Elizabeth Gilbert provides endless entertainment and insight as she chronicles her real life tale to find balance while traveling through Italy, India & Indonesia.
Eat, Pray, Love - Published by Viking, February 2006
At thirty, married and a successful writer, Elizabeth Gilbert finds herself increasingly miserable and living a life she doesn’t want. “Eat, Pray, Love” is Gilbert’s journey as she rediscovers her identity and lives her life according to her own expectations.
As she battles with the emotional fall-out of a nasty divorce, she embarks on a year of travel, cut neatly into thirds. She heads to Italy to learn the art of pleasure, India to study the art of devotion, and Indonesia to learn the art of balancing the two. Financed by an advance from her publisher, she plans to use to chronicle her adventures in a memoir.
Equally light-hearted and deeply honest, Gilbert eloquently shares her own accounts of despair and loneliness as she searches for meaning and purpose in her life. Her travels take her on a gastronomical tour of Italy, where in addition to gaining 23 lbs she takes joy in eating Gelato at 10am in the morning and revels in the art of doing nothing.
In India, she struggles with meditation and finds the courage to finally expel some of the demons haunting her. It is in Bali, under the tutelage of an Indonesian medicine man that she begins her final step in healing: exploring her growing attraction for Felipe, an older Brazilian businessman.
While it is easy to follow her reasoning for picking Italy and India, it is never really clearly explained as to why Indonesia is the ideal place to study balance. The last third of the novel doesn’t quite have the definitive purpose and focus of the first two thirds and Gilbert does not elaborate on her decision to choose Indonesia other than it also starts with an “I”.
Gilbert writes with a lyrical and engaging style the pulls the reader in and plants them firmly in her corner. Sharing in her success and failures, one can’t help but admire her tenacity in pursuing happiness according to her own rules. Eat, Pray, Love is a worthwhile and enjoyable read that serves as a poignant example on the importance of following your heart.
Extras
This is Gilbert's fourth novel. Her other works include the novels "Stern Men, and a short story collection titled "Pilgrims." She has also written a biography of Eustace Conway called "The Last American Man."
Readers interested in learning more about these works or about the author herself will find her official website a fun and interesting read. In particular, she offers some encouraging advice for struggling writers as well as answers readers' frequently asked questions about Eat, Pray, Love.
