Thursday, February 26, 2009

Resonant Words...NAME your city, town or suburb


This is not a book to take too seriously! For those of you who havent read it, its about a woman who searches for happiness in her life after a messy divorce, and her journey takes her to Italy, India and Bali. Its written in bite-sized packets of ideas (108 in all) and I find this structure appealing, it suits the way I read now: a little at night before falling asleep. Its a good book, well written, and certainly a great holiday read. I think I am perhaps the last woman on earth to read it, as its sold over 5 million copies, and there are probably lots of blog posts about this novel about it already, so wont go on about the spiritual messages,etc contained therein. It touched me at a simple level, as the book invites you to ponder a basic question: are you living the life you wish to live? A big question. And then there is the issue of choices, as the author's choices unfold through the novel, I found myself asking, have I made choices that are good for my life?
And Im still thinking about that :)

One idea i did find kinda nice in the book was that all cities/places (and perhaps even people themselves) have a word that sums them up, that resonates volumes about the spirit of the place. The author suggest that NYC's word might be ACHIEVE, and LA's might be SUCCEED, and also rather predicatably, Rome's would be SEX.
I was wondering about my own home town of Launceston: what would Launnie's resonant word be? Probably PLOD, i think. An agrarian verb, that would describe the sense that most people here just continue on the path they have always been on, unquestioningly. Maybe also SHY: its a shy town, certainly. It reveals its beauty slowly; behind the folds of its valleys lie surprises!

I'd love to hear the resonant word for your home town, be that a state, city or suburb! (Please dont feel that you need to locate yourself too precisely if you are at all worried about doing that in blogland)

5 comments:

  1. I love that book myself. I read it a few months ago and of course, that was just when I needed to.

    My hometown is Sydney ...the word that came straight to my mind then was VIBRANT.

    I live now in Armidale ... a country town in northern nsw ...CONTENT. It sits utop a hill and looks over the gorge country.

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  2. i totally adored this book. it was just so funny and so incredibly astute, switched on, all hidden behind the facade of humor. clever woman. umm adelaide..first thought was EASY then i came up with ADOLESCENT!

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  3. I also really liked it, and it was funny BUT I think Kelly found it more funny than me! Very clever for sure! I think EASY is good for Adelaide and for a big-city european it also means DIVERSITY in the sense of the range of natural and built environments it has within a 30 minute radius...especially natural ones!

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  4. You're the second to last person not to have
    read it - I'M the last!

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  5. Sorry for the delay in reply everyone, Ive been walking i the mountains so far away from Interent connection...it was great!

    Sarah Lulu: yep, I agree with you on Sydney's word. I lived there once upon a time....about 10 years ago I suppose. Vibrant is spot on! I havent been to Armidale, but CONTENT sounds just perfect. I think the word also carries abit of a personal feeling for the place, yes?

    Kel: Adelaie, EASY, yes, and Ana's DIVERSITY works too.

    Hi Barbara: Its worth the read. Having read my post again, I think perhaps I was a bit embarassed to say how much I enjoyed the book!

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