In lieu of praying and loving (I’m down with eating), part 1 of 2
Posted on 18. Aug, 2010 by Jef in books
Usually I'm against book burning.
The blah blah surrounding the release of Eat Pray Love last weekend re-revealed a certain amount of disdain for the self-help book genre. I too have knee-jerk problems with Elizabeth Gilbert’s three-pronged central premise; but I also am in the market for some life changing. Lately, after my cynicism falls asleep before I do (happens a lot), I’m left alone on my sunken mattress wondering why I don’t cease with the constant critiquing and perpetual trying, and just figure out how to fix my goddamn life already. I seriously doubt the answers I’m looking for are contained within Eat Pray Love, but that doesn’t erase the fact that, cool-headed disposition aside, I am looking.
It’s hard to point LOLs at the Eat Pray Love legions when all of us, clearly, could use some fucking help with life or relationships or careers or body image. And hey, reading is easier than doing, or so I’ve read.Though I distrust by default anyone with perfect horse-teeth and perma-smile and am creeped out by miles long, pilates-pulled muscles, I have (skeptically) thumbed my way through a self-help book or two in my day. So have many of my otherwise smart and discerning friends.
People in my circle have typically turned to self-help lit in moments of crossroads confusion: divorce or breakups, mourning, job malaise, loneliness, onset of aimless anxiety. It’s the kind of stuff that I can’t cleanly or cleverly dismiss as “#firstworldproblems,” not when I’ve seen it all weighing down the eye bags of people I care about. Life is life, and even when a book is a shill I can’t fully reject it if it helps someone close to me deal with it all.
My main issue with Gilbert is that she got paid in advance. Pitching a book idea about a spiritual journey you’ve yet to experience is like living your life in anticipation of writing your autobiography, which is to say it’s phony, and also really weird. But still — even while the self-help genre is frustratingly, and frequently offensively, specific to first-world middle class white people — I’m not opposed to the genre itself as a whole. How can I be? The only thing you can change for sure and forever in this world is your self, and that’s hard work. We need all the help we can get and, increasingly, I’ll take it wherever I can find it.
Part 2 of this post will be a list of the self-helpish books I’ve read over the years, some of which stuck to the wall and some of which didn’t. I’ll be willing to swap these with or loan them to anyone interested, just let me know what books you’ve read that you can say had a concrete effect on your life or understanding. (i.e. I’m fishing for recommendations.) Tomorrow.
Val
Aug 18th, 2010
Great honest post Jef. Looking forward to seeing your book list.
jessekg
Aug 18th, 2010
I’m reading Drink, Play Fuck right now, which if anything, at leasts rips on Gilbert’s book. Plus it’s quick, so all in all, a win.
Also, Jef, great cutline.
Simon
Aug 18th, 2010
Totally bang on with the pre-publication payday observation. What if she didn’t discover anyhting? What if she just made all her life lessons up?
In the end, would it even matter?
Still, I would posit self-help books are not exclusively a first world phenomenon.
I mean, all religious text is basically self help literature. And our NYT best seller style self-help book is usually just religious type spirituality excised of doctrine or denomination (do unto others, etc etc) and repackaged for “secular” culture.
The Secret is like, the dumbest book I have ever read. Please tell me you’ve read it, I want to participate in eviscerating it so badly I know it must come true.
In lieu of praying and loving (I’m down with eating) part 2 of 2 | The Ashcan
Aug 20th, 2010
[...] But what the fuck do I know. Without further ado (previous ado found here): [...]
Jef
Aug 20th, 2010
Val: Gracias.
Jesse: What’s the deal with that book? Is it just a send-up of Gibert’s for jokes? Or is it also sincerely self-helpish in its own way?
Simon: Good point about religion, but still, self-help books have lots of differences from religious texts especially in the marketing and audience targeting. My point isn’t very important though, and moot since a lot of the books I like have eastern religious slants.
And I haven’t read the Secret. But don’t let that stop you from eviscerating it! How bad?