Chutzpah
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
I hate when books end. And generally that applies to one that I love so much that I can't put it down - which inevitably lead me closer and closer to the book ending. It's a vicious cycle.
I used to read all the time as a little girl and the NY subways brought me back to books after my college years (in which I only read plays and textbooks and labels on wine bottles.) I would look forward to my time on the train to get through that next chapter. But then I moved to LA and had to drive. And I don't think I picked up a book for the first year and a half that I lived in LA. I watched more tv and I was reading so many freaking scripts all the time that I never wanted to come home and quietly open a book. Foolish girl. A book is not a script. A book is an escape into another world. It's an intimate introduction to a total stranger.
Last night I finished Julie and Julia. Quite simply this is a story of a girl with chutzpah. I am totally enamored of this Julie. Julie was a secretary at a government agency in Manhattan. Her days droned on and she was, for all intents and purposes, miserable. Until she decided that she was going to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year. Every day she cooked. In 365 days she made all 524 recipes. She made kidneys and sweet breads and dishes with bone marrow. She killed a live lobster herself exactly as Julia instructs even though the idea of it made her want to quit the project completely. She did it all - the whole damn book - and she blogged about it the entire time. And all of a sudden Julie found herself a celebrity of the blogosphere. She got interviewed by all sorts of people and she got recognized on the street and she found herself with a book deal which I, for one, am immensley grateful for because otherwise I never would have known about the Julie/Julia project. After I finished the book (and of course I cried and I'm not even completely sure why...I think I was proud of her and enamored with her and inspired by her and saw pieces of myself in her) I went online to check out her blog. And I have to say, this Julie character should have NEVER been a secretary in a government agency. This girl is SO CLEARLY a writer that it made my head spin. She just didn't know what she was supposed to do with herself until she did it. And even then she was shocked that it was the answer. Or rather, an answer. She's a writer! She's smart and she's funny and she uses words that I didn't even know existed...and I'm just taken with Julie. She did it. She took lemons and without even realizing it, she made lemonade just by having the tenacity to take on a project and take it on with every ounce of her being. Chutzpah.
Inspiring. I love reading.
Posted byMeesh-elle my Belle at 12:13 PM
Labels: books
Loved the Julie/Julia project too! Now you've got to read "My Life in France" by the one and only Mrs. Child. Makes me hungry . . .