Holy Cow

This book lost steam halfway through. Macdonald gets bogged down in exploring the intricacies of all the different religions in India and lost my attention. I thought she adopted a rather superior tone towards Americans, which was annoying, though possibly understandable given the 9/11 time frame of this book. Overall, there were lots of funny and moving bits, and Macdonald presented an engaging side of India that almost made me want to visit - and that's saying a lot, considering how misanthropic I can be :)

The author, a native Australian, spends some time in India exploring all the country has to offer in terms of culture and religion. She's a self-proclaimed atheist, but gives the “good college try” to Hinduism, Buddhism, some downright strange-isms, and even Christianity. Even though her explorations into faith are serious, she manages to tell the story with a light hand that make the book simultaneously informative and entertaining. Most importantly, it made me laugh. :)

Perhaps this is silly, but because someone who I really love and admire lent me her copy, I wanted to really love this book. And then...didn't. It was good, at times very good, but also at times not very interesting, or even all that insightful. The problem was this: while the author obviously gained a tremendous amount from her year+ in India, she was not always as compelling a communicator of her experience as, say, the author of “[b:Eat Pray Love 19501 Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1269870432s/19501.jpg 3352398].” Chalk it up to writing skills? I dunno. At any rate, this would be a good vacation read, and only furthered my feeling that I need to get my ass to the Indian subcontinent in my lifetime.

What is it about India? Sensually beautiful, yet also filthy and vile. Brilliant and lost. Deeply serious and ridiculously silly. I'm fascinated by it.

I liked Holy Cow a lot. Macdonald is smart and clever and the stories she tells almost read like fiction. Recommended.