And to think it all started with a blog. Heh heh.
I'm not setting off to be the next Julie Powell - I have no purpose in writing these posts except for self-fulfillment, for starters. She, on the other hand, had a goal, an idea, a project and followed it through to the end (she also kind of sort of destroyed what seemed like a great marriage, but that's for her next book, Cleaving, which is also on my list of to-reads).
Basically, Julie was stuck in a situation a lot of us in our early-mid-late-20s/30s can relate to: bored and complacent with her job as a temp/secretary for a goverment agency, bored and complacent with her fabulous New York City life, bored and complacent with her wonderful husband ... you get the picture ... when she suddenly had an idea to make her life a little less boring. She decided to cook every single recipe in Julia Child's Mastering The Art Of French Cooking in a year, feeding her friends and family, tottering on the edge of insanity, and walking down the path of self-discovery and all that blah blah blah in the process.
As a project, I was really impressed by Julie's determination and guts. As a person and a book? Not so much. I liked to think I'd instantly bond with her "voice" throughout - which is not dissimilar to my own personality, that is, witty, bitchy, and unkind. But instead of LOL-ing at her invectives and wit, I chuckled nervously, thinking that if I ever met her, I'd be on the receiving end of a sneer or sarcastic remark. I felt uncomforable about the way she interacted with and treated her husband (though I'm not sure if this was the truth or down to plain self-deprecation). As a story, it's not as well told as some of the other blog-cum-books I've read, such as Jen Lancaster's Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why It Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door to Me? (yeah, I know, the title totally speaks for itself, isn't that, like, amazing?).
The impression that I got of Julie in this book was that she's one of those girls who elbows everyone out of the way to get in front and once there, she looks around satisfactorily, surveying her possessions then discarding as quickly as she gained. Which is fine, as it's just my impression and doesn't mean anything. For all I know, the real Julie's nothing like that. Too bad that impression overshadowed the entire premise of the book, however - to work one's way through Mastering The Art of French Cooking in 365 days.
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