Hug the query

I never read novels by Elisabeth Gilbert until now.

Well, I read “Big Magic”, but that’s not a novel, that’s about daring to be a creator.

But I do love it when she is a guest on my favorite podcasts.
She just has this alluring air about her – such a sense of wonder in this honest and present way. She puts her thoughts and perspectives of life forward in such a magical and true way – it is impossible for me not to be drawn by her.

She seems so at peace in her embrace of her own humanity. I just want to sit around a bond fire and philosophize with her.

But there was a reason why I haven’t read her books. I am always skeptical of “big hits”, feeling that they often are dumbed down, aimed at the lowest common denominator. “Eat, Pray, Love” was a big movie hit, and I put that right in the “shallow, mainstream, pointless” basket without even thinking about it. (shame on me for thinking a bad movie makes for an uninteresting book, like that’s ever the case – but nonetheless, I never even considered reading it. In my defense, when it came out, I wasn’t in the target audience at all – yet.)

Nonetheless, in the spirit of trying out new genres of books, I finally decided to read a book of hers: “City of Girls”. Knowing that she wrote it with fierce grief in her heart after a tremendous loss. Mostly because I admire her for doing just that – but also because I couldn’t help being curious – I wanted to see what would come out of throwing herself into the New York 30ies showgirls and theater scene, vibrant with life, at such a sad time in her personal life.

I had no doubt that her writing would be beautiful and enjoyable just for the art of it. I also had no doubt that the woman understands a lot more about life that most of us will ever be open enough to learn, but still I wasn’t at all sure what to expect.

With all my awe for the woman and her profoundness and all inspiring well of wisdom, that just seems to flow out of her so present and natural as breathing, I do not understand how I could think her books where any different. I guess my distaste of the Hollywood mainstream is just that strong.

As I started reading, I still suspected I was right in my initial thought of this not being my thing. Sure, her writing is as good as I expected, but at first glance, the themes were not interesting to me. Young stupidity and vainness. Fashion, clothing, makeup and all that, never interested me even a little bit.

But I kept at it. The showgirl and vaudeville theme and the creative side of it, was stirring some curiosity, since I had a short visit to the burlesque scene in Montreal a few years back and have therefore been interested in some of the background story of that artform, and I always felt myself to be a very sexually liberated woman, so it’s not like all the themes was completely uninteresting to me.

Somehow along the way, the story transformed into pieces of truths of life, that we recognize just from being human. Just like it does over the course of a lifetime.

Truths about finding places that sings to our heart, that teaches us about ourselves and where we belong, of building our own chosen families, of lifechanging mistakes and learning to live with them, of acceptance of self, daring to become who we are, of the essence of being a woman, of the great impact other people have in our lives and the strange ways they find us.
How we change as we age and the wisdom that comes with that.

All of that and so much more.
It was beautiful.

In the last third of the book I was moved to tears several times, her writing having connected me to Vivian and to myself in strange, unexpected ways, even though the story far from resembles my own.

All good stories do just that.
Tells some truth about being human, that resonates, regardless of the setting of the book.

I could probably write an entire book with the treads from my own life, that spilled into me, while reading.

I love nothing better that when reading the last line of a book, it feels like a tiny death because it’s over.

And I just had to sit with it, hugging it to my chest for a few pure moments of mixed emotions of sadness and gratitude, before letting it go. Reveling in the fact that there are people in the world that spend their time to making such big miracles as books are, and has the grace to share it with the rest of us.

And the comfort in knowing that I can still be moved in such a way.

And then I shed a tear again, reading the acknowledgments and her words to Rayya. It felt so brave to me.

Elisabeth Gilbert – Dahm that woman seems to have lived a thousand lifetimes. She is amazing.

Thank you, Liz.


(I am still not convinced I should read “Eat, Pray, Love”, though. But I think I will give “The signature of all things” a try.)

I love all the subtleties that makes up this book – it has as many pages written in between the lines as it has actual pages.

The burden of past things we haven’t let go off, and the millions of ways that shapes our lives, and the people we become… There is something heartbreakingly true and quietly poetic in the ways this is described in this book.

Fragmented truths both in some ways understood and yet just beyond comprehension, as life is, when viewed though the memories of just the one person, without the all-knowing author helping him (or the reader) out with the bigger picture.

I love how the book doesn’t overstep the first-person narrative – so much is left unexplained and unexplored about the other characters, because the male, main character just does not understand the women around him. (He might love them, but he is not curious about who they are – he never learned to be.)

It leaves the reader to fill in the blanks and makes the tale so much bigger than itself, which, if you ask me, is a part of the definition of what makes good art.

I find it so fascinating, that she was able to do this so well – It would have been excruciatingly hard for me not to give the sister her own voice in this particular story. And more impressively, I have read many books where this sort of approach just leaves the rest of the characters feeling very one-dimensional and you end up not engaging with them at all.

With this book, it’s the complete opposite.

It let me connect strongly with the sister, even though she is only viewed through the lenses of her brother’s entitlement. It gave me room to pour parts of my own experience into the in-between, and that let to many reflections about my own paths, choices, family-roles and the ways that I have healed my own childhood traumas. How chained up you are to your own roots if you don’t do this work, and how that process is on-going through your whole life.

I grew up being the big sister in a family with, in some ways, a similar sort of father figure, and I found it very poetic the way Patchett shows how the absence of parental love can leave you simultaneously extremely resilient and very fragile in your adult life in so many different ways.

And I love how the house is used as such a visceral and symbolic character in the book. Beautifully done.

I would defiantly recommend this book, but it will not be for everyone. It will demand a thoughtful reader and not one looking for entertainment only. I skimmed a few bookreads-reviews and several of them deemed the behavior of the characters as “unrealistic”. Like Danny and Maeve always sitting in the parked car in front of the house. Those comments really baffled me. I suspect it might be a symptom of not doing the reading between the lines, expecting the book to hand you all the “whys” up front. Or maybe it just means that none of it resonated with those people’s own life experiences at all. Guess it doesn’t matter.
Art that has something to say, will never resonate with everyone.
And that’s the way it should be.

It made perfect sense to me, though.
Thank you, Ann Patchett.