Let Them Eat Horse

American classists imagine Western Europe as an idyllic land where desirable lifestyles, unadulterated foods, and physically attractive, "sophisticated" people live in harmony with the environment and (typically) liberal political values. One expression of this conveniently naive, tastelessly self-centered notion was the Italian portion of Elizabeth Gilbert's wildly popular memoir Eat Pray Love.

Graphic (and associated, interesting post): zerohedge.com

Reality that's "darker than night," as Raymond Chandler once observed, has a way of interceding such daydreams. Recently, Western Europe has learned to its shock that a number of meat-based products did not exactly follow truth-in-labeling laws. Horse meat was surreptitiously included in items such as goulash and pasta with bolognese sauce. There has been something of a freakout on the Continent and in the United Kingdom over this quickly expanding horse play. Massive product recalls have been issued by industrial giants, including Findus and Nestle. One concern is the identification of funky drugs in the horse meat. With litigation just an ambitious attorney away, Euroland's food kingpins want the evidence out of the marketplace toute de suite, as the details of a willfully ignorant food production chain grows ominously. (The zerohedge.com link in the above illustration includes a well-written piece about the corruption and its grim echoes of the attitudes that shaped the subprime mortgage crisis.)

Meanwhile, some Europeans have suggested equine cuisine could remain a viable option for its neediest citizens. A BBC report notes that German development minister Dirk Niebel advocated that the illegal food be distributed to Europe's poor. Hey, what's wrong with a little horse when you don't have anything else to eat? "We just can't throw away good food," Herr Niebel stated.

Mr. Ed (left)
(photo: vanityfair.com)

He has a point. However, the minister did not go so far as to push for the provision of genuinely healthy items for those who can't even afford dog food, never mind ground Trigger. Let them eat horse? There seem to be some historical echoes in that line of reasoning, don't you think?

If a horse could talk, as Mr. Ed did on American TV for years, what do you think it would say about this issue?

Eat Pray Love alla napoletana

Today's Financial Times included an article discussing how ordinary Neapolitans are attempting to reclaim their city and region from the grip of criminal gangs. (The article also offers links to stories about Chinese gangs taking root in Italy.) The FT story describes hard-won gains by everyday people fed up with organized crime. These actions take great courage, as the Italian version of Naples' underworld, known as the Camorra, is a formidable, lethal adversary. It has iron control of various communities, provides "liquidity" for many impoverished families, has politicians and police in its collective pocket. No one with any sense tangles with the Camorra lightly.

Roberto Saviano's book Gomorrah splendidly and chillingly portrayed the Camorra's fierce grip on Neapolitan social, political, and business life. I read the book some months ago, and his work, even in translation, scared the shit out of me. The nihilistic atmosphere Saviano described seemed like a return to a hopeless Dark Ages, a mix of contemporary gangster ethics and a particularly corrupt style of Fascism. The book, which is far more frightening than its filmed version, presented facts, eyewitness recollection, and local knowledge to depict the Camorra's odious world.

This environment is far removed in sentiment and sense from Elizabeth Gilbert's frivolous memoir Eat Pray Love. Gilbert, who claimed a deep desire to "experience" Italy, visited Naples principally to eat pizza at a well-known restaurant. She never bothered to talk to Neapolitans, grasp their desperate struggle for survival, or comprehend Naples beyond the cliches of shameless Anglo-Saxon food journalism. However, one should not be surprised by Gilbert's breezy lack of perspective or intoxicating hubris. After all, the word "think" is not included among the three verbs in her memoir's title.

The painting, Titian's Danae and the Shower of Gold, is among the works in Naples' Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte.

The Merchandising of Eat Pray Love

I was looking up Eat Pray Love's domestic box office gross this evening, and I saw a Home Shopping Network banner ad above the information. I just had to look. In the interest of sharing a view into the merchandising of the film and the bestselling book, here's the HSN link. It is very instructive.

Ah, for the B.O. gross: $62 million in 19 days, as of August 31st. Boxofficemojo.com provides detailed information on the top line financials.

The Thieves of Manhattan

The Washington Post published a review of Adam Langer's The Thieves of Manhattan, a badly needed spoof on the memoir writing industry. I have not read Langer's book, his fourth, so I cannot comment on it from personal experience. However, his target is a juicy one, especially now, as the public relations apparatus promoting Eat Pray Love has initiated a full-court press for the memoir's film and print versions.

Alas, the WaPo review was released in the literary world's Siberia, also known as a Saturday in August.

If you're curious about Langer's work, visit the author's website. One surprising page on his site includes his musical playlists that one could listen to while reading his books and his other works.

Eat Pray Love

Here's a thought just in time for the weekend premiere of the movie Eat Pray Love. The movie's title seems like a modern day version of Julius Caesar's famous message to the Roman Senate: veni, vidi, vici.

To translate Caesar and place it next to Ms. Gilbert's title:

I came/Eat

I saw/Pray

I conquered/Love

Of course, Caesar only came once.