Like reading a sequel to The Wizard of Oz where we follow Dorothy in her new life as a crack whore. Julie Powell was so pissed off that Nora Ephron made her look like a nice person in the movie Julie & Julia that she has gone far above and beyond the call of duty to prove just what an evil bitch she really is. As with Arthur Conan Doyle going a little bit overboard by killing Sherlock Holmes, Julie Powell goes a little bit over board in making her character of Julie pathetic, evil, twisted, and as likable as Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao all rolled into one panchetta.
Now I like a bit of self pity myself once in a while, maybe even more than once in a while, but a self indulgent, three hundred page pity party gets pretty damned old, pretty damned fast.
*The Julie & Julia Aside–
Julie & Julia is one of best books I have read in the past ten years or so. It has a novel like structure of Beginning, Middle, and End. We have a Hero, a Sidekick, A Muse, and all of the other elements of a great Mythic Journey. Julie is on a Quest to get out of the wage slave world and become something all bloggers dream of:A Published Author. Julie sets herself a near impossible task and miracle of miracles! she succeeds! Happiness reigns, fade to black amid thunderous applause. . .*
This is a tough act to follow, and in Julie Powell’s case, an impossible one to follow.
Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession has no heroes, and Julie doesn’t want it to have any villains either, accept for her. Poor Julie, everything in all the known universe is her fault. The story starts at an odd point somewhere along the line of her becoming a Butcher. While she is having an affair. And her husband Eric is having an affair. After she has become rich and famous.
It rambles around for an amazingly long time saying next to nothing while she drones on about her sex life, her butchery, her wants and desires, her longing for said lover after he dumps her, and a couple of trips tacked on just for the hell of it. It ends with Eric still seeing his lover, Julie occasionally seeing her lover, and Julie occasionally breaking down a piece of meat for fun.
The most annoying bit of business is that in the end Julie’s lover Damian-right bastard, not-his-wife fucker, and all around piece of shit-is given a complete white wash and shown to be just one more hapless victim of Julie-Whore of Babylon-Powell. Pa-lease!!
I picked up Cleaving with a smile on face and a song in my heart-well, I was looking forward to reading it anyway. But in the first few pages Julie is merrily plotting how she will be spending time with her lover D and how she lives for his text messages, even when she is sitting on the sofa at home with Eric.
D seems to have shown up again in Julie’s life once she has become rich and famous, a fact that Julie never mentions but seems pretty suspicious to me. D seems to have formed a good solid hatred of Eric and this entire affair seems to be a way to get at Eric. D intentionally leaves bruises and bite marks so that Eric will have constant reminders that his wife’s body now belongs to another man. But Eric just suffers silently and eventually gets a lover of his own. All the while Julie and Eric continue to remain married and mostly live together.
In this Tale of Two Cities, Adultery and Butchery, butchery is by far the more interesting place to visit and the book might have been good if the evil bitch Julie would have stayed out of the picture. As it is, the butchery is never fully about butchery, but always about Julie’s sexual cravings and her longing for right bastard D once he has had enough of her and dumps her. The separation of meat is never just separating meat, but always a clumsy metaphor for her love and how hard it is for her to stop, even more a moment, thinking about D.
The logical ending for Cleavings would have been Eric killing D in front of Julie, then Eric killing Julie, then Eric killing himself. But logic never, ever gets a shot in this story of a wanton Julie having sex with random strangers when she is not eating the most bizarre bits of butcher food she can find.
In the end, life-such as it is, goes on, with Julie thanking both D and Eric.
I nearly didn’t finish this book. The prose is simple and clear enough, but the ideas and people are revolting on so many levels and are then interspersed with dull and meaningless descriptions of dull and meaningless people, places, and things.
I don’t care that Julie Powell likes to be bound and beaten into stiff peaks and then covered with cream-why would anyone?
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