A Journey With Elsa Cloud

Rating:
Summary: Amazing detail - really made me experience India
Review: The attention to detail and description in this more-than-a-travel-journal was terrific. I usually don't enjoy long descriptions of places and things, but Hadley has a way of keeping it always interesting. The book easily shifts in time from the (then) present day travels to when her daughter, her traveling companion, was growing up. It's a fresh, honest look at the mother-daughter relationship as well. I recommend it highly, particularly if you are planning a trip to India.

Rating:
Summary: a good idead with disappointing result
Review: THe dust jacket of this book promises more that the book gives - I fault the editor more that the writer - This book has wonderful potential - Travel and mother /daugher relationship struggles - but there is not enought meat to sustain the length of the book.. The travel is wonderful and the mother and daughter both grow - but it dragged and got boring -Needs a nip and tuck- I broght it to India to read - and felt it captured some of the magic - but needed more.

Rating:
Summary: a good idead with disappointing result
Review: THe dust jacket of this book promises more that the book gives - I fault the editor more that the writer - This book has wonderful potential - Travel and mother /daugher relationship struggles - but there is not enought meat to sustain the length of the book.. The travel is wonderful and the mother and daughter both grow - but it dragged and got boring -Needs a nip and tuck- I broght it to India to read - and felt it captured some of the magic - but needed more.

Rating:
Summary: An intricate jewel with great heart
Review: This book engrossed me for a variety of reasons. The language is splendid, exhuberant with a sensuous and nearly spiritual ability to evoke the look of things. The writing reminded me of "Beloved" because of its richness and the way memory permeates the present. The story is often painfully honest and will touch anyone who ever had a hard time dealing with a parent. One really feels that this is a human condition, LIFE, presented in such a rich way that our own lives are enriched by the book. This book can be savoured slowly like some of the delicious foods that it describes. A mother's anguish at her sometimes difficult relationship with her daughter leads Ms. Hadley to take stock of her life, and its meaning, of her character, its flaws and its triumphs. I consider this a masterpiece - a touch of Rabelais, a touch of Proust and Toni Morrison and Jung. And yet it is entirely original. Thank you and Brava.

Rating:
Summary: LOOK AT MEEEE - I'M LILA HAD-LEEE!
Review: This book had nothing whatsoever to do with a journey with "Elsa Cloud". It was 600 pages worth of a spoiled, rich bi**h, whining about her pampered self existence. She refers to entries in her journal as scribbles - that was the only thing in this book I agreed with. It's no wonder that her daughter took off for India. The only mistake she made was giving "Mummy" her address. I really didn't need to know about her elitist background or that she traveled with LV luggage. She described the Indians she came into contact with as caricatures instead of a people with a far richer cultural background than her visits to the Victoria & Albert could ever give her. I would like to meet the person who wrote the "editorial", what a sales pitch for an absolutely worthless piece of self promotion.

Rating:
Summary: Hell than no fury like a mother scorned!
Review: This book is an affront to the sacred trust between a mother and daughter. Ms.Hadley has no idea of how monstrous her betrayal of her daughter is in the self-serving, whining journey. I am skeptical as to the facts of this book and feel that it should be classified as fantasy/fiction.
I can't imagine what would motivate a person to write such a book about one's child. I have a daughter and I would never in a million years write such an obscene and innapropriate book.
I think Ms.Hadley should take the proceeds from this book and get a better therapist or psychiatrist. Obviously, for all the therapy she supposedly has had and which she brags about in the book, it doesn't seem to have done her a bit of good.
Shame shame shame.

Rating:
Summary: Hell than no fury like a mother scorned!
Review: This book is an affront to the sacred trust between a mother and daughter. Ms.Hadley has no idea of how monstrous her betrayal of her daughter is in the self-serving, whining journey. I am skeptical as to the facts of this book and feel that it should be classified as fantasy/fiction.
I can't imagine what would motivate a person to write such a book about one's child. I have a daughter and I would never in a million years write such an obscene and innapropriate book.
I think Ms.Hadley should take the proceeds from this book and get a better therapist or psychiatrist. Obviously, for all the therapy she supposedly has had and which she brags about in the book, it doesn't seem to have done her a bit of good.
Shame shame shame.

Rating:
Summary: The book is a chore
Review: This is the only book, in my entire life, that I have not been able to finish. It's a chore to read. I've really tried too. I've tried reading it on the flight to India, reading it on the beach, even soaking in the tub. It's pretencious and, in my opinion, without merit. It's unfortunate too because there are always glimmers of promise in the pages.

Rating:
Summary: Only the truth
Review: Though I can be called biased, I believe that what I say about this book is true. Leila Hadley is, I believe, one of the greatest descriptive writers of our time. I know her personally, and despite what some may call a "haughty" writing style, I can confidently say that this book is a gem and true to her experiences. Every sentence leaps off the page with an explosive vitality and zest that shocks, delights and inspires. This is truly an exciting and delicious read.

Rating:
Summary: A study in self-absorption
Review: While Hadley's writing is beautiful, evoking the sights, smells, and sounds of India (and her own life) with intense sensual detail, I found the book quite off-putting. Both Leila and her daughter came across as spoiled and self-absorbed, especially Leila. The story is only about India, travel, and the mother-daughter relationship insofar as those topics relate directly to Leila Hadley's ego--and while you could argue that that's true of any first-person narrative, surely a good writer (one not blinded by her fascination with herself) can hide that tendency somewhat. Hadley's constant harping on her Vuitton bags and other status symbols is so blatant as to be ingeneous and childlike, but also childlike--or childISH--is her complete inability to stop relating everything around her to self, self, self. No wonder others have commented that the inhabitants of India are depicted here in a condescending manner; Hadley seems to have no insight into anyone other than herself. It's a shame to see talent for writing such delicious descriptions all bent on writing about "me". And it's hard to take the spirituality of either daughter or mother seriously when they seem to spend most of their time in India shopping, partying, and sightseeing.
The blurb on the book states that the title comes from the daughter's statement "as a young girl" that she wanted to be "the sea, the jungle, or else a cloud" (and Elsa Cloud thus became a pet name for Veronica). This is fine; kids say all kinds of things like that, and parents often keep trotting out these cute statements. But it turns out that Veronica was SIXTEEN when she said this. That's not cute, whimisical, and childlike, to my mind; it's unbearably affected and pretentious. But that's really my personal taste. I wish Hadley had refrained from publishing this book and just told it all to her therapist instead--but it does have some wonderfully detailed descriptions of Indian festivals and crafts.