Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert
(Penguin, 2006)

I have an inner cynic that I’ve cultivated over the years. I don’t do “chick flicks,” romantic comedies, or Renee Zellwiger. Eat, Pray, Love sort of gave me that vibe, so I wasn’t too interested. But a friend gave it to me, along with glowing reviews of it, when I was visiting for a weekend. And I’d finished the book I’d brought. And I needed something light. And so I picked it up.

And then I couldn’t put it down. The good thing about my inner cynic is that it’s humble. It admits to being wrong when it is. This was a really wonderful–and fulfilling–read. It’s a memoir in which Gilbert narrates the experience of a deep depression (divorce, failed love, the aftermath) and then her “year off” afterwards, with travel and soul-searching on the agenda.

She begins her trip in Italy, and writes a wonderful, exuberant section in which she basically eats her way through the country, while learning the joys of the Italian language on her tongue. Having spent a year in Italy myself, and still holding a good dose of nostalgia for my time there, I absolutely loved this section. It was celebratory. It was revelatory. It made me call to mind my own sense of discovery and wonder at being there when I was 21 years old. She has gelato for breakfast and lunch and dinner and gains 30 pounds, and somehow it seems an utterly wonderful thing to give this to yourself: this indulgence in pleasure; this enjoyment of life without guilt or obligation. So much of life, realistically, is about mediating that desire for pleasure. I loved reading about someone who was just giving that to herself, even if only for four months. It also seemed perhaps like a necessary part of her healing process.

The next portion of the trip takes her to an ashram in India, where she goes to the opposite extreme: She strips herself of worldy pleasures and attempts to explore her mind through serious meditation for four months. There was a lot of talk of God/divine, so how much each reader will relate will obviously vary a great deal. But this chapter, too, had much wisdom into the nature of searching. Because she kept her journey very personal, her revelations are insightful, not dogmatic. Along the way she meets many friends and characters, and readers are given a glimpse at how different personalities try to find meaning in life.

And finally, she ends up in Bali, looking for balance. Attempting to integrate pleasure with spiritual discipline, she carves out a life for herself that has friendship, exploration, and ultimately, love. She befriends a medicine man who is good at, in broken Balinese English, teaching her to look at things more simply.

It’s hard to write about the book in an entirely literary way. The writing is good, and sucks the reader into an intimacy with the author. But it is ultimately a personal book, and its resonance, for me, was on a personal rather than literary level. Of course, you have to acknowledge that it’s an immense luxury to take a year off to travel, one that not everyone can afford (she pays for it through an advance for the book itself). But I think the methods she uses to question what she’s looking for in life are really useful. I found myself–at least temporarily–feeling better while reading it, remembering to think about my life more with context in mind.