Eat Pray Love {Book Review}

After what seems like ages, I finally decided to start reading again. I picked up this book off the bookstore shelf, knowing that it was slated for release as a movie soon, under the mistaken notion that it was a fiction novel. Even when I started reading it, I still thought it was a novel – it was written like one, which is to say, that it was written in the exciting “fiction” way. Only when I got to the part where she mentioned her last name in the story did I realize – hey, wait a minute, isn’t Gilbert the author’s name? And that’s when I paused to read the description of the book and found out that it was a memoir, meaning, that it was based on factual events. Oh. And that’s what made the book all the more interesting.

Here is the description of the book from its back cover:

In her early thirties, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern American woman was supposed to want — husband, country home, succesful career — but instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she felt consumed by panic and confusion. This wise and rapturous book is the story of how she left behind all these outward marks of success, and of what she found in their place. Following a divorce and crushing depression, Gilbert set out to examine three different aspects of her nature, set against the backdrop of three different cultures: pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and on the Indonesian island of Bali, a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence.

So it starts off really interesting, in a scene in Italy, before Liz jumps back in time to three years ago to explain how exactly she got to be in Italy. I like the way she writes – she weaves words and analogies together so masterfully yet does it in a humorous way. This one had me hooked:

What I said to God through my gasping sobs was something like this: ‘Hello God. How are you? I’m Liz. It’s nice to meet you.’
That’s right – I was speaking to the creator of the universe as though we’d just been introduced at a cocktail party. But we work with what we know in this life, and these are the words I always use at the beginning of a relationship. In fact, it was all I could do to stop myself from saying, ‘I’ve always been a big fan of your work.’

Oh, and this petition of hers is really nicely written too:

Dear God,
Please intervene and help end this divorce. My husband and I have failed at this marriage and now we are failing at our divorce. This poisonous process is bringing suffering to us and to everyone who cares about us.
I recognize that you are busy with wars and tragedies and much larger conflicts than the ongoing dispute of one dysfunctional couple. But it is my understanding that the health of the planet is affected by the health of every individual on it. As long as even two souls are locked in conflict, the whole of the world is contaminated by it. Similarly, if even one or two souls can be free from discord, this will increase the general health of the whole world, the way a few healthy cells in a body can increase the general health of that body.
It is my most humble request, then, that you help us end this conflict, so that two more people can have the chance to become free and healthy, and so there will be just a little bit less animosity and bitterness in a world that is already far too troubled by suffering.
I thank you for your kind attention.
Respectfully,
Elizabeth M. Gilbert

So yes, she goes through a painful divorce and a possibly more painful breakup when she jumps out of her husband’s home into a younger guy’s arms. She describes her romance with David as thus:

“In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding that they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place.”

She goes through depression, and that’s when she realizes that she needs to find herself in the big I’s – Italy, India and Indonesia. The Italy part was very engaging. She learns what could well be the world’s most beautiful language and eats and eats and eats some more. Made me want to pack and get myself to Italy too. The second part, India, was, sorry to say, boring. It was all about meditation and prayer in an ashram, something I could not relate to. I nearly didn’t finish the book just because I could not bear to go through this part. But then I did, and I’m glad I did, because it was quite healing. Then finally she goes to Bali, Indonesia and it becomes interesting again when she talks about the local culture and eventually finds the right balance between pleasure and prayer, and where she also finds love (and a lot of sex – be forewarned).

So all in all, I’d say it was quite a good read, though it’s not for everyone. It’s more for women who have been through depression or loss, I suppose, because it is the healing journey of one who went through one and emerged triumphant in the end.

Here are a few more snippets that I liked:

“He was still my lighthouse and my albatross in equal measure. The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving.”

“I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless newborn baby – I just don’t care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it’s mine.”

“Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.”

“Every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people’s thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you could discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be – that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don’t really belong there.”

And my favorite part is the entire chapter 16, so long that I’ll have to put it after the jump. I love the way she used personification to describe depression and loneliness, and how correctly she described them.

Depression and Loneliness track me down after about ten days in Italy. I am walking through the Villa Borghese one evening after a happy day spent in school, and the sun is setting gold over St. Peter’s Basilica. I am feeling contented in this romantic scene, even if I am all by myself, while everyone else in the park is either fondling a lover or playing with a laughing child. But I stop to lean against a balustrade and watch the sunset, and I get to thinking a little too much, and then my thinking turns to brooding, and that’s when they catch up with me.

They come upon me all silent and menacing like Pinkerton Detectives, and they flank me —- Depression on my left, Loneliness on my right. They don’t need to show me their badges. I know these guys very well. We’ve been playing a cat-and-mouse game for years now. Though I admit that I am surprised to meet them in this elegant Italian garden at dusk. This is no place they belong.

I say to them, “how did you find me there? Who told you I had come to Rome?”

Depression, always the wise guy, says “What—you’re not happy to see us?”

“Go away,” I tell him.

Loneliness, the more sensitive copy, says, “I’m sorry ma’am, But I might have to tail you the whole time you’re traveling. It’s my assignment.”

“I’d really rather you didn’t,” i tell him, and he shrugs almost apologetically, but only moves closer.

Then they frisk me. They empty my pockets of any joy I had been carrying there. Depression even confiscates my identity; but he always does that. Then Loneliness starts interrogating me, which i dread because it always goes on for hours. He’s polite but relentless, and he always trips me up eventually. He asks if I have any reason to be happy that I know of. He asks why I am all by myself tonight, yet again. He asks (though we’ve been through this line of questioning hundreds of times already) why I can’t keep a relationship going, why I ruined my marriage, why I messed things up with David, why I messed things up with every man I’ve ever been with. He ask me where I was the night I turned thirty, and why things have gone so sour since then. He asks why I can’t get my act together, and why I’m not at home living in a nice house and raising nice children like any respectable woman my age should be. He asks why, exactly, I think I deserve a vacation in Rome when I’ve made such a rubble of my life. He asks me why I think that running away to Italy like a college kid will make me happy. He asks where I think I’ll end up in my old age, if I keep living this way.

I walk back home, hoping to shake them, but they keep following me, these two goons. Depression has a firm hand on my shoulder and Loneliness harangues me with his interrogation. I don’t even bother eating dinner; I don’t want them watching me. I don’t want to let them up the stairs to my apartment, either, but I know Depression, and he’s go a billy club, so there’s no stopping him from coming in if he decides he wants to.

“It’s not fair for you to come here,” I tell Depression. “I paid you off already. I served my time back in New York.”

But he just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favorite chair, puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over himself, fully dressed, shoes and all. He’s going to make me sleep with him again tonight, I just know it.