When i first heard about Elizabeth Gilbert‘s new book Committed i was instantly intrigued, despite the fact that the mere title of her enormous bestseller Eat, Pray, Love has always prevented me from having the least bit of interest in reading it. The new book was described as a sort of sequel to Eat, Pray, Love, taking up where that memoir left off: with Gilbert getting ready to marry for a second time, even though the globe-spanning travels that inspired the first book were themselves prompted by an ugly divorce. The sub-title is, “A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage.” I used to consider myself a pretty big skeptic of marriage, and the review i read also mentioned that the book included a lot of facts and history on the subject of matrimony, so i put myself on the book’s queue at the Des Moines Public Library right away. I was number 36 on the list.
I waited on that list for at least four months, and i tore through the book in a week and a half once it finally became available to me (about a week and a half ago). Although the citations of her resources are vague at best, Gilbert provides a wealth of information about marriage, so the book reads more like a non-fiction than a memoir (YES, i know memoirs are included in non-fiction, but you know what i mean). I told Nathan that if i were ever to write a book, it might be like this one; a lot of vaguely-cited facts, some probably-less-than-accurate yet educated conclusions drawn from those facts, a few not-too-detailed anecdotes, and a lot of musing.
I loved the book. I’m not a huge fan of modern-day memoirs because frankly i don’t find other people’s lives to be as interesting as they do, generally speaking. But this book is different; it’s more like looking inside Gilbert’s mind as she researches and ponders the topic of marriage and gradually finds a way of looking at it that makes her feel comfortable with getting married again. She isn’t a psychologist or an anthropologist or an expert on (or at) marriage, but she apologizes for all that and the book is what it is. One thing she is certainly good at is getting people of very interesting walks of life to talk about any given topic, and the conversations she has with people in far-away places about marriage are fascinating. She also includes a section about not having babies, and i was particularly interested in what her mommy friends had to say both for and against having children. Some were surprised by how much happiness having children brought them while others told Gilbert that it wasn’t really worth it even though they love their children dearly. And then there are the facts: that even though people think the childless will die alone and miserable, the happiness of people polled at the end of life is not dependent upon whether or not they have children. I found that fact encouraging, and i enjoyed Gilbert’s praises for “The Auntie Brigade.” There are a lot of us childless aunties out there, and we’re important.
The one thing i thought was lacking in this book was a little more intimacy. Gilbert doesn’t go into a lot of detail about her relationships, particularly the one that ended in a nasty, devastating, ugly divorce. What went wrong there, one wonders? One would think that a person who is so skeptical of marriage on account of having been the victim of divorce would analyze that failure thoroughly in her search for peace. The only concrete thing she says about it is that he wanted babies and she didn’t, and that she was twenty-five when they got married. She says that last bit as though it were explanation enough for why the marriage failed. Uh, excuse me?! You really need to clear that one up for me, Elizabeth!
The book is supposed to be a memoir, and it’s ultimately about Elizabeth Gilbert’s search for reassurance that getting married is the right thing for her to do. Personally, i was left biting my lip for her a little bit, because the conclusion she reaches is wobbly at best. She hasn’t analyzed her first marriage and deep down she seems to still hate the whole idea of marriage. It seems to me that in the end she just put a fresh coat of paint on a rotten attitude. But – that’s her problem, i suppose. Maybe this book just doesn’t quite convey the full extent of her mindset. Either way, i really enjoyed the majority of what she had to say.
I don’t think the book really changed my mind about marriage at all – i was already a cautious fan, by which i mean i don’t think marriage is for everyone but i’m pretty sure it’s for me – but it certainly made me think about a few things and informed me of some cool tidbits. Like, for instance, the fact that (statistically speaking) age 25 is the dividing line between marriages that are pretty likely to fail and those that endure. I’ll be 25 and Nathan will be 26 when we get married, so we’re sort of squeaking past that line. We’ve also got the advantages of: being of the same age, ethnicity, economic class and education level; not wanting babies; and having similar jobs. Our disadvantages are: not being strongly religious and not having a huge network of friends.
So, let’s hang out more, okay?
I just finished a book called Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes by Daniel Everett, which was suggested to me by Nathan, who read an article about it and thought it would be right up my alley. It’s the memoir of a Christian missionary and linguist who spent many years among a tribe in the Amazon called the Pirahã, studying their unusual language and trying to teach them about Jesus. They ended up inspiring him to become an atheist, but the book doesn’t really focus on that fact.
It’s largely about the language, and the culture that influences it. The Pirahã have no words for numbers or colors, and the author and his family failed to teach them how to count to ten in Portuguese in eight months of instruction. There are other absurdities about the language which undermine Noam Chomsky’s theories about linguistics. The second half of the book goes on about this a bit much, but it was interesting nonetheless.
While only a small portion of the book is dedicated to the discussion of religion, the final sentence of the book suggests that what he observed about the lack of religion among the Pirahã may be the most important thing he learned from them over the decades spent among the tribe. I neglected to write it down, but it goes something like, “The Pirahã are happier and more stable than any Christian or other religious person that i have ever known.” What little Everett does say about religion and the objectives of missionaries is eye-opening, and terribly interesting.
I also finished The End of Faith by Sam Harris this month. I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as Dawkins’s The God Delusion. It made its own good points, but i felt that the discussion of “spirituality” (which is really an allusion to extreme concentration achieved through meditation and altered states of perception from drugs, but nothing having to do with a metaphysical spirit) was rather irrelevant and confusing. I think Harris should have left that for another book on so-called atheist spirituality. I’m trying to read such a book right now, and it seems so far to just be a defense of certain aspects of religion.
I’m also reading God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens. I was hesitant to pick it up, since Hitchens seems rather arrogant in the videos i’ve checked out on YouTube, but i figured i’ve read two books by the so-called Four Horsemen of the Atheist Apocalypse, so i might as well keep going. The book is well written and illustrates with jaw-dropping fact after fact how religion really does poison everything. (And that’s the subtitle, not my own assertion. Though i’m beginning to agree whole-heartedly.) And we’re talking present-day stuff, not just the Crusades and Inquisition and all that.
I’ve been on a reading kick lately, which is pretty unusual for me. The last couple of years i could easily count the number of books i’d read on one hand by New Year’s Eve. This year will finally see a change in that realm for me.
I finally finished Nothing, which was a pretty much worthless account of one agnostic woman’s tiffs with her in-laws over religion. Nothing profound, not really something i’d recommend anyone read in order to better understand my point of view. I don’t understand agnostics. Make up your mind already – amirite?
Then i went and picked up The God Delusion, and that will definitely be the next book i finish. I’m pretty excited about that one.
In the meantime, i’ve read Blink by Malcom Gladwell, which was also a completely pointless book. Then last week i literally ran into the library and took about two minutes to select and check out Accidentally On Purpose, which i don’t even want to think about anymore it was so bad. Why anyone signed a book deal with a woman who essentially just wanted the world to know how much of a pain in the ass she is, i’ll never know.
I’m now about to finish It Sucked and then I Cried by Heather Armstrong (dooce). It’s very funny and all, but in a way i can’t wait to finish it because this is my second pregnancy/motherhood book in a row, and i’m seriously tired of hearing about it. On the upside, these two books have strongly reinforced my conviction to never, ever have children – to the point that i’m seriously considering doubling and maybe tripling up on the birth control methods.