Cleaving by Julie Powell

I just finished this book, and despite it being late, I thought I should write about it. It took me several months to read this book. Initially, it was not interesting. I did not like reading about the butchery that Powell was learning about and finding out about the cuts of meat, particularly when she went into some vary gross details about butchering a pig, the only type of meat mentioned in the book that I actually do eat. I trudged through because I knew that I love Julie and Julia and I had to believe that something redeeming could come out of this novel as well. From the butchery, there came something else: details about a long-term affair Powell was having with a man she knew from college and the revelation that her husband was also dating someone else. As Powell attempts to work through her marriage, she has sex with various men and leaves her husband to travel the world and learn about meat.

I caught myself at one point wanting Powell to sleep with her guide in Africa, forgetting for a moment that she is married. When I remembered, I felt bad for even thinking such a thing. Powell stated that she felt she deserved the attempted rape just after a session making out with the guide. I don't agree with that at all, but I feel like something isn't right. This book just made me sad. I don't understand the ending either. As she and her husband cry with one another, they talk about how her meeting with her lover can be okay and, finally, that he is seeing his girlfriend again. I immediately personalized this and thought about how horrible it must be to have a relationship like that. I know that it can sometimes seem like the only way to end a relationship is to cheat, but with the relationship that Powell portrayed, how can her relationship be on that kind of ground. Perhaps I am not a good one to judge, as my heart still hurts when I think about reading that horrible book, something by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, I think, about a man with many wives, and I still can't wrap my head around the thought of being able to love two people at one time. My heart doesn't work just that way. All of this aside, I want to know what is next for Powell and her husband. I want it to be happier because I can't accept things the way this book left it. She may say she is okay now, but I am not.