Fairly Conservative

I picked up the book by Julie Powell a few days ago. The movie is due to open in a few weeks. The trailer is amazing. I first saw it in front of Angels and Demons in Indianapolis.

The book had some laugh-out-loud moments, but don’t expect me to pop it onto the great novels list. For one thing, Julie Powell’s irreverence comes through loud and clear. As a parent a wee bit up to my eyeballs in what’s-in-it-for-me thinking, that was often hard reading. What Julie Powell had was a great idea. She followed through on it, and it’s paying off for her. But reading a bit into her next novel makes me think she’s a one hit wonder.

Still, it’s better than no hit at all.

What I think I may do now is pick up Julia Child’s biography with Alex Prud’Homme, on which the movie is also based. I have always enjoyed Child’s joie de vivre. I hope there’s lots of that in the movie. I suppose it’s what I was looking for and found lacking in Powell’s book.

Powell admits to finally finding joy in the end of her novel. Of course, by then, she’s a published author with a bank balance. A few pages into the next book suggests she never intended to stay happy.

Joy, my kind readers will know, is where you make it, and not how it is handed to you. Perhaps someday Powell will find that to be true.