Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Ahem...Mary Pipher

It is with some reluctance that I admit that I have (briefly) put down my Russian detective novel to pick up, ahem, Mary Pipher's new memoir on being the "worst Buddhist in the world." This is the kind of thing that my dad can get away with listening to on his daily commute, but which comes perilously close to "self-help" when read by me (and not in enough of an irreverent, hysterical, former cocaine addict--read: Anne Lamott--kind of way). But so be it.

It is, I admit, somewhat quaint and therapisty, but I was swayed by the worst Buddhist in the world line, which is a frighteningly good description of me at the moment (I understand the whole "life is suffering" part...I just don't quite get how one is supposed to detach oneself from that fact). But, as those who know me outside the blog know all too well, I'm having one of those dark night of the soul moments, struggling to establish some kind of identity outside the academy, and battling a lot of my own inner demons. Sometimes this comes out in my need to read masses of Scandinavian crime fiction and plot the perfect murder; sometimes I just want to read about someone who's been there. Besides which, I'm grateful to Pipher for delivering Reviving Ophelia into my hands just in time for me to become a troubled adolescent back in 1994. My only wish is that her sense of humor were a little more self-deprecating and biting--I'm not kidding when I say she should have taken some writing lessons from Anne Lamott. However, on my Anne Lamott, Barbara Kingsolver, Haven Kimmel nonfiction scale of the day she's getting about a B- at the moment. She'd hate that, surely, but hey, I haven't read that much of the book yet. Maybe she'll make it up to me.

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