When it's just not meant to be.
24 June 2008
I wanted to like Eric Weiner's The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World. A friend told me it was good. It's got a good cover. I waited for it on the library's hold list for a long time.
I wanted to like it. I tried to like it. But after reading about sixty pages I can only work up one reaction: BORED. God, I am so bored with this book. Self-professed grumpy NPR correspondent decides to travel to places which he considers contented: "India, where happiness and misery live side-by-side," and "Switzerland, where residents believe envy is the great enemy of happiness."
Bored, bored, bored. Bored by the first line of the first chapter: "It is a fact of human nature that we derive pleasure from watching others engage in pleasurable acts. This explains the popularity of two enterprises: pornography and cafes." (p. 5.) Bored by the author. Bored by his idea. So bored that I'm not only starting to hate the sight of the book, which has been getting such good reviews that I almost feel required to read it, but also toying with the idea of hating NPR just because this author works there.
Could anyone else make it through this one?