This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali. By turns rapturous and rueful, this wise and funny author (whom Booklist calls "Anne Lamott's hip, yoga- practicing, footloose younger sister") is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.
It is a light read, so take it as such. I found it quite superficial and not particularly entertaining either, but I did read it all - and I didn't have higher expectations so I was fine with it. The part about Italy especially (note: I'm Italian) is full of stereotypes and crass generalisations that the author would be forgiven to apply if she wasn't a regular traveller and writer by profession, so on that I'd expected a bit more.
Okay so. I came at this from a weird direction. I never read it when it first came out, partially because it was over-hyped, and partially because I have only recently acquired the taste for memoirs (let alone a tolerance for spiritual memoirs, which required some distance from my own history with organized religion).
Anyway, fast-forward to 15 years later, and I'm talking about creativity with a personal development coach and she recommends Gilbert's book Big Magic to me, and when my response is like "The Eat, Pray, Love lady??" she proceeds to fill me in on how Gilbert, since this book happened, wound up ending the marriage that was begun in Eat, Pray, Love and committing to a relationship with a woman after her best friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
(As a side note, this dovetails in some kind of way with my love for Glennon Doyle, another …
Okay so. I came at this from a weird direction. I never read it when it first came out, partially because it was over-hyped, and partially because I have only recently acquired the taste for memoirs (let alone a tolerance for spiritual memoirs, which required some distance from my own history with organized religion).
Anyway, fast-forward to 15 years later, and I'm talking about creativity with a personal development coach and she recommends Gilbert's book Big Magic to me, and when my response is like "The Eat, Pray, Love lady??" she proceeds to fill me in on how Gilbert, since this book happened, wound up ending the marriage that was begun in Eat, Pray, Love and committing to a relationship with a woman after her best friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
(As a side note, this dovetails in some kind of way with my love for Glennon Doyle, another memoirist who went through a very similar transformation, in fact falling in love with her now-wife when actually on the book tour for the book about saving her former marriage. I'm interested to hear about any other authors in the very specific genre of "women who wrote best-selling books about their heterosexual love stories and later ended those relationships and are partnered with women".)
So I listened to Gilbert's Big Magic podcast, a series of interviews with creators of various sorts, and liked it. I bought Big Magic on Kindle, but somehow I've resisted reading it, and I finally realized it's because I wanted to read Eat, Pray, Love first -- just to have that context.
All of that being said: I was prepared to read this ironically, to roll my eyes at the middle-aged-white-woman privilege on display, to breeze through some kind of nonsense fluff or perhaps sigh through some tedious declamations about God.
So I was pleasantly surprised to find a well-written, vulnerable memoir. I probably would not have enjoyed it in my 20s, and to be fair, I am equally a privileged asshole with First World Problems (I spent six weeks in Japan to study the language; she spent a month in Italy; I have been on a meditation retreat, though not in India; etc.). But I found it to be an interesting read, evocative of travel to exotic places in a year when I have been unable to travel, and surprisingly self-aware.
Elizabeth Gilbert is an intelligent, compassionate, gifted writer. Her dedication to growth and inner strength are admirable. If you are going through a tough time this book is a must read.
That said, I thank everything that is holy that I don't know Liz personally. She would drive me insane. Is she an inspirational quote machine? Absolutely. Would my brain shutdown after five minutes of listening to her talk about herself? Absolutely.
I loved it! From beginning to end! Of course I know not everyone has the chance to live life like that but it's a book that gets you thinking...read more
