with the teenager.

So, the stage is set. The reader easily guesses early that somehow Blomkvist and Salander will pool their talents to probe the Vanger mystery. However,Swede Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is no humdrum, formulaic whodunit. It is fascinating and very difficult to put down. Nor is it without some really suspenseful and chillingly ugly scenes....

The issue most saturating The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is that of shocking sexual violence primarily against women but not excluding men. Salander and Blomkvist both confront prima facie evidence of such crimes. Larsson's other major constituent elements are corporate malfeasance that threatens complete collapse of stock markets and anarchistic distrust of officialdom to the point of endorsing (at least, almost) vigilantism. He also deals with racism as he spins a complex web from strands of real and imagined history concerning mid-twentieth century Vanger affiliations with Sweden's fascist groups.

But Larsson's carefully calibrated tale is more than a grisly, cynical world view of his country and the modern world at large. At its core, it is an fascinating character study of a young woman who easily masters computer code but for whom human interaction is almost always more trouble than it is worth, of an investigative reporter who chooses a path of less resistance than Salander but whose humanity reaches out to many including her, and of peripheral characters -- such as Armansky -- who need more of their story told.

Fortunately, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in English translation will be followed by two more in the Millennium series: The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Air Castle that Blew Up. I can't wait. Larsson also made a 200-page start on a fourth book, but sadly he succumbed to a heart attack in 2004 and his father decided the unfinished work will remain unpublished.

I recommend this international bestseller to all who eagerly sift new books for challenging intellectual crime thrillers, who luxuriate in immersing themselves in the ambience of a compellingly created world and memorable characters, who soak up financial and investigative minutiae as well as computer hacking tidbits, and who want to share Larsson's crusade against violence and racism. (K. M. literary devotee)

For Further Info:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Vintage)

Game Change Book Just Gossip?

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Harper; X edition (January 11, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061733636
• ISBN-13: 978-0061733635
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  

Most of the sources in this book are not identified, and that's no surprise, because most of this book is pure tabloid gossip. Gossip is fun, but when people close to a candidate -- the inner circle -- spill their guts to reporters for whatever purpose -- revenge? vindication? a chance to say "it wasn't my fault"? -- the result is merely embarrassing. I didn't need to know this stuff and, frankly, I don't know more about the 2008 campaign because I've read this book.

What is interesting about this book is its negative portrayal of virtually every woman involved in the campaign, most of whom are described, at one point or another in the account, as "hysterical," "paranoid," "unstable," "emotionally unbalanced," loud, abrasive -- you get the picture. Only Michelle Obama escapes such stereotyping and, while I love Michelle to bits, I can't believe that she was the only sane woman on the 2008 campaign trail.

Intelligent, educated, ambitious, women aren't crazy, dear authors: they just have a low tolerance for incompetent, narcissistic, macho guys. Cases in point: (1) Palin may be no genius, and may have been totally unprepared to run for high office, but her handlers in the McCain campaign had virtually no idea how to prepare her for interviews, public scrutiny and a national campaign. She shut down, not because she's "mentally unstable," but because she was overloaded and unprepared; (2) Elizabeth Edwards had plenty to scream about; what she should have done was hit her intellectually superficial, immoral lunkhead of a husband with a brick; (3) of course Hillary was stunned and upset by her loss in Iowa; she'd been told by everyone who worked for her, and the media, that she was a front runner. What did you expect her to do; slap her thighs and yodel "the sun will come out tommorrow"?

The fact that the authors were merely repeating gossip, rather than examining what was said critically, does not respond to the above criticism, but merely proves the point that this book is insider back-biting and a waste of time. Verdict: Undocumented, tabloid, sexist and not credible. (rctny)


For Further Info: 
Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

Dan Brown: Lost Symbol

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday Books; First Edition, First Printing edition (September 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385504225
• ISBN-13: 978-0385504225
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches

Elitist literary critics say that Brown is not a good writer, and that his stories are bland. I personally think that if you manage to genuinely entertain and awe your audiences, then you have accomplished something worthy of reading. I also think that "The Da Vinci Code" was nearly an impossible act to follow. People will have all sorts of crazy expectations for your next book that you won't be able to fulfill. As such, I write this review as fair as I can, trying to assess it on its own merits, but comparisons are inevitable.

The Lost Symbol isn't a bad book, but it is a letdown. I didn't like this one for the same reason I didn't like Angels and Demons as much. Also, Brown doesn't advance the story at a good pace. A good two-thirds of the book (I'm not exaggerating, I counted the pages) was filled with variations on such a scene:

Character A: Have you heard of X?
Character B (usually Langdon): Yes, but I thought that was just a myth.
Character A shows or tells B something.
Character B reacts with shock.
Then, insert scenes of people walking from one place to another, being chased.
Then, insert the sentence "Suddenly everything made sense." At least for the next ten pages.
Repeat.

After reading this, I had to wonder whether Brown is a writer on Lost, where people can't seem to give straight answers, and where scenes never resolve any questions.

Here's my advice to Dan Brown:

1. Fire your editor. There were some whole passages, even chapters, that served no purpose other than to inflate your book to an unnecessary size. I don't mind reading big books, but I do mind reading through unnecessary words. Ch. 69, for example, is unnecessary. If your editor didn't ask you to take it out, then he should be fired. Sorry.

2. We don't need to know exactly how every character moves from one location to the next, which turn they took, what street they walked across. If it serves the plot, if the geography is important (as it was in Angels and Demons), then fine. Geography was crucial at certain moments in this book, but many times, the passages when you describe how someone moves from one part of a house to another part, what door they opened and closed, all that is boring and tedious.

3. Don't write your novel like a screenplay. Whether you've done it consciously or not, your short chapters read as if you had in mind exactly what camera shots you expect out of an inevitable movie adaptation. Leave that to the screenwriter. If they can adapt a book like "Naked Lunch," they can surely adapt your book as well. Write your novel as a novel.

4. Be careful of hubris. You're in a unique and rare position that, I'm sure, many authors dream of: your books will sell millions by default and you will get a multi-million dollar movie deal without question. Good for you! Some authors handle that well (e.g. J.K. Rowling), some don't (e.g. Stephen King, Michael Crichton). It's not that the latter are bad writers, but that they are capable of writing some really bad stuff. Having said that, I'm not saying that The Lost Symbol is bad, just that it needs to lose about 100-pages of unnecessary, repetitive scenes. Speaking of Crichton, the reason I stopped reading him is that he became too formulaic. All his books are about a bunch of mismatched experts going to some remote location and something goes wrong. Formula isn't bad per se. Rowling is formulaic too. Most of her books revolve around the Hogwarts school year, but she puts enough story in there to make it work. You should do more of that.

5. Know what you're good at. You know your technology, which makes your book authentic. You also know that your readers are likely to go Google a painting or artist you mentioned and be awed by what you described. That's great! I bet that also saves you the pain of having to request reprint permissions of artwork and such. Also, since most people don't know their history, let alone the etymology of words they use everyday, you have literally an endless supply of stories. That's what you're good at. I'd say, forget the science stuff. It's interesting, but, as with Angels and Demons, it's an awkward fit. I don't recall there being any modern science in The Da Vinci Code and I was fine with that.

6. Try a recurring character. Langdon is fine, but consider having a character or two that returns in subsequent books. Make them interesting, of course, and don't make them a love interest.

So, here's the good news. Dan Brown hasn't nuked the fridge, at least not for me. Also, now that this book is out in the open, readers are likely to give his next book a much fairer assessment. So, I look forward to reading that, but, I probably won't be buying it on the first day it's out. (Justin Lee)

For Further Info:

The Lost Symbol