30. Julie and Julia

30. Julie and Julia by Julie Powell  (8/29/2011 - 9/2/2011)

I cannot quite decide how I feel about this book.  I did not like the main character, but the quest she has embarked on (the plot!) is interesting and engaging; I did find myself asking if I could cook all of Julia Child's 524 Mastering the Art of French Cooking recipes in a year (answer: probably not, and I probably wouldn't want to. More later).   Since the story is a non-fiction memoir, the author obviously cannot help being unlikable, and I do have to give her some props for being willing to bare her most awful moments as a human being to her audience.  But like I said, I didn't like her.  She pitched hissy fits constantly, probably once every three or four chapters, so to me she came off as very childish.  In addition, I just found her to be generally unlikable -- there are instances wherein she seems to be cruel to her husband for no other reason than spite, where she takes her friends for granted in their support, and I just could not relate to her despair over her lack of success as an actress (she lives in New York, where she works as a secretary while waiting for her 'big break' - really?).  I have to say that I suspect part of this is my annoyance over her lack of motivation: while she undertakes this huge cooking thing, she never once auditions for a part or seems to try to find another job -- so why should I care that she's miserable? She's not trying!

Anyway.  The story itself is fascinating -- the things that the French would apparently eat are disgusting, which makes their placement in a modern NYC kitchen almost hilarious.  For example, Julie cooks calves' brains a number of times, makes aspice (which I'm still not 100% what it is) out of hooves, creates sauces out of bone marrow, and NOT ONCE do she or her husband hesitate to eat these things.  I personally would never undertake any sort of pledge that would require me to eat brains or bone marrow, but they don't seem to be bothered! That's not true -- they are bothered by the bone marrow the first time (but not the second!).  They never seem bothered by the brains. 

There are some instances when the author imagines what Julia Child's life was really like; these scenes are based off letters and journals obtained from Julia and her husband, and they are generally very good. Unfortunately, they are very short, and I would definitely have enjoyed more of them. Someone told me that the movie version of this book is really good, especially the scenes with Meryl Streep (who plays Julia), so perhaps there are more scenes with Child imagined in the movie. 

Overall... I'm not sure I'd recommend it.  The cooking misadventures are often funny, and a few are outright hilarious, so I did enjoy the reading experience.  But the main character is so unlikeable that that may cancel out the funny moments.  I'm not sure -- like I said when I started, I'm still not sure if I liked this book or not.