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notsamira's review against another edition
emotional
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
mishka_espey's review against another edition
1.0
First of all, thank God for Goodreads. This book came recommended to me by a creative person I thoroughly respect; thus, expectations were high. And I gave it my best effort, but I didn't even make it halfway through the book before I reached my limit with Ms. [a:Elizabeth Gilbert|11679|Elizabeth Gilbert|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1440718929p2/11679.jpg] and her self-absorbed, ultra-gooey, nonsensical gibberish. And I felt so so guilty, until I checked it out on Goodreads and realized that NO, thank goodness, it's not just me!! I couldn't agree more with the top reviews by Ariel and Darth, but what made me slam this book down and go walk/stomp it off was the chapter where Ms. Gilbert decides to rail into [a:Harper Lee|1825|Harper Lee|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1188820730p2/1825.jpg] for never publishing another novel after [b:To Kill a Mockingbird|6193719|To Kill a Mockingbird|Harper Lee|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1456325636s/6193719.jpg|3275794]. (** rant ahead**)
For Gilbert, the "creative life" is not an occupation; it's a religion. And anyone who doesn't take her religion as seriously as she does (i.e., make it the center of your entire world and screw all other priorities) is committing artistic blasphemy of the highest sort. And this is why she's so upset at Harper Lee. The chapter focuses on climbing out from beneath one's reputation and writing for yourself instead of worrying about the outcome of publishing. Here is just a snippet of the respectful homage (note the dripping sarcasm) she pays to one of the world's most beloved authors:
"I wish that Harper Lee had kept writing. I wish that, right after Mockingbird and her Pulitzer Prize, she had churned out five cheap and easy books in a row - a light romance, a police procedural, a children's story, anything... Imagine what she might have created, even accidentally, with such an approach. [...] It would have been a gift to her, as well - to have been able to remain a writer, and to have enjoyed the pleasures and satisfactions of that work for herself (because in the end, creativity is a gift to the creator, not just a gift to the audience.)"
I suppose passages like this are meant to sound wise and motivational, but this just made me boiling mad. Nelle Harper Lee is my hero in a dozen ways, and I've read everything I can get my hands on about her life and artistry. Ms. Gilbert takes one quote from a 50-year-old interview in which Nelle said, "When you're at the top, there's only one way to go," and from it dared presume to understand exactly why Nelle never published again -- because she could never top Mockingbird. Oh, and of course Ms. Gilbert knows exactly how it feels to be one of history's most beloved authors, because one of her books managed to crawl up the NY Times Best Seller list and sink its teeth there for three years! (an aside: I checked her biography here on Goodreads... pretty sure 57 weeks is not three years...)
There could be a hundred different reasons Nelle chose not to continue publishing. In another interview which Ms. Gilbert neglected to mention, when asked if she would be writing a sequel, Nelle simply stated, "I said everything I needed to say with Mockingbird." It is my humble theory that Nelle, who was never one for the spotlight but who had the roaring heart of an artist, chose to share Mockingbird with us because we need it. I, for one, still need it after a dozen reads. Surely others need it too, because her words have touched millions of lives around the globe. Perhaps she really did say to us all she felt led to say, and afterwards felt the peace and closure of a mission well accomplished. And maybe, just maybe, she moved on with her life and found fulfillment in it.
In a conversation with [a:Oprah Winfrey|3518|Oprah Winfrey|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1354837955p2/3518.jpg], Nelle was purported to confide: "You know the character Boo Radley? Well, if you know Boo, then you understand why I wouldn't be doing an interview -- because I am really Boo." Here's yet another possible explanation for why she chose not to continue publishing: the spotlight scared her. But of course Ms. Gilbert doesn't mention any of this, because she knows why Nelle didn't publish anymore, and she spends the entire chapter berating her for it.
To me, Nelle's comment to Oprah (if it's true) is terribly revealing. Nelle was a quirky, brilliant, strong-willed woman who refused to conform to social norms and role expectations, but she was also (like me) fragile, and shaken by things that conflicted with who she was as a person. And she was never a spotlight seeker. Like Boo, Nelle was a mockingbird; all she ever did for us was sing. And how she could sing! I have nothing but love and respect for her, and it broke my heart to read the condescending Ms. Gilbert so brazenly passing judgment on her. Who is she to dare strip Nelle of her title as writer? Nelle didn't stop writing after Mockingbird -- I don't think people like Nelle could stop writing if they tried -- she simply chose not to write for us anymore. And who are we to judge her for that? Does that make her any less of a writer? Of course it doesn't. May she rest in peace.
A note to Ms. Gilbert -- please, before you presume to know the minds of the world's greatest writers, at least get your facts straight. [b:Go Set a Watchman|24817626|Go Set a Watchman|Harper Lee|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1451442088s/24817626.jpg|44458285] is not some hidden gem of a lost novel Nelle wrote before she felt "the pressure of the world's gaze" on her. No, it's actually a baffling early draft of Mockingbird that surfaced from somewhere during the three years she spent transforming it from a short story into a novel, and in my opinion Watchman's 2015 publication shortly before Nelle's passing was the result of a greedy, opportunistic publishing company and nothing more. Furthermore, if you're going to drag [a:F. Scott Fitzgerald|3190|F. Scott Fitzgerald|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1427040571p2/3190.jpg] into this as another example of writers who "vanished beneath the shadow of their own real or imagined reputation," you may as well know that Fitzgerald was working on a novel up until the day he died, at only 44, of a sudden heart attack. Though he may only have published four novels, he also wrote dozens of short stories, hundreds of letters, articles, an autobiography, screenplays -- not to mention dabbling in this strange and wild thing called "life." I don't think he needed your advice to "write anything and put it out there with reckless abandon." He most certainly did -- and had his fair share of failures, too. But so it goes with writers; they move on.
If it weren't for Elizabeth Gilbert's complete lack of respect for the great writers that came before her (ugh, it makes me shudder to even put them in the same category with her), I could have perhaps managed to give this book two stars, because her spiritual beliefs about creativity, however bizarre, do prompt one to think about the creative process from a fresh angle, and that I did appreciate. The outlandishness of her beliefs forced me to re-examine and better understand my own. Until I got to this chapter filled with writer-bashing, it was *almost* possible push beyond her priggish tone and focus on the little glimmers of intriguing thought this book manages to stumble into every now and then. But this was just too much. God bless Nelle Harper Lee. God bless F. Scott Fitzgerald. And Ms. Gilbert? Please, for the love of Atticus and Gatsby and all the rest of us, please stop writing.
For Gilbert, the "creative life" is not an occupation; it's a religion. And anyone who doesn't take her religion as seriously as she does (i.e., make it the center of your entire world and screw all other priorities) is committing artistic blasphemy of the highest sort. And this is why she's so upset at Harper Lee. The chapter focuses on climbing out from beneath one's reputation and writing for yourself instead of worrying about the outcome of publishing. Here is just a snippet of the respectful homage (note the dripping sarcasm) she pays to one of the world's most beloved authors:
"I wish that Harper Lee had kept writing. I wish that, right after Mockingbird and her Pulitzer Prize, she had churned out five cheap and easy books in a row - a light romance, a police procedural, a children's story, anything... Imagine what she might have created, even accidentally, with such an approach. [...] It would have been a gift to her, as well - to have been able to remain a writer, and to have enjoyed the pleasures and satisfactions of that work for herself (because in the end, creativity is a gift to the creator, not just a gift to the audience.)"
I suppose passages like this are meant to sound wise and motivational, but this just made me boiling mad. Nelle Harper Lee is my hero in a dozen ways, and I've read everything I can get my hands on about her life and artistry. Ms. Gilbert takes one quote from a 50-year-old interview in which Nelle said, "When you're at the top, there's only one way to go," and from it dared presume to understand exactly why Nelle never published again -- because she could never top Mockingbird. Oh, and of course Ms. Gilbert knows exactly how it feels to be one of history's most beloved authors, because one of her books managed to crawl up the NY Times Best Seller list and sink its teeth there for three years! (an aside: I checked her biography here on Goodreads... pretty sure 57 weeks is not three years...)
There could be a hundred different reasons Nelle chose not to continue publishing. In another interview which Ms. Gilbert neglected to mention, when asked if she would be writing a sequel, Nelle simply stated, "I said everything I needed to say with Mockingbird." It is my humble theory that Nelle, who was never one for the spotlight but who had the roaring heart of an artist, chose to share Mockingbird with us because we need it. I, for one, still need it after a dozen reads. Surely others need it too, because her words have touched millions of lives around the globe. Perhaps she really did say to us all she felt led to say, and afterwards felt the peace and closure of a mission well accomplished. And maybe, just maybe, she moved on with her life and found fulfillment in it.
In a conversation with [a:Oprah Winfrey|3518|Oprah Winfrey|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1354837955p2/3518.jpg], Nelle was purported to confide: "You know the character Boo Radley? Well, if you know Boo, then you understand why I wouldn't be doing an interview -- because I am really Boo." Here's yet another possible explanation for why she chose not to continue publishing: the spotlight scared her. But of course Ms. Gilbert doesn't mention any of this, because she knows why Nelle didn't publish anymore, and she spends the entire chapter berating her for it.
To me, Nelle's comment to Oprah (if it's true) is terribly revealing. Nelle was a quirky, brilliant, strong-willed woman who refused to conform to social norms and role expectations, but she was also (like me) fragile, and shaken by things that conflicted with who she was as a person. And she was never a spotlight seeker. Like Boo, Nelle was a mockingbird; all she ever did for us was sing. And how she could sing! I have nothing but love and respect for her, and it broke my heart to read the condescending Ms. Gilbert so brazenly passing judgment on her. Who is she to dare strip Nelle of her title as writer? Nelle didn't stop writing after Mockingbird -- I don't think people like Nelle could stop writing if they tried -- she simply chose not to write for us anymore. And who are we to judge her for that? Does that make her any less of a writer? Of course it doesn't. May she rest in peace.
A note to Ms. Gilbert -- please, before you presume to know the minds of the world's greatest writers, at least get your facts straight. [b:Go Set a Watchman|24817626|Go Set a Watchman|Harper Lee|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1451442088s/24817626.jpg|44458285] is not some hidden gem of a lost novel Nelle wrote before she felt "the pressure of the world's gaze" on her. No, it's actually a baffling early draft of Mockingbird that surfaced from somewhere during the three years she spent transforming it from a short story into a novel, and in my opinion Watchman's 2015 publication shortly before Nelle's passing was the result of a greedy, opportunistic publishing company and nothing more. Furthermore, if you're going to drag [a:F. Scott Fitzgerald|3190|F. Scott Fitzgerald|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1427040571p2/3190.jpg] into this as another example of writers who "vanished beneath the shadow of their own real or imagined reputation," you may as well know that Fitzgerald was working on a novel up until the day he died, at only 44, of a sudden heart attack. Though he may only have published four novels, he also wrote dozens of short stories, hundreds of letters, articles, an autobiography, screenplays -- not to mention dabbling in this strange and wild thing called "life." I don't think he needed your advice to "write anything and put it out there with reckless abandon." He most certainly did -- and had his fair share of failures, too. But so it goes with writers; they move on.
If it weren't for Elizabeth Gilbert's complete lack of respect for the great writers that came before her (ugh, it makes me shudder to even put them in the same category with her), I could have perhaps managed to give this book two stars, because her spiritual beliefs about creativity, however bizarre, do prompt one to think about the creative process from a fresh angle, and that I did appreciate. The outlandishness of her beliefs forced me to re-examine and better understand my own. Until I got to this chapter filled with writer-bashing, it was *almost* possible push beyond her priggish tone and focus on the little glimmers of intriguing thought this book manages to stumble into every now and then. But this was just too much. God bless Nelle Harper Lee. God bless F. Scott Fitzgerald. And Ms. Gilbert? Please, for the love of Atticus and Gatsby and all the rest of us, please stop writing.
abbyprinceatwood's review against another edition
1.0
If you've ever been audience to someone who vomits "advice" ad nauseam; who mistakes your silence as a reason to keep talking; who continues to explain the same thing over and over; then you've wasted as much time as I have in reading this book.
a_schwa's review against another edition
5.0
Very important for me to have read at the beginning of my Creative Writing MFA. It may save both my mental health and my art.
ieland16's review against another edition
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
3.75
lizee59402's review against another edition
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
I feel such intense love for this work from Liz Gilbert. She never ceases to touch part of my soul.
shiorinebooks's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
5.0