Eat Pray Love

I just finished Eat Pray Love and have never been made more jealous by a book in my life. I'll admit, I was very skepitcal about it and opened to the first page with an almost frightening amount of self-consciousness. Wasn't this a self-help book? Isn't this the pathetically short fluff literature that I see middle-aged woman reading on the train into Boston every morning? Isn't it non-fiction, and don't I generally hate non-fiction? There were a million reasons not to read it, and I cringed every time I saw it on the shelf during my bi-monthly visits to Barnes and Noble, judiciously choosing other novels by whatever up-and-coming new fiction authors in whom I saw promise. But then I saw it on my mother's desk (read: it would be free) and said, rather too casually for my own good, "Can I borrow that? I've been seeing it everywhere." As a rule, I believe in reading anything and everything one can get his or her hands on, in the same way I believe it doesn't matter what one is writing as long as he or she is writing something. It's all knowledge and practice.

My mom confessed that she "couldn't get into it" and that I was free to take it. It sat - again, self-consciously - on my bedside table for a week while I lazily finished every other book on my list and couldn't ignore it any longer. I had heard so many mixed reviews about it, and had read snippets of so many different criticisms that (much like Inception) I didn't really know what it was about, and it turned out to be very different from my preconceived notion. I have a very big problem, after reading this book, with people who are being so blindly scornful toward it and I feel the need to inflict a little punitive justice upon their ignorance.

Firstly, Eat Pray Love is not a self-help book. It's just not. No where in there is Elizabeth Gilbert telling people to do anything, preaching her own opinions on what works and what doesn't, or promoting any places, methods or products. I can't possibly imagine she had any intention of people following in her footsteps or taking her words as advice. All she did was faithfully produce a recollection of her trip to be published, just like she promised her editor she would in return for the nice royalty advance she got to fund the expedition.

The book is simply, if not exactly masterfully, divided into three logical blocks - one for each place she visited - and 108 chapters (intentional, I assume, for 108 is appartently a spiritually important number). The writing is actually rather good, in a blunt and mirabile dictu way. It drags a little and tries to hard here and there, but her wit and palpable detail usually make up for it. The importance to Liz of what she is writing about is pretty clear and that alone would make the prose compelling enough to stick with to the end. Liz didn't need the decent writing to make the book compelling, though - she managed to hit on the hidden (or, well, usually not so hidden) desires of most of the American middle-class. Who doesn't want to completely pick up and leave their shambles of a life to spend four months eating good food in Italy, a few more months making spiritual peace with themselves in an actual Indian Ashram, and finally finding the love of their life in Bali while giving aid to various newly-made foreign friends? It fulfills so many personal and humanitarian dreams: learn new languages, explore new cultures, find a personal relationship with God, repair a broken heart, use connections and wealth to do something good for the people you meet.

Is it self-absorbed? Well, yeah, a little. But really - what book isn't? Generally speaking, in things like fiction and biography, the plot is incredibly absorbed by a single person or event that you have to deal with reading about for ~300 pages. Haven't you ever thought - even briefly, even jokingly - about writing an autobiography or memoir? (Don't lie; you have.) Guess what it would've been! Self-absorbed! Don't be jealous just because Liz Gilbert's self-absorbed memoir got published before yours. Her book is a good one. It's not scholarly, academic material, but it's honest and interesting and if you've lived anywhere other than under a rock for even a small portion of your life, you can probably relate to it.

Is it the story of a Yuppie woman exposing her ignorance of other cultures, poor choices and superficiality? Not particularly. I've heard a lot of negative talk about this novel that cites Gilbert's upper-class materialism and ignorance, but I just don't see it. Is she a well-off, young, urban professional who probably gets a latte at Starbucks every morning while in the States? Yes, definitely. But so am I. So are most of the people I know. "Yuppie" can have a negative connotation, this is true, but really, that's what Liz is and that's what I am. Might you not want to read her book because (A) you can't relate to her life or (B) will become far too jealous of it? Of course. I don't read a lot of no-doubt interesting material because it's impossible for me to care. Like... The Bible?

Everyone, of every social class, has problems. It's because we're human, and we share common human emotions like love, sadness, joy, etc. Her human emotions aren't less valid because she's rich and successful. She had problems in her life (divorce, uncertainty, obsessiveness) and chose to deal with them in a way she knew would help her: traveling, finding spiritual comfort, grounding herself emotionally. At no point while living in Italy, India or Bali did her American ignorance mar or ruin anything. At no point was she mean, malicious, or foolish. She got up every morning for months and recited verse after verse of Sanskrit chants as part of her life in the Ashram. You go do that, before throwing stones. I know for certain I couldn't. So, you're sickened by her high-class, Yuppie approach to life where she travels and moans about past relationships? Do you have the courage or devotion to try what she did? To change completely? To start over? I don't think I do.

Does Eat Pray Love have problems, as a written work and as a life story? Of course. Show me a book - especially someone's autobiography - where there weren't moments of self-absorption, poor choices, rampant emotions, doubt, insecurity, and other elements of normal life. I read Mussolini's autobiography a couple of years ago; it had its failings. Does that mean that Elizabeth Gilbert's attempt to explain her actions and provide an interesting, empathic and insightful adventure for her readers should be scorned? I hope not, unless you are also scorning practically every other book in existence along with it.