Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
One of the most iconic, beloved, and bestselling books of our time from the bestselling author of City of Girls and Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert.
Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love touched the world and changed countless lives, inspiring and empowering millions of readers to search for their own best selves. Now, this beloved and iconic book returns in a beautiful 10th anniversary edition, complete with an updated introduction from the author, to launch a whole new generation of fans. In her early thirties, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern American woman was supposed to want--husband, country home, successful career--but instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was 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 set out to explore three different aspects of her nature, 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.
Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love touched the world and changed countless lives, inspiring and empowering millions of readers to search for their own best selves. Now, this beloved and iconic book returns in a beautiful 10th anniversary edition, complete with an updated introduction from the author, to launch a whole new generation of fans. In her early thirties, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern American woman was supposed to want--husband, country home, successful career--but instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was 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 set out to explore three different aspects of her nature, 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.
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Community Reviews
Elizabeth Gilbert needs no further endorsements; this bestseller from 9 years ago has ensured her ongoing reputation. She's a lively, intelligent writer, adept with phraseology. But this memoir of a young newly divorced writer's year-long journey to Italy, India and Indonesia, to both find her "center" and recover from the trauma of an expensive and emotionally draining divorce left me wondering several things.
First, I wondered how a woman so eager to connect to God and a spiritual life could spend 4 months in both India and Bali, where so many people are desperately poor, and not write a word about its impact on her. While she raises a large sum to help a poor Balinese woman purchase a home, the single grand gesture, as generous as it is, is not the same as a cultivated habit of giving. Gilbert may well do so, but she doesn't say anything about it. The focus on her story is ultimately about HER feelings, HER anger, HER sense of loss, HER finding HERSELF, without regard to how she will fit in to any community outside of herself.
Second, she writes at excessive length about her deep unhappiness in her marriage and about her husband's anger at her for perceived selfishness. I couldn't help but wonder, though, since she traveled so often and at length for her work on previous books, whether the man had a point: maybe he wanted a wife who stuck around longer to develop the relationship? Her marriage was not the reader's business, but if she's going to go on about it, may as well also write about whether he had a point.
Finally, she experiences many unbelievably fortunate, hard to believe, breaks, such as arriving in Bali to meet up with a medicine man she had met before, but has no idea how to find him, yet manages to find him that same afternoon. She runs to her herbal healer to treat a budding leg infection and voila! Within 2 hours it is healed. As someone who benefits from herbal treatments, this is a bit much to believe.
She writes at length about her time in the ashram in India, working on the discipline to learn to meditate and eventually finding moments of transcendence. This is laudable, but to me, a truly evolved consciousness is one where you don't just sit and go deep inside yourself, it's where you learn to connect regularly with the outside world, as inconvenient as this may be, because people are often a pain in the neck!
She is always conflicted about romance, determined to avoid it for the year while she finds a new way of living/being, but in Bali she ends up in love with a Brazilian man, a happy ending that one hopes will last.
For all these faults, I still enjoyed reading the book. Few writers have had the good fortunate Gilbert has had to have, as she acknowledged, received an advance for the memoir even before setting off for her year-long journey, and instantly had so many exotic people and situations to write about.
First, I wondered how a woman so eager to connect to God and a spiritual life could spend 4 months in both India and Bali, where so many people are desperately poor, and not write a word about its impact on her. While she raises a large sum to help a poor Balinese woman purchase a home, the single grand gesture, as generous as it is, is not the same as a cultivated habit of giving. Gilbert may well do so, but she doesn't say anything about it. The focus on her story is ultimately about HER feelings, HER anger, HER sense of loss, HER finding HERSELF, without regard to how she will fit in to any community outside of herself.
Second, she writes at excessive length about her deep unhappiness in her marriage and about her husband's anger at her for perceived selfishness. I couldn't help but wonder, though, since she traveled so often and at length for her work on previous books, whether the man had a point: maybe he wanted a wife who stuck around longer to develop the relationship? Her marriage was not the reader's business, but if she's going to go on about it, may as well also write about whether he had a point.
Finally, she experiences many unbelievably fortunate, hard to believe, breaks, such as arriving in Bali to meet up with a medicine man she had met before, but has no idea how to find him, yet manages to find him that same afternoon. She runs to her herbal healer to treat a budding leg infection and voila! Within 2 hours it is healed. As someone who benefits from herbal treatments, this is a bit much to believe.
She writes at length about her time in the ashram in India, working on the discipline to learn to meditate and eventually finding moments of transcendence. This is laudable, but to me, a truly evolved consciousness is one where you don't just sit and go deep inside yourself, it's where you learn to connect regularly with the outside world, as inconvenient as this may be, because people are often a pain in the neck!
She is always conflicted about romance, determined to avoid it for the year while she finds a new way of living/being, but in Bali she ends up in love with a Brazilian man, a happy ending that one hopes will last.
For all these faults, I still enjoyed reading the book. Few writers have had the good fortunate Gilbert has had to have, as she acknowledged, received an advance for the memoir even before setting off for her year-long journey, and instantly had so many exotic people and situations to write about.
I was inspired by all of the adventures she embarked on after her marriage dissolved. I liked to imagine myself living in different countries and I must have read it before I had traveled much.
I think this is the kind of book that, if you’re looking for it or have been at the bottom of the bottom before, you can identify in. You might not go on the same adventures but the idea that someone can come from the bottom and do amazing things identifies so strongly. I appreciated much of the writing in the book and it was a great read but I also feel like if I stopped halfway through, I would have got the same value.
Very informative. Learned a lot. Nice cute story of her life with a happy ending, who doesn't love that? Don't typically like biographies, but I didn't hate this one.
Since I think I'm the last person left on Earth to finally read this book, I don't think anybody needs a description from me.
Anyway, I was turned off in the beginning with her self-serving comments about her divorce ("I wouldn't even THINK of saying anything bad about my ex-husband, but just so's ya know, he took me for everything I had, PLUS he wanted more..." ick). But I LOVED the Italy section. India, with the ashram and the yoga stuff, meh. Indonesia, nice.
Didn't Javier Bardem play the (much older) Brazilian lover/now husband of Julia -- oops, I mean Liz? Huh??? I don't get that. I know - nothing to do with the book.
Anyway, I was turned off in the beginning with her self-serving comments about her divorce ("I wouldn't even THINK of saying anything bad about my ex-husband, but just so's ya know, he took me for everything I had, PLUS he wanted more..." ick). But I LOVED the Italy section. India, with the ashram and the yoga stuff, meh. Indonesia, nice.
Didn't Javier Bardem play the (much older) Brazilian lover/now husband of Julia -- oops, I mean Liz? Huh??? I don't get that. I know - nothing to do with the book.
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