04 September 2010

Committed (book review, sort of)

I just finished Committed, Elizabeth Gilbert's follow up to Eat, Pray, Love. I was excited to read it because I recently saw the movie, fell in love with the Brazilian character, and had to find out what happened. So I did. And eh, it was ok. The story was very familiar to me - relationship with foreign-born dude, necessity to marry in order to secure resident visa for said dude. The book is mostly an anthropological study of marriage and the author's attempts to make peace with the institution since she was going to have to go through with it in order to stay with the man she loved. She was reaching for something that would let her give herself permission to marry, but she admitted that she was reaching which made the whole thing bearable.

My favorite part was her "prenuptial informed consent release" - the list of her top 5 character flaws, "just so I would be certain he had been fairly warned." I loved them because I could have written the first two and a half myself if I was, you know, eloquent. Here they are:

1. I think very highly of my own opinion. I generally believe that I know best how everyone in the world should be living their lives- and you, most of all, will be the victim of this.
2. I require an amount of devotional attention that would have made Marie Antoinette blush.
3. I have far more enthusiasm in life than I have actual energy. In my excitement, I routinely take on more than I can physically or emotionally handle, which causes me to break down in quite predictable displays of dramatic exhaustion. You will be the one burdened with the job of mopping me up every time I've overextended myself and then fallen apart. This will be unbelievably tedious. I apologize in advance.
4. I am openly prideful, secretly judgmental, and cowardly in conflict. All these things collude at times and turn me into a big fat liar.
5. And my most dishonorable fault of all: Though it takes me a long while to get to this point, the moment I have decided that somebody is unforgivable, that person will very likely remain unforgiven for life- all too often cut off forever, without fair warning, explanation, or another chance.


While she was highly ashamed of these traits, I find the first two and a half (you know, the ones that apply to me) to be quite charming. Go figure. I do tend to be very forgiving, even of my own "flaws". I am very impressed by the notion of acknowledging and addressing one's flaws. It's admirable stuff.

All in all, it was a decent read. Some of the marriage history stuff was interesting. Near the end, she goes into depth about the fundamentally subversive nature of marriage - the state can never control a relationship based on private intimacy which is why extreme leaderships (cults, communists, slave owners) have historically attacked personal relationships. She found solace in this, the idea that even though she and her partner were more or less being forced by the government to marry, it was by nature a subversive act. In my opinion, all of the justifications are unnecessary. You do what you gotta do, and if what you gotta do involves having your relationship recognized by the state, more power to you.

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