3 Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
My book club read.
For me a bit of a penance getting through what I considered to be a rather self absorbed memoir of a woman who felt the need, after a marriage breakdown and subsequent unhappy love affair to go off on a year long journey to Italy, India and Indonesia in that order "to find answers". It had all the hallmarks of being written by an American from a comfortable, middle class demographic. She was lucky enough to get an advance from her publishers for her year of self indulgence. There were however parts of the book I liked, enhanced by watching the movie on Netflix, Julia Roberts portrayal of Elizabeth Gilbert makes her almost likeable. I did agree with the author in that the most beautiful language in the world is Italian, literally music to the ears. Her time in Rome was immersed in learning Italian and putting on weight eating much of the fantastic food Italy has to offer. Before she moved on to an Ashram in India, for the Pray part of the book where she has some almost out of body experiences, particularly in absolving herself in letting go of her marriage. For the final part of the book she is in Indonesia, specifically the island of Bali, where she is to find love again with an improbably handsome, fairly wealthy Brazilian as you do whilst navigating the well trodden path of the not so off the beaten track beloved by the western tourist.
Just wondering whether the book would have been so well received it if was written from the male perspective, bored with the marriage, decides doesn't want children, leaves, finds a lover, can't hack that relationship off to far flung places to find the meaning of life. It's Ridden with stereotypes Italians are all food loving and gregarious, Indians, incredibly spiritual meanwhile Bali still remains the unspoilt version, not the one ruined by some of our Australian counterparts who have "Magaluffed" it and made it just as unpleasant as corresponding ruined parts of southern Europe. Her Bali experience was communing with incredibly worldly wise Indonesians, and in particular her own guru by way of a toothless Medicine Man who imparted his home grown philosophies all of which she soaked up. So much so, those give her the impetus to marry her handsome Brazilian, that union has lasted around 8 years or so from what I Googled, before it foundered, amicably of course! What I took from this book, a person who likes running away and is very immersed in her own path wherever it leads next. I think it's a bit hackneyed and cliched now given it was probably written some 15 years ago and the world has less time for people who live in a privileged bubble and want to relate their experiences via a book. I think she may have found some balder answers to life in possibly going to live in a depressed city in the rust belt part of the US say Detroit and measured some of those inhabitants' lives against her own. A whole different outcome and far less naval gazing possibly?
Not my cup of tea at all. However, it was an interesting topic for a discussion.
Will post on both of those in a few days.