“Never apologize”

STRONG WOMEN

I'm reading a biography of Julia Child*, which reminds me of Katherine Graham's well-written autobiography that I read some years ago. Julia and Katherine were well-connected, spirited, super-social, with lots of friends and lots of cocktail parties. They had a lot of backbone, and belief in the good done by government – a lack of cynicism perhaps usual for their generation and socio-economic class. They were powerful, though born at a time when women didn't generally go into business, or have influence in the public arena. They were upper middle-class, and secure in their status.

I like reading about Julia as a rambunctious teenager, and it's reassuring that she didn't shoot like an arrow into fame and accomplishment, but spent some years kicking around Pasadena, after graduation from college, uncertain what to do next.

Julia McWilliams Child is quite a draw on the page; it's rare to meet someone so universally liked. She seems to have had a different chemistry from the average human being. I want her life – living in Paris at 310 francs to the dollar, and meeting all these interesting people. How did they make so many friends? Julia's openness and curiousity and warmth and humor. I'd like to channel that, and her ever-optimistic nature. She was utterly comfortable with herself. How did she manage that, when she was freakishly tall ever since she was a girl? There must have been some strength of mind behind the effusiveness and ebullience. (Schooling at an all-girl's prep (KBS in Ross, CA), and a women's college (Smith) undoubtedly helped.)

It seems the author's keen interest in Julia's life leads to some obsessive detail -- along the lines of what everyone in Julia's 3rd grade class grew up to become, and so on. I don't think examining so many tangential details of Julia's life is necessary to feel her larger-than-life character.

Always forward. Andiamo! Forza! Attenti al cane!

*Noel Riley Fitch, Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child