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Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
12Feb2008 Filed under: girl scout cookies Author: ray
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Gilbert (The Last American Man) grafts the structure of romantic fiction upon the inquiries of reporting in this sprawling yet methodical travelogue of soul-searching and self-discovery. Plagued with despair after a nasty divorce, the author, in her early 30s, divides a year equally among three dissimilar countries, exploring her competing urges for earthly delights and divine transcendence. First, pleasure: savoring Italy’s buffet of delights–the world’s best pizza, free-flowing wine and dashing conversation partners–Gilbert consumes la dolce vita as spiritual succor. “I came to Italy pinched and thin,” she writes, but soon fills out in waist and soul. Then, prayer and ascetic rigor: seeking communion with the divine at a sacred ashram in India, Gilbert emulates the ways of yogis in grueling hours of meditation, struggling to still her churning mind. Finally, a balancing act in Bali, where Gilbert tries for equipoise “betwixt and between” realms, studies with a merry medicine man and plunges into a charged love affair. Sustaining a chatty, conspiratorial tone, Gilbert fully engages readers in the year’s cultural and emotional tapestry–conveying rapture with infectious brio, recalling anguish with touching candor–as she details her exotic tableau with history, anecdote and impression.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
At the age of thirty-one, Gilbert moved with her husband to the suburbs of New York and began trying to get pregnant, only to realize that she wanted neither a child nor a husband. Three years later, after a protracted divorce, she embarked on a yearlong trip of recovery, with three main stops: Rome, for pleasure (mostly gustatory, with a special emphasis on gelato); an ashram outside of Mumbai, for spiritual searching; and Bali, for “balancing.” These destinations are all on the beaten track, but Gilbert’s exuberance and her self-deprecating humor enliven the proceedings: recalling the first time she attempted to speak directly to God, she says, “It was all I could do to stop myself from saying, ‘I’ve always been a big fan of your work.’”
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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3 Responses to “Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia”
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ray
02月 12th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
By C. Quinn (Washington, DC)
Despite a great title and a decent premise, this book is both disappointing and aggravating from beginning to end. The author is self-absorbed and irritating, and her ‘insights’ into the people she meets and the places she goes are shallow and annoying. The endless reflection on the horror of a marriage that didn’t seem that horrible to me, and the quest for spirituality that has Gilbert chatting with God in India made finishing this book a torment. Finding out that she got the book advance before heading out on her journey made total sense; the trip fit into the book proposal rather than the other way around. The fact that her giant spiritual journey to learn how to be alone ends with her pairing up with a Brazilian expat was the final straw; I certainly don’t believe she grew or learned anything at all about herself on this quest. Get this book from the library if you have to read it; I’m seriously annoyed that I helped fund this venture by spending money on this drivel!
ray
02月 12th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
By R. Ernst “book addict” (San Diego, CA United States)
I had seen all the good reviews on this book and since I am an avid traveler and reader, I was excited to read a memoir from an excellent writer. I was sorely disappointed.
Foremost, I did not even finish the book which is rare for me. I made it halfway through India before I was so disheartened by Ms. Gilbert’s narrative voice. There is a difference between sounding funny, candid and likable and sounding petty, conceited and fickle.
While I was reading this book I was genuinely surprised by the lack of empathy Ms. Gilbert had for anyone. Every situation, every comment, every sidestory pointed squarely to herself and her personal problems. I was shocked that she had lived in Rome and India for months and had not been affected by the poverty and corruption. I suppose if you are so caught up in your own problems and all your own shopping and eating that it’s difficult to understand that other people around you have far worse problems. Maybe, just maybe looking outside of yourself and giving of yourself you will find self-worth and purpose, self-worth that goes beyond buying new underwear or eating a gorgeous meal or bragging about having a meditation high.
If you want to read a real journey of discovery, love, Italy and food, I would highly recommend Marlena De Blasi’s A Thousand Days in Venice. Her narrative voice is far superior and she reveals larger truths from her personal experiences while getting to really know the local people and appreciating their culture.
ray
02月 12th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
By Gail Cooke (TX, USA)
Reading the subtitle of Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest book, “One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia,” one can only think well, she certainly knows where to look! Also, upon learning that this is her chosen way of recovering from a particularly acrimonious divorce and a trying-to-make-up-for-that-loss romance that didn’t work, we might think how fortunate she is to able to seek solace in such intriguing places.
Whatever our opinion of her reasons for this journey it has been established that she’s a super writer (The Last American Man), and she brings all of her wit, intellect and stylish pen to Eat Pray Love. More than that, she brought a great deal of courage to her chosen task of traveling the world alone at the age of 34. She felt she needed a dramatic change, and it may be that she has found it.
It’s a pleasure to listen to this memoir/travelogue in her voice. Many will associate with her initial confession that she’s not a very good traveler in that she suffers from various digestive interruptions. However, on the plus side she easily makes friends with anyone. As she puts it, “I can make friends with the dead.” Or, if there isn’t anyone around she claims that she could chat with a pile of Sheetrock. Whatever the case, she is a very lucky lady as her travel experiences prove.
No Viva Italia for Italy because of Messina, a port town in Sicily that she describes as “scary and suspicious.” Perhaps that’s one reason why she’s lonely and depressed there. But things definitely take a turn for the better in India and Indonesia, although her meditation needs a little more work.
Did Gilbert find what she was searching for? Listeners may not be too sure but they’ll certainly enjoy the trip!
- Gail Cooke